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Unable to change Account Settings. Account already exists....

  • 13 replies
  • 6 have this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by Gnospen

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I cannot set my default outgoing server. Help. I have been able to edit any and all of the account settings in the past. I even restarted with all plugins and extension off. Still cannot edit the account settings.

Click on Outgoing Server (STMP) get the message " 'An account with this name already exists. Please enter a different account name.

This is Critical as I cannot send email.

I cannot set my default outgoing server. Help. I have been able to edit any and all of the account settings in the past. I even restarted with all plugins and extension off. Still cannot edit the account settings. Click on Outgoing Server (STMP) get the message " ''''''An account with this name already exists. Please enter a different account name. ''''' This is Critical as I cannot send email.
Attached screenshots

All Replies (13)

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Open trubleshooting information (under help) and copy to clipboard (button) then paste it in here.

Outgoing server must correspond to that accounts username and password. A description can help.

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What you are showing is a local folder. somehow you have lost view of your account.

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I cannot even view any of the settings for the outgoing server to modify them and I have no other views of my accounts. I cannot even delete them. I can add, however, I am then stopped as it tells me an account with that name already exists.

If I need to do a clean install, I will still need to have access to the previous emails and folders attached to the profile.

The images are the Trouble Shooting Data:

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This has worked without problem for some time. Not being able to change any account data is new.

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Did you not notice the "Copy text to clipboard" button? So much easier and efficient than doing all those screenshots. Heck, even a select all, copy, paste would have been more useful.

I haven't yet found the pertinent data in your set of pictures.  :-(

Ah, OK, it's the middle one.

I don't know what to make of the account with "null" for its SMTP setting. If the GUI won't let you edit the settings, I'd be considering opening the prefs.js file in a text editor. It's abnormal for an account to have an absent SMTP setting and I am worried that this causes the problem.

The "already exists" error is quite common in Thunderbird. I have seen reasoning that says this happens if account set up is terminated leaving the setting up incomplete, and a work around is to scrub the offending account and start over. This advice isn't going to help you, as it's a preexisting and formerly working account, so that scenario simply doesn't apply.

I have a suspicion that Thunderbird suffers from random corruption, usually loss of a setting, probably happening when it rewrites the settings file at closedown. Often the effect is superficial, with the change of appearance or a user preference such as defaulting from HTML to plain text. Occasionally it's something that breaks an account's connectivity, such as the connection security setting. I don't think I've seen it eat a server address, until now.

The glib answer is to suggest that you revert to that recent backup of your profile, you know, the one everybody says you should make periodically, though in truth few people do.

Modified by Zenos

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Zenos I can see in the first pic that his directory points to appdata/local not roaming. Can that have an effect? It's treated as a local folder.

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Here is the prefs.js file:

Again in jpgs as it is too long to cut and paste.

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To open every 28 pic and make some sense out of it???

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Each of my accounts has a corresponding entry like this:

user_pref("mail.identity.id2.smtpServer", "smtp12");

I suggest you open the settings in the config editor, and use the search filter at the top (or use a good text editor) to seek entries including "smtpServer" and see if any of them has a null, empty or damaged smtp reference entry.

You'll need to do some further detective work to find what should go in, if you DO find a broken one.

In my case, a search for mail.identity.id2 found a setting for mail.identity.id2.useremail which in turn tells me which of my accounts this "id2" entry relates to.

I think that using any of your "smtpnn" settings as a temporary fix should allow it to work well enough that you can then access Tools|Account Settings in the GUI and correct or repair it.

Modified by Zenos

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I now can see a notation for an Outgoing Server. However, I still cannot edit any of the accounts or outgoing server. I went through and reconciled the mail.identity.idxx.usermail to the outgoing smtp. However I still cannot send email. Here is what my account screen looks like.

We are making progress.... I really appreciated the help.

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Also of note: If I look under Options, Security, Passwords, Saved Passwords there are only incoming servers listed and no outgoing servers. How can this be corrected? Or is this the root of all evil?

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Is your account there? incoming?

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Just a thought, did you rename your local folders and did you put it in %appdata%\local? Because you are showing us a local-folder named Thomas Rascon. Maybe just try to rename it