Why does Thunderbird 38.1 suddenly treat mail list addresses as individual addresses & reject them because they are not in form user@url?
When trying to send a message to a group set up in my address book, I get an error message [Group name <modified group description>] is not a valid e-mail address because it is not of the form user@host. You must correct it before sending the e-mail. Thunderbird has apparently taken the description section and tried to treat it as an email address. In so doing, it modifies the description from and original [names, name2, name 3] format (excluding square brackets) to [<name>, name2, "name 3">].
The mail list has worked with no problems until today.
Chosen solution
Thanks Zenos for the suggestion. Though it did not provide a direct solution, it pointed me to one. Being loathe to try to reenter an address book with over 1,000 entries, I saved the existing book, and replaced it with a copy from a computer backup when I knew the email function was working as desired. I got the same problem. I tried exporting the book, to save what I could at least, and ran into problems I've since discovered came from trying to export "All Address books" I then opened a copy of the AB.MAB file in Quattro Pro, where I noted that QP divided the description section of the problem mail list into separate cells,, based on commas in that description. I returned to Address Book, removed the commas from the description, and my group e-mail went out as smoothly as could be desired. I'd note that the commas have been in that description likely for 15 years or more, and only now caused a problem. I assume that is due to some change in the latest Thunderbird update. It would be nice if we got warnings about that kind of change. Answer to my problem: Remove commas from the description in the list properties.
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This usually indicates a broken or corrupt address book or Mailing List.
Can you re-build your Mailing List (i.e. make a new version of it) and see if the new instance works?
Chosen Solution
Thanks Zenos for the suggestion. Though it did not provide a direct solution, it pointed me to one. Being loathe to try to reenter an address book with over 1,000 entries, I saved the existing book, and replaced it with a copy from a computer backup when I knew the email function was working as desired. I got the same problem. I tried exporting the book, to save what I could at least, and ran into problems I've since discovered came from trying to export "All Address books" I then opened a copy of the AB.MAB file in Quattro Pro, where I noted that QP divided the description section of the problem mail list into separate cells,, based on commas in that description. I returned to Address Book, removed the commas from the description, and my group e-mail went out as smoothly as could be desired. I'd note that the commas have been in that description likely for 15 years or more, and only now caused a problem. I assume that is due to some change in the latest Thunderbird update. It would be nice if we got warnings about that kind of change. Answer to my problem: Remove commas from the description in the list properties.
Modified by doncodling