Empty Trash/Compact driving me crazy - "The messages could not be moved or copied to folder xxxxx because writing to folder failed. To gain disk space, from the file menu, first choose Empty Trash, and then choose Compact Folders, and then try again."
I'm in the process of cleaning up Thunderbird e-mail before moving to a new computer. I started with 11,593 e-mails in my Inbox and 7,799 e-mails in my Sent folder. I'm now down to 7,634 in my Inbox and 4,965 in my Sent folder. I've allocated 2 weeks for this process and found that it's taking me about 3 hours per day to meet my daily goals. I'm finding that I'm spending at LEAST half the time responding to "Empty-Trash/Compact-folders" requests. There are times I can delete 50 e-mails at a time without getting a request. Other times I will try to delete ten e-mails and get the request. With the old version of Thunderbird I could literally delete hundreds of e-mails at a time. Can you help? Russ Bukwa Yardley, PA ps. I have intentionally given you specific numbers. Based on my software- and test-engineering experience, I speculate you need to create a stress test to solve this nagging problem.
Okulungisiwe ngu Wayne Mery
All Replies (4)
I currently use McAfee, but I'm changing over to Norton when I migrate to a new computer. My McAfee subscription on this computer expires on 6/24, hence the urgency to get through all my old e-mails by 6/22. Also, I changed my mind overnight. I'm going back into Thunderbird this morning in "normal" (not Safe) mode to: a) see if the problem comes back, and b) make sure I can still communicate with my internet service provider's (ISP's = Comcast's) e-mail servers and confirm that I can still send and receive e-mails after being in Safe mode. I'll let you know what happens.
I went back into Thunderbird after a "normal" re-start. Sending and receiving messages works fine, but the problem (having to empty trash and compact folders) came back immediately (on my first delete attempt). I am likely to reboot again in "Safe" mode as I continue to go through and delete e-mails. Once again, I will keep you informed.
Changed my mind. Continued to go through (and delete) e-mails while in "normal" mode so I could communicate with the outside world while I did it. So --- Safe mode may keep the error messages from coming up, but it's not really a solution to the problem. Who wants to work in Safe mode and be isolated from the rest of the world while you do it? Can't even receive or send e-mails while in Safe mode. I have a local area network with 3 computers and the other 2 couldn't talk to this one while I was in Safe mode. Also, I tried to open Microsoft Excel in Safe mode and that wouldn't work either. I think it's because Excel now has Help out on the internet instead of storing it on a user's hard disk.
Thanks for your help in testing safe mode and the continued updates.
Working in safe mode of course means some software which is running after windows startup is interfering with Thunderbird. Most likely your antivirus software. Setting an exclusion in the AV settings on the Thunderbird profile directory is the normal adjustment.
backup software is also known to cause issues.
You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.