compacting imap fails because Trash is busy
Lately, when I switch to an IMAP mail folder, Thunderbird wants to run a Compact folders operation. However, almost every time I get a message "The folder 'Trash' cannot be compacted because another operation is in progress. Please try again later." This sometimes happens with other folder (e.g., 'Junk') but it happens almost all of the time with 'Trash'.
The problem does not seem to arise when I try to compact folder manually using the File > Compact Folders menu selection. Also, changing the amount of disk space it wants to save, seems to make the problem happen less frequently. However, manually dismissing all of these warning messages is quite annoying.
I'm running Thunderbird 52.9.1 under Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
All Replies (5)
Just happened again immediately after deleting a message (this is on the machine in which I pumped up the threshold to 100MB).
It looks like maybe Thunderbird is not waiting for the deletion operation to complete before offering to compact folders.
Have you emptied trash lately? (it doesn't like being big)
right+click on trash folder and pick empty
I hadn't emptied trash in a while, so I tried emptying it, but the problem is still there. I'm still getting the error with the trash empty.
Is it possible that it is related to slow connection speeds with the IMAP server? The last time it happened with the "Drafts" folder, which is nearly empty. If Thunderbird is trying to compact the folder before the IMAP server returns a status message, it might cause this problem.
"The folder 'Trash' cannot be compacted because another operation is in progress." is mostly a local operation, and so would not be related to connection speed.
You might try version 60