Fixing Thunderbird via Kosova

Things you need to know:

• This computer is really ancient and has been through several disaster zones. As a result it hates me.
• I’ve had a really terrible couple of weeks, so it makes sense that it would choose now to strike at me.
• I know people, see? People who know things. People who know things about computers.

I try to avoid going online at the weekends, but on Saturday I tried to open my email. I use Thunderbird, which is usually very reliable, but to my surprise ALL MY MESSAGES HAD DIED AND GONE TO EMAIL HEAVEN. I mean all of them – every last message. Gone. Needless to say, emotions raced across my face: shock, anger, disgust, hunger (I missed breakfast) and finally resignation.

This morning I came back to my computer and found that my email had not magically re-appeared.¹ It was time to take action, which consisted of whining to my friends until somebody offered to help. Sure enough, Tom L. introduced me to Guru Stefano, who fixed things in about 40 minutes over Skype. In the interests of servicing the web, I explain everything here. Skip to the end if you find this sort of thing really dull – I’ve included a nice epigram to finish off the post.

Usually when this happens, you should look in the Application Data folder on your C: drive > Documents and Settings > YourUserName. This folder is normally hidden, so once you reach the YourUserName folder, select Tools > Options > View > Show Hidden Files and Folders from the menu bar. Inside the Application Data folder, you’ll find a Thunderbird folder – which is where all your emails are stored.

Except in this case when I looked in the Thunderbird folder I found not one but two “Local Folders” – the first called “Local Folders” and the second called “Local Folders-1″. The latter was the one that Thunderbird was trying to access, but it was as empty as my cupboard (the latter being the reason why I hadn’t had breakfast). I hadn’t installed, re-installed, deleted or updated Thunderbird, any other software or any profiles in the recent past, so why this had happened, I have no idea.

What had happened was that Thunderbird had “forgotten” about “Local Folders”, and had created an alternative “Local Folders-1″. This may have happened when the power was cut to the computer the previous day, but it appears that my hard drive has a surface error which may have contributed. I closed Tbird, and backed up “Local Folders” onto a separate hard drive (using the mighty mighty Robocopy) – this was when we realised that I had a surface error, as one of the files could not be copied. I then renamed “Local Folders-1″ to “Local Folders-1.OLD.TBD” and renamed “Local Folders” to “Local Folders-1″. I then restarted Tbird, which was fooled by the renaming and took the path to “Local Folders-1″.

All my folders have now been restored – and I can breathe a sigh of relief! However there is clearly a problem with my hard drive so I will be doing the following:

• Manually copying all messages into new folders.
• Making sure everything is backed up on a separate hard drive.
• Running Mozbackup more frequently.
• Getting a new laptop…

Wow. That was a really boring blog post, wasn’t it? Of course it’ll probably end up being the most-visited post on this blog, since trouble-shooting blog posts always seem to do well. My misery is the source of your pleasure; my ignorance the source of your knowledge. The story is told ((You might be wondering why the title of the post is “via Kosova” – it’s because Tom, Stefano and myself all worked there around the same time), the epigram is delivered and now I must rest.

1. This is my usual approach to problems – go away for a few days and see if it all works out. You’d be surprised how frequently this is effective. [↩]