Thunderbird no longer syncs new mail
I installed Thunderbird on a new Motorola Razr running Android 15. It worked just fine for a few days, but now will not download any new emails (GMail on the same phone is working fine). I have two accounts installed. One (much smaller) seems to be working fine, while the other is only partially working. Namely, I can only see emails from Monday or earlier (today is Thursday).
If I use my desktop to delete one of the older messages that is displayed on the phone, it will be removed from the phone the next time I swipe down and have it refresh the inbox. If I use the desktop to update the read/unread status of an email that does appear one the phone, that is not updated when I refresh the phone.
It is a recently added account, is it possible that the device is just downloading older messages and is backed up? I don't know where or how I could access the activity monitor (or whatever the proper name is) to see what the program is or is not doing.
All Replies (2)
Hi Tom
Are your missing emails located in a custom folder rather than a default one such as Inbox? Sync is off by default on custom folders and may need enabling on each. This could be why some read/unread status changes are not updating in the app.
- Open the side menu to display your account folders
- Tap manage folders (bottom of list)
- Tap desired folder name
- Toggle 'Enable Sync' On
Are the missing emails particuarly large in size. You could try increasing the size limit of messages the app will fetch. Navigate to settings > account > fetching mail > fetch messages up to: 32 Kib (default)
You can turn on 'Sync Notifications' to see a silent notification in the Android status bar and drawer while sync is actively running. This will give you greater visibility of when it starts and completes.
Goto Settings > account name > notifications: Sync Notifications
Thanks for the reply. This is the inbox that isn't syncing. I did increase the size of the messages it would fetch, as well as the number of messages it would retain locally. However, it isn't just a handful of larger messages that are missing, it's anything newer than a certain time.
I also don't have the system set up to refresh in the background. I prefer to have it log in and fetch when I open the app (I'd rather wait a few moments when I open the app than have it burning power in the background all day).
While typing this, I extended the system delay before the screen auto-locks to 5-minutes and it did fetch newer e-mails. Looking at the screen, I can now see that the thermometer bar between the message list and the folder name at the top is still present and slowly progressing.
I'm going to consider this resolved, as my working theory is that I enabled a large number of messages to be retrieved and stored locally, including fairly large ones, and it simply hasn't finished fetching them. By turning off the background sync, I have made it such that it gets interrupted every time the screen locks. With any luck, once the initial retrieval has finished normal day-to-day sync operations will work as expected.
A better progress meter would be nice to see whether it's working (along the lines of the Activity Manager on Desktop), but then again, I'm clearly a corner case here. I'll also check the notification you mention, which may be what I'm looking for.
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