Disappearing folders and Not Responding notice appearing
Hello Community Members:
I seem to be having issues with Thunderbird. I’ve been using Thunderbird for years with no problems. A few weeks ago, I started getting a Not Responding notice when checking mail. I have a number of accounts to check. The Not Responding notice would disappear after a few seconds and the mail checking continued. Along with this issue, several of my folders would disappear only to reappear after Thunderbird was closed and then restarted. Today, all of the folders in one of my accounts disappeared and never reappeared. That account had 15-20 folders. I may have lost important correspondence. Does anyone know what’s going on and how to fix it?
Thanks for any assistance.
Jason
All Replies (2)
What type of mail account is this (POP, IMAP)? Which is your email provider?
If you're using a VPN, disable it and see whether that makes the problem go away. If it does, check whether your VPN has an option called split tunneling which would allow you to let Thunderbird bypass the VPN.
Start Thunderbird in Troubleshoot Mode. The following article explains how to do that and why it can be useful to help identify the cause of a problem:
https://support.mozilla.org/kb/troubleshoot-mode-thunderbird
What's your operating system? If Windows, start in Safe Mode with Networking mode. You may have to connect your computer to the router with an Ethernet cable, WiFi is disabled in Safe Mode:
https://support.microsoft.com/help/12376/windows-10-start-your-pc-in-safe-mode
Does any of that make the problem go away?
The most common reason for a 'Not Responding' message means your Anti-Virus has control over the file you opened or emails getting downloaded and being scanned, so temporarilly Thunderbird is in limbo.
Why have folders disappeared: Anti-Virus may have found something it did not like and quarantined the file - however Anti-Virus has no idea that a single mbox text file stores more than one email. So when it quarrantines the file - you end up losing the file and it's contents.
Advise: if you allow to scan then expect the 'Not responding' on occasions, but do not let Anti-Virus try to fix anything in your Thunderbird profile - always say 'ask what to do' so you can tell it to do nothing. However, as Anti-Virus cause more problems than it's worth, I would advise you make your Thunderbird profile folder exempt from scanning.
Please note - Thunderbird by default does not allow Remote content and opening an email does not cause a problem.
Problems occur when people get curious and start clicking on links before they know the real link destination or worse.... start opening attachments just see what it's all about. If you did not buy something then the 'Invoice' is likely to be a scam. Don't let curiosity get the better of you. Only open attachments when you know the email is from genuine sender and not someone who trying to impersonate someone else.
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