UKC

I've just got home and turned my laptop on (I used it this morning and sent and received email as usual).

When I click on thunderbird, it opens with the setup screen asking me for a new account details, it seems to have lost my local and mailbox folders.

I could really do without this, I know that the files are held separately from the application files but I don't know how to "find" them.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Kev

In reply to arctickev:

I'd start with looking at Tools, Account settings.

To find where your emails are, try a search looking for text inside a file such as [email protected]

and see what folders are found with that in

I'm assuming you are using windows, but it would help if you let us know, just in case you're on a Mac...

In reply to arctickev:

Try: http://tinyurl.com/94zk8 - sounds very much like it has lost the profile that it should connect to - something that happens in Firefox every once in a while.

bluebrad

In reply to arctickev:
Dominion,

I'm using xp sp2 and have posted on the mozilla forums

Currently trying to decipher and use the info on the link below but no luck yet!

Bluebrad, thanks thats the link I'm looking at.

Kev

In reply to arctickev:

This has info about Thunderbird profiles...

http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/profile

creating a new shortcut for thunderbird with

thunderbird.exe -ProfileManager

in it might sort you out...

In reply to arctickev:

How the ***k did you manage to go wrong with a fantastic programme like Thunderbird? Oh never mind. Hre is the address of the profiles on my XP SP2 machine.

Cocuments and Settings**the*user**Application DataThunderbirdProfiles*******.defaultMail

In that directory is a folder for each account and in each account folder are 3 files for each box of that account (Inbox/Sent/Draft etc).

Good luck.

Jim,

I just turned it on.....

Never had a problem before it was working fine in the morning but went belly up a few hours later...

Kev

Jim/Dominion,

I've changed the profile link and it its not made any diference. It's still asking for new account details. When I open the profile folder I can see all the mailboxes I used to have but I don't know how to reconfigure the system....

Thanks for your help

Kev

In reply to arctickev:

Go to TOOLS - OPTIONS - ADVANCED - CONFIG EDITOR

Go down the list until you find "mail.root.pop3"

This appears to be the config value that tells Thunderbird where to find the mailboxes. I cannot find another value that defines the name of only the '.default' folder so this seems to be defined here too.

The 'value' should be an address on your C drive.

Double click on the value and it will return a dialogue box in which you can view the entire address. It should be an address like the one I posted earlier, probably ending in '.defaultMail' (no backstroke at the end).

Check that there is a substantial set of configuration items for each of your mailboxes. They will have id1/id2/.. etc in the 'Preference Name' and you will recognise some of the values as being related to you email addresses. If Thunderbird is correctly pointed to the mail folder and has configuration for each mailbox one would think it would work. I am not certain though. You might still have to create accounts. If you do, then you can point Thunderbird at the existing mail folders in ACCOUNT SETTINGS - SERVER SETTINGS - LOCAL DIRECTORY.

In reply to arctickev:

I had the same problem with TB the time before last when it upgraded itself. Lost contact with all five of my email accounts!

I just set up the accounts again. When you do this, TB will recreate the various folders for each account - so you'll get the same folders with a '1' after them - or something like that. I then just copied the data from the old folders to the new, et voila.. all was well. Worth taking a copy of your old data before you do this, just in case of an over-write :O)

Good luck - first time TB has done this to me, but like FF, it does seem to be prone to the odd random reset from time to time.