Thunderbird is messed up!

[Gail Sanders]

Judy,

You were helpful with Firefox problems back in the days when we were using Compuserve but I don't remember whether or not you were also a Thunderbird sysop. In any case, do you know what I can do about the following?

Instead of the typical folders under my email accounts, for most of them, there's no down arrow & in the right pane are the words "Email, Read messages, Write a new message, Accounts, View Settings for this account..."

I'm now using a Mac & drilling down in Mac's version of Explorer, the files & folders that should be there, are there. So, it seems like Thunderbird has gotten corrupted. The problems started happening after I did a few Mac upgrades. Someone in the Mac forum has other Thunderbird problems since the upgrade & was told to ask in the Mozilla forum. Normally, I don't get answers to questions there so I'm wondering if you have any ideas about what to do about this.

Do you agree that it sounds like TB has gotten corrupted? And, do you have any suggestions besides uninstalling & reinstalling Thunderbird, creating a new profile, & copying over the email files & folders into the new profile? The attached file shows what I see in the pane on the right now when I click on the name of 1 of my accounts.


TIA,
Gail 372

[Judy G. Russell]

Do you agree that it sounds like TB has gotten corrupted? And, do you have any suggestions besides uninstalling & reinstalling Thunderbird, creating a new profile, & copying over the email files & folders into the new profile?Gail, I do agree, and I don't have any better suggestion except (a) sit tight for a little while and see if any of the Thunderbird users here has a better idea and (b) post a message on the forums at UFAQ (http://www.ufaq.org/ (http://www.ufaq.org/)) since those folks are pretty doggone good. I sure wish I could be of more help but I never used a Mac and never used Thunderbird.

[davidh]

Instead of the typical folders under my email accounts, for most of them, there's no down arrow & in the right pane are the words "Email, Read messages, Write a new message, Accounts, View Settings for this account..." Gail I never had a Mac. But what you see in the right pane, no scroll bar [no arrow?] and the text you quoted, is what I normally see when I click on the name of an account in the left pane, in Tbird for Windows. As opposed to clicking on the name of a folder such as "inbox". Of course ALL the folder names will be invisible until you expand the view of the account in the left pane. Merely clicking on the name of the account alone will not expand the view of the account in the Windows version. Don't know about Mac. In Windows, small squares containing [+] or [-] can be clicked to expand or collapse, respectively, the views of the accounts (to see the folders within).

Perhaps the left pane might have scrolled horizontally accidentally to put the [+]'s or [-]'s temporarily out of view?

Also in the Windows Tbird there are two small arrows at the top right hand corner of the left pane which alter the view of the left pane (quite a bit, which could be confusing).

Windows Tbird also has a "safe mode" , accessible via the start button and "all programs" menu. If such exists on Mac, might be worth a try.

In Windows, the (non-GUI, text based) command line to do safe mode looks like this:
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe" -safe-mode

David H

[sidney]

Judy,
Instead of the typical folders under my email accounts, for most of them, there's no down arrow & in the right pane are the words "Email, Read messages, Write a new message, Accounts, View Settings for this account..."


Gail, I think David nailed it in one of the his suggestions. I have a Mac too, and I can make Thunderbird do what you are seeing by clicking the tiny right-arrow in the upper right of the left pane, part of a double-arrow to the right of the label "All Folders". Clicking on the left arrow of that pair restores the pane to normal.

-- sidney

[Gail Sanders]

Gail, I do agree, and I don't have any better suggestion except (a) sit tight for a little while and see if any of the Thunderbird users here has a better idea and (b) post a message on the forums at UFAQ (http://www.ufaq.org/ (http://www.ufaq.org/)) since those folks are pretty doggone good. I sure wish I could be of more help but I never used a Mac and never used Thunderbird.

Judy,

Thanks for recommending that site. I had never heard of it before & it's good to see that they have a section for Mac users.

BTW, didn't you use to use Eudora for your email program?

Gail

[Gail Sanders]

...what you see in the right pane, no scroll bar [no arrow?] and the text you quoted, is what I normally see when I click on the name of an account in the left pane, in Tbird for Windows


David,

The good news is that Thunderbird is working normally again. I restored the Mac from a backup drive (since it had other problems after an OS update a couple of days ago) but at first, Thunderbird had the exact same problem as before. Then I closed it & reopened it, and the problem was gone! So, I don’t know why the problem showed up again at first after the restore, but fortunately, it hasn’t shown up again.

Thanks for thinking about what could have caused the errors but what I was seeing wasn’t what happens when you click the arrows. In that case, if you don’t see subfolders for some accounts, you don’t see them for the others. But for 1 account, all the subfolders did show up but for others, none appeared. At the same time, the formatting & graphics from the right pane were gone before but they’re back again. I was thinking about another possible source of the problems: In the last few days, I had started downloading newsgroups using Thunderbird. Have you ever heard if they can cause weird glitches like the ones I had?

Thanks also for the command for safe mode for TB. I'll try to find out the Mac's version of it.

