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Thunderbird spontaneously changes email dates to 31/12/1969

  • 1 tontu
  • 1 am na jafe-jafe bii
  • 13 views
  • i mujjee tontu mooy Toad-Hall

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Running XP Pro SP3 on old (P4) box using Thunderbird 38.7.2

Selected "edit" - "find" - 'search messages" with successful results.

In "search messages" results, highlighted desired message (located in "inbox"), selected "move to" and selected desired folder.

Message appeared in desired folder as null line dated "31/12/1969 7:00 PM" Other messages in the folder remained unchanged and usable.

Null message can now be moved to different folders but date remains "31/12/1969 7:00 PM"

Further inspection using "edit" - "find" - 'search messages" stipulating date = "31/12/1969" reveals many messages have been re-dated with same results (blank line and message text and/or message source not available).

Subsequently updated Thunderbird to 45.3.0 - no changes!

Running XP Pro SP3 on old (P4) box using Thunderbird 38.7.2 Selected "edit" - "find" - 'search messages" with successful results. In "search messages" results, highlighted desired message (located in "inbox"), selected "move to" and selected desired folder. Message appeared in desired folder as null line dated "31/12/1969 7:00 PM" Other messages in the folder remained unchanged and usable. Null message can now be moved to different folders but date remains "31/12/1969 7:00 PM" Further inspection using "edit" - "find" - 'search messages" stipulating date = "31/12/1969" reveals many messages have been re-dated with same results (blank line and message text and/or message source not available). Subsequently updated Thunderbird to 45.3.0 - no changes!

All Replies (1)

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Sounds like you are experiencing some corruption. This can occur due to a lack of maintenance such as compacting on a regular basis or if another program like anti-virus messed up file etc.

Suggest you do Not compact folders just yet.

Select an email which shows wrong date. click on 'More' button and select 'View Source'

At the top, it may say 'From followed by a date Further down in the headers there should be a 'Date' with date. You may also see a line 'X-Apparently-To: with email address followed by date. Or look for the last 'Received: from' which may also contain a date. What do you see?