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All of a sudden I have to "repair" the inbox and trash folders before I can see message in either. What happened? How do I fix this.

  • 5 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by sfhowes

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A day or so ago I went to check my emails and there was nothing in the inbox, sent or trash folders. I rebooted and everything showed up. This morning, it said I had 17 unread emails in the inbox. It wasn't showing them. It said I had 3 unread in the trash folder. There was nothing in the trash folder. I went into preferences and did the "repair" folder option on both folders and that seemed to work for both. But it's intermittent now. So far this morning I've had to "repair" the inbox folder twice. What's going on and how do I resolve this?

A day or so ago I went to check my emails and there was nothing in the inbox, sent or trash folders. I rebooted and everything showed up. This morning, it said I had 17 unread emails in the inbox. It wasn't showing them. It said I had 3 unread in the trash folder. There was nothing in the trash folder. I went into preferences and did the "repair" folder option on both folders and that seemed to work for both. But it's intermittent now. So far this morning I've had to "repair" the inbox folder twice. What's going on and how do I resolve this?

All Replies (5)

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Do you have a security/AV app acting on the TB profile folder, and if so, does it make any difference if you add the folder as an exception or exclusion? Help/Troubleshooting Information, click Open Folder to show the profile location.

If you run TB in safe mode (hold Shift when you launch TB), do you still have to do frequent repairs?

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I'm not sure what you mean by security/AV app. Are you talking about virus protection? Running TB in safe mode has no affect. There are 1300 emails in the inbox folder. Before repair there are only a few dozen. If I repair, new mail and the remaining 1300 show up.

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Yes, a security or antivirus program such as Norton, Kaspersky etc. Try running TB in safe mode when Windows is running in safe mode, and then see if you still need to repair folders. Windows safe mode tests if a startup app, such as antivirus, is causing the problem.

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Restarted both the PC (Win10 Pro) and Thunderbird in safe mode. Made no difference.

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If this is an IMAP account, I would rebuild the Inbox according to these instructions:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders#Real_fix

The Inbox will re-download upon TB restart, but after that there shouldn't be any need for frequent repairs, fingers crossed.