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folders/labels disappeared

  • 17 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 10 views
  • Last reply by baldur

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i just upgraded to fc37 with gmail. i put thunderbird on...everything was good. all my labels (inbox and all sub-folders of that) appeared and it was business as usual. a few days later while i was sitting there and all of a sudden they just disappeared before my eyes. then a new sub-folder appeared called online and a new subfolder under that called amazon and all of my other stuff was gone from the inbox. i went into the amazon folder and found the files in there from my inbox so i put those back. however, none of my other labels would show up.

i went to my win install because i needed to manage my inbox and when i opened tbird, it synced and everything disappeared. i assumed it was a local corruption on my fc drive however it spread. i can see all folders (labels) in gmail however they are not in tbird.

i searched both this site and the web in general. i tried the help -> troubleshoot -> fix folder option and that did nothing. i tried to create a folder locally and that did create however none came back. i created a folder on gmail and that synced but nothing else reappeared. finally i uninstalled tbird and reinstalled and none have come back. i have no idea where to go now...i need help as it has corrupted every version of tbird (notebood and pc, win and linux) i have and have no way to stop it or fix it.

i just upgraded to fc37 with gmail. i put thunderbird on...everything was good. all my labels (inbox and all sub-folders of that) appeared and it was business as usual. a few days later while i was sitting there and all of a sudden they just disappeared before my eyes. then a new sub-folder appeared called online and a new subfolder under that called amazon and all of my other stuff was gone from the inbox. i went into the amazon folder and found the files in there from my inbox so i put those back. however, none of my other labels would show up. i went to my win install because i needed to manage my inbox and when i opened tbird, it synced and everything disappeared. i assumed it was a local corruption on my fc drive however it spread. i can see all folders (labels) in gmail however they are not in tbird. i searched both this site and the web in general. i tried the help -> troubleshoot -> fix folder option and that did nothing. i tried to create a folder locally and that did create however none came back. i created a folder on gmail and that synced but nothing else reappeared. finally i uninstalled tbird and reinstalled and none have come back. i have no idea where to go now...i need help as it has corrupted every version of tbird (notebood and pc, win and linux) i have and have no way to stop it or fix it.

All Replies (17)

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Generally in IMAP when connectivity to the server fails that everything syncs into oblivion. SO I suggest you check your connection to the mail server.

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this isnt a one time issue where it would be a connection issue. as i said, it did it on my fc 37 drive. then i switched to my dual booted win drive and when it synced, it matched the view. it also later did it on my notebook as well. there is NO WAY this is a connection issue.

further, i just on my fc37 drive, took thunderbird off completely. including the hidden folder and all instances. i reinstalled and set up to my gmail again and it went back to no labels under inbox again.

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oh, you are right that i am using it as imap.

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baldur said

this isnt a one time issue where it would be a connection issue. as i said, it did it on my fc 37 drive. then i switched to my dual booted win drive and when it synced, it matched the view. it also later did it on my notebook as well. there is NO WAY this is a connection issue.

That only reinforces my view, not eliminates it. It could be the wire it not plugged in, it could be your provider has disabled your ability to get mail remotely via IMAP, it could be you are using a normal password and your provider no longer supports that. What the connectivity issue is I really can only guess. But sync is not occurring successfully.

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on 4 different computers a wire (2 wired and one wifi) just happened to pop off while everything else runs fine?!

further, if it effected 3 different computers after the first then IT HAS TO BE SYNCING! further, after i uninstalled and reinstalled it still did it...it had to sync after i reinstalled it.

there is literally no way that is the issue! i am not sure what caused it first but i assume it is thunderbird because i couldnt find too much on google just failing like that plus, everything is fine within the gmail app and when i log into google.

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Then log the IMAP connection and see what errors it throws up, or even check the error console. (Ctrl+Shift+J)

Lets see what is happening, because guessing is going nowhere.

Logging https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging

Modified by Matt

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this is the first time dealing with an issue with tbird. it is usually so dependable. the log didnt work so this is the error console results.

Successfully loaded OpenPGP library librnp.so version 0.16+git20220124.f06439f7.MZLA from /usr/lib64/thunderbird/librnp.so RNPLib.jsm:100:15 Found 0 public keys and 0 secret keys (0 protected, 0 unprotected) RNPLib.jsm:301:15 services.settings: Failed to load last_modified.json: TypeError: NetworkError when attempting to fetch resource. Utils.jsm:330 Trying to load /usr/lib64/thunderbird/libotr.so OTRLib.jsm:64:11 Trying to load libotr.so from system's standard library locations OTRLib.jsm:64:11 Trying to load libotr.so.5 from system's standard library locations OTRLib.jsm:64:11 Trying to load libotr.so from system's standard library locations OTRLib.jsm:64:11 Error: Cannot load required OTR library     loadExternalOTRLib resource:///modules/OTRLib.jsm:109     init resource:///modules/OTRLib.jsm:115     once resource:///modules/OTR.jsm:118     init resource:///modules/OTR.jsm:139     init resource:///modules/OTRUI.jsm:256 OTR.jsm:127:15 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 118 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 38 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 3 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 4 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 9 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 3 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 4 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 3 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 2 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 2 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 3 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 4 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 5 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 5 calItemBase.js:431:30 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 4 calViewUtils.jsm:416:35 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 2 calItemBase.js:431:30 [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIFileInputStream.init]" nsresult: "0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND)" location: "JS frame :: resource://gre/modules/ContextualIdentityService.jsm :: ensureDataReady :: line 406" data: no] ContextualIdentityService.jsm:406:19 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. Troubleshoot.jsm:651:30 WebGL context was lost. 2 Troubleshoot.jsm:713:17 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. blank This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. {d8d55a5e-ffc4-4b18-9d95-09716b92e8cf} This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. blank This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. {8ee3ee05-8cf8-483c-9721-7a879a542085} This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. blank This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. {61a75b84-c036-436e-84a4-bf00d1d858c3} This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. 2 blank This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. INBOX>64833 This page is in Quirks Mode. Page layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use “”. Utils.jsm

