Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Folder Containing Messages Displays as Empty

  • 5 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by MikeA01730

MikeA01730
MikeA01730
more options

Hi,

I have a folder that receives messages from manually dragging messages into it or from filter rules. Previously the folder showed lots of messages but now it displays as empty. However when I display the properties of the folder (screen shot attached) I see 4445 messages and 254 MB on disk. When I look at the folder file the size is 266,023,603. If I click Repair Folder nothing happens. I checked the filters in msgFilterRules and the only actions for that folder are "Move to folder" and "Mark read".

How can I get the messages in the folder to display correctly?

Thanks, Mike

Hi, I have a folder that receives messages from manually dragging messages into it or from filter rules. Previously the folder showed lots of messages but now it displays as empty. However when I display the properties of the folder (screen shot attached) I see 4445 messages and 254 MB on disk. When I look at the folder file the size is 266,023,603. If I click Repair Folder nothing happens. I checked the filters in msgFilterRules and the only actions for that folder are "Move to folder" and "Mark read". How can I get the messages in the folder to display correctly? Thanks, Mike
Attached screenshots

Chosen solution

I fixed it. I made a new folder, searched for all messages in the bad folder with length > 0, moved those messages to the new folder, adjusted the filter to go to the new folder, deleted the bad folder, and renamed the new folder to the bad folder name.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (5)

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
more options

What happens if you try to copy a message from the troubled folder to a different folder? Does the message show up with it's contents in the different folder?

MikeA01730
MikeA01730 Question owner
more options

The folder is displayed as empty so there's nothing there to copy. If I drag a message into it it disappears too.

When I look at folder properties it shows 4453 messages, up from 4445 before. I assume the increase is from filter rules.

MikeA01730
MikeA01730 Question owner
more options

Also if I right click on the folder, select Search Messages, and search for something I know is there it works: I see a list of matching messages. If I double click on a message it's displayed correctly.

MikeA01730
MikeA01730 Question owner
more options

Chosen Solution

I fixed it. I made a new folder, searched for all messages in the bad folder with length > 0, moved those messages to the new folder, adjusted the filter to go to the new folder, deleted the bad folder, and renamed the new folder to the bad folder name.

MikeA01730
MikeA01730 Question owner
more options

The fix in the previous post did work. However the problem just recurred with a different folder.

Exact same symptoms. A folder that had 5083 messages displayed only 6 messages from 7/14 on. The exact repair method I described on 7/8 worked. I may have made some filter changes around that time to filters that moved messages to this folder to now move and mark them as read but I'm not sure. Otherwise I have no idea what's triggering this.

I'm glad I know how to repair this but have no idea how to make it stop happening. Any ideas?