No Message found - for inbox with 220460 unread messages

One common explanation is that the quick filter is set. See my image. If your screen looks like mine, uncheck the quick filter.

hi Rick,

thank you but the quick filter is not on. I toggled it on then off and that didn't work.

What do you mean by "I have tried to repair the folder"? What did you do? What happened when you did it?

Containing more than two hundred thousand messages the corresponding Inbox file in the Thunderbird profile might be corrupted.

R-click on the problematic Inbox > Properties > General: which is the "number of messages" and which is the "size on disk"

hi Rick, I right clicked on the inbox folder, on the General Information tab, I clicked Repair Folder. It did nothing.

thanks Paul

hi Rick,

screenshot here

Paul

hi Mapenzi,

It shows 0 messages and 0 size on disc. If you look on the folder list on the left it shows 217991 messages.

Thanks

Paul

@Paul, I think that Thunderbird can't read your INBOX file which probably is corrupted. Are these 200.000 messages still stored on the the IMAP server of your webmail? If yes I recommend the following steps: • >> Account settings > problematic account name > Synchronisation & Disk Space > Message Synchronising: here disable (uncheck) ⬜ Keep all messages in all folders..... (image) • >> Settings > General > Network & Disk Space > Indexing > disable (uncheck) "Enable Global Search and Indexer" (this will be a temporary action because if you try again to download 200.000 messages the global search indexing will take several hours and slow down Thunderbird) • >> Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Folder > Open Folder, then quit Thunderbird. In the profile folder open the ImapMail folder and identify the "imap.xxx.xx" folder corresponding to the problematic account. When you are sure to have identified it move it to your desktop • restart Thunderbird....

hi Mapenzi, I did this and when I restarted Thunderbird it gradually started to download various folders as I looked at them. However, it didn't do this for the inbox which stayed at No Message found. The number of unread messages has increased slightly as I have recieved more messages I assume.

Anything else I can try?

thanks Paul

Mapenzi may have other or better ideas, but here's what I would do with my knowledge in your situation: Get the add-on ImportExportToolsNG. Use it to import the inbox folder that you put on your desktop into a local folder in Thunderbird.

It may or may not work. It may work partially. It might tell us more about what is wrong with that folder.

hi Rick, Happy to give it a try. I have created a local folder which of the import options should I use?

thanks Paul

I have created a local folder which of the import options should I use?

You won't use that folder. A new folder will be created on import. Right click on "Local folders", then click on "ImportExportToolsNG", then "Import mbox files", then "Individual mbox files", then select that folder that is on your desktop.

I'm eager to hear the results.

Hi Rick,

It may or may not work. It may work partially.

Good idea! It may work since IET NG will create a completely new mbox file. On the other side what I don't understand: after removing the imap account folder from the profile folder, Thunderbird on restart should also have created a completely new INBOX file...

hi, I have tried that. I assume I select the inbox msf file in the folder. When I did that nothing happens - note the inbox msf file is only 3kb.

I tried the inbox sbd folder but that is empty.

I have attached an image of the inbox msf file.

Note I have installed Spark which seems to be able to read the inbox but is only downloading a few hundred emails but I really want to get this working in Thunderbird.

thanks

Paul

You opened the wrong file! The INBOX.msf file is only an index file and doesn't contain messages. Rick asked you to install the add-on ImpoertExportTools NG, create a new folder in your Local Folders and the try to import the INBOX (without extension) file. Which is the size of this INBOX file?

After starting Thunderbird did you already look up Tools > Activity Manager and Tools > Developer Tools > Error Console? Are there any clues to what is happening?

Hi Paul.

I'm sorry that my instructions were not clear. I suggested importing the inbox file that you had moved to your desktop, but I had not read Mapenzi's instructions for moving files to your desktop closely enough. He said to move a folder to your desktop, not just one file. So you could not have known which file to import.

Later in this thread, there was reason to suspect that you had not moved that folder or that you had copied that folder instead of moving it. Did you move the imap.xxx.xx folder corresponding to the problematic account to your desktop? If you did not, you should close Thunderbird, move that folder to your desktop, and open Thunderbird again. If Thunderbird does not start downloading all the messages in your inbox on the server, or if you have already done those things, let's do the next step:

Find the file named "Inbox" with no filename extension (not msf or sbd) in that imap.xxx.xx folder on your desktop and follow my earlier instructions to use ImportExportToolsNG to import it into Local folders.

Hi Rick, IMHO, before trying to import that odd INBOX file Paul first should retrieve its actual size. If this mbox file really contained 200.000 messages its size would be approximatively 20 GB. The 3 kB size of the corresponding INBOX.msf already indicates that the actual INBOX file is very small. It would be interesting to know if this INBOX exists on the server, and if this is the case, how big it is and how many messages does it contain. Has this IMAP account ever been set up in another email client than Thunderbird? Last not least consulting the error console might give important clues...

Hi Rick, IMHO, before trying to import that odd INBOX file Paul first should retrieve its actual size. If this mbox file really contained 200.000 messages its size would be approximatively 20 GB. The 3 kB size of the corresponding INBOX.msf already indicates that the actual INBOX file is very small. It would be interesting to know if this INBOX exists on the server, and if this is the case, how big it is and how many messages does it contain. Has this IMAP account ever been set up in another email client than Thunderbird? Last not least consulting the error console might give important clues...

Sounds OK to me.

Paul's first message said that this was a new account with a very large inbox. Paul, how did you know that this inbox was very large? Did you see 200,000 messages in webmail or in another e-mail client?

Mapenzi, could Thunderbird have downloaded headers only, shown the quantity of messages, but not downloaded the message bodies?

hi both, thank you and understood. Actually in that folder there is no Inbox (no file ext) file. There is for the other folders which hold mails for that account including sent , draft etc. See attached.

I have run the Activity manager - see attached which indicates that Thunderbird is failing trying to fetch the inbox.

I also ran the console log but nothing remarkable there.

I can access the inbox via BT web browser which is not great, it says there are 242546 emails of which 217665 unread and that the whole mailbox is using 27Gb.

I have accessed the mailbox using Spark as a client which seems to work fine but I don't think it is downloading the whole inbox.

Is there another client you would suggest that I can try and use to see if this is a Thunderbird problem or a problem with my mailbox on the server?

Thank you both for the help.

Paul