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Well none of that has anything about IMAP. Perhaps clear it and then try and get mail to see something relevant.

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i cleared it, closed tbird, opened and got the same messages.

by the way, further on the not a broken wire issue is that i created a folder on tbird and that synced to gmail. i created a new label in gmail and that synced to tbird but none of my already existing labels will sync from gmail to tbird. and i do stop that message archiving in tbird as as soon as i install it.

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You can't "stop message archiving" in Thunderbird. Not on a Gmail account.

I suggest you go to the gmail site and check what folders are being made available to IMAP. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/labels

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wow, i thought for sure that was it. it is not. all folders are marked "show in imap". i checked everything in that setting section and could find no difference between the ones i just created and the ones that will not show in tbird.

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Right click on gmail mail account name folder in Folder Pane and select 'Subscribe'. Are all the folders listed in the 'Subscribe' list ? If no try the following:

  • In Account Settings
  • Select 'Server Settings' for gmail account
  • click on 'Advanced..' button
  • Select: 'Server supports folders that contain subfolders and messages'

Restart Thunderbird. Check the Subscribe list again. click on 'REfresh' and then select folders and click on 'Subscribe' and click on 'OK'

Query: I'm presuming you have Windows OS and Fedora 37 on same computer, but on different drives. Please tell us if different. Are you sharing/accessing the same profile name folder on both OS or have you got separate profile name folders each set up independently within each OS?

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okay, so i dual boot fc37 and win 10 on one machine (pc). i have a notebook with win 11 on it then i have another pc with fc37 on it. all of those access the same profile...the same messages and labels...

so you got part of the issue in that those folders are indeed unchecked in the subscribe box. however i followed your directions and clicked all of them (~100 some with subfolders) subscribe and hit refresh and they all unchecked as if i did not check them initially. then i went and checked some and closed it and restarted tbird and they all unchecked again.

i did check the "server supports...subfolders..." option and it was checked.

when this occurred, i was sitting on fc37 and it had been stable for like 2 weeks since i installed/upgraded to fc37. i had just did some emailing and then put tbird to the side. then just out of the blue i caught in the corner of my eye and then looked and all of my folders disappeared. so whatever happened happened from my main working install of fc37. i then booted to win10 and when i opened tbird, all the folders disappeared...then on my notebook and i havent worked on my other fc37 at all really.

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i am not sure what happened but after i wrote that i was messing around and when to 'third party cookies' just on a thought and turned that from never to always (i think i set it to either never or visited depending on my mood). all of a sudden i could subscribe to folders again. i turned 'third party cookies' back to never and it still would allow me to subscribe.

i dont know if that really did it, changed it so i could subscribe. i am 100% certain it would not allow me to subscribe before but now it appears to be working...odd!

i am going to watch it for a while and see what happens.

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i know this was relatively solved but it just happened to me again where tbird just unsubscribed to a bunch of folders but it also delted by entire inbox. i am not sure what is going on here but it is very frustrating!

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Did you try 'third party cookies' selected to always which seemed to fix before ? Gmail does need third party cookies enabled. Perhaps you should set up an exception.

Try the following:

  • Settings > Privacy & Security
  • Under 'Web Content'
  • click on 'Exceptions' button
  • Enter : https://accounts.google.com
  • set it to 'Allow'.
  • Click on 'Save Changes'
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i seem to recall seeing a note about third party cookies at one point so last time i this happened i changed it as i was subscribing to "only visited" because that is what i usually leave it at so it was as that the entire time. so that cant be the culprit here this time. last time i had prioir switched it to no third party cookies.

this time it just arbitrarily unsubscribed to like 10 folders (about 1/2 my folders). i saw it out of the corner of my eye so i immediately closed tbird. i waited a minute or two and opened it. upon opening my inbox was empty. i have no idea where my emails went at this point. last time it created an arbitrary folder and dumped them in there but this time, probably because i closed it, it did not. i was able to re-subscribe to the emails however i havent figured out how to recover the inbox emails yet. it just seems very unstable, it being tbird, and i am not sure why or what triggers it.