Gail

[Gail Sanders]

Gail, I think David nailed it in one of the his suggestions. I have a Mac too, and I can make Thunderbird do what you are seeing by clicking the tiny right-arrow in the upper right of the left pane, part of a double-arrow to the right of the label "All Folders". Clicking on the left arrow of that pair restores the pane to normal.

-- sidney

Sidney,

In this case, I don't think that was it since I could see the subfolders for some accounts but not others. But, do you download newsgroups with TB & if you do, has it ever caused any problems? I'm wondering now if downloading newsgroup messages might have been related to the errors somehow. Also, have you ever heard of any other news readers that can be used with Macs (Leopard in particular)? I used to download newsgroup messages with Agent but there isn't a Mac version of it.

Thanks a lot for trying to help solve the problem.
Gail

[davidh]

I haven't use USENET news group readers in a long time.

FWIW, I'm using the Sage RSS reader extension of Firefox now. Since Google groups covers a lot of USENET , I think , it might be worth looking at Google groups to see if one can get one's desired USENET feeds via RSS from Google groups?

I don't remember ever trying the newsreader in TB. I think both TB and Firefox handle RSS already, but their RSS readers may not have all the features one desires.

Sage is a Firefox extension. Sometimes I prefer Mozilla (FF or TB) extensions to avoid regular programs that normally put stuff in the Windows registry.

I'm pretty sure that there would be other cross platform RSS readers besides TB, FF, and Sage (within FF).

DH

[sidney]

In the last few days, I had started downloading newsgroups using Thunderbird. Have you ever heard if they can cause weird glitches like the ones I had?

I use Thunderbird for my newsreader and have had no problem, not any untoward interaction between the email accounts and the news accounts being in the same profile.

I didn't realize that your screenshot was an actual screenshot. I thought you had just copy and pasted the text portion of your screen. What you showed is missing all of the image doodads, which leads me to guess that a chrome file got corrupted somehow, making it a display issue, not loss of the actual data. No clue about what would have caused that.

-- sidney

[Gail Sanders]

David,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll take a look at Sage.

Gail



I haven't use USENET news group readers in a long time.

FWIW, I'm using the Sage RSS reader extension of Firefox now. Since Google groups covers a lot of USENET , I think , it might be worth looking at Google groups to see if one can get one's desired USENET feeds via RSS from Google groups?

Sage is a Firefox extension. Sometimes I prefer Mozilla (FF or TB) extensions to avoid regular programs that normally put stuff in the Windows registry.

I'm pretty sure that there would be other cross platform RSS readers besides TB, FF, and Sage (within FF).

DH

[ndebord]

I haven't use USENET news group readers in a long time.

FWIW, I'm using the Sage RSS reader extension of Firefox now. Since Google groups covers a lot of USENET , I think , it might be worth looking at Google groups to see if one can get one's desired USENET feeds via RSS from Google groups?

I don't remember ever trying the newsreader in TB. I think both TB and Firefox handle RSS already, but their RSS readers may not have all the features one desires.

Sage is a Firefox extension. Sometimes I prefer Mozilla (FF or TB) extensions to avoid regular programs that normally put stuff in the Windows registry.

I'm pretty sure that there would be other cross platform RSS readers besides TB, FF, and Sage (within FF).

DH


David,

I saw Sage and it's not bad, but as I use K-Meleon, either Aggreg8 (which I use) or NewsFox are the preferred choices there. Although you can use others as KM is now using a macro install executable with its new macro language to setup extensions. The advantage being that they are products of a macro scripting language instead of XML/XPI extensions which are an emulation overhead and slow down the Gecko engine to some degree.

[Gail Sanders]

N,

Do you know how those programs compare to Agent? That's what I used to use before getting a Mac.

Gail

David,

I saw Sage and it's not bad, but as I use K-Meleon, either Aggreg8 (which I use) or NewsFox are the preferred choices there. Although you can use others as KM is now using a macro install executable with its new macro language to setup extensions. The advantage being that they are products of a macro scripting language instead of XML/XPI extensions which are an emulation overhead and slow down the Gecko engine to some degree.

[davidh]

N,

Do you know how those programs compare to Agent? That's what I used to use before getting a Mac.

Gail I used to use Free Agent. IIRC, it was probably pretty near top of the line for USENET news feeds.

Compuserve and AOL dropped USENET a while back and my Verizon DSL Lite does not have USENET either, AFAIK, and I'm not reading the CVS and electrical professional news feeds any more either, so I'm not in that 'area' any longer.

DH

[davidh]

N,

Do you know how those programs compare to Agent? That's what I used to use before getting a Mac.

Gail Search for 'rss' and 'omea' on this forum and you will find about 3 threads dealing with RSS feed readers. Omea is probably pretty good for RSS feed reader, but I rejected Omea, I think, because it uses MS IE "under the hood".

DH

[davidh]

Search for 'rss' and 'omea' on this forum and you will find about 3 threads dealing with RSS feed readers. Omea is probably pretty good for RSS feed reader, but I rejected Omea, I think, because it uses MS IE "under the hood".

DH Of course Omea is Windows, not Mac, but you may find some cross platform RSS feed readers in those 3 threads.

DH

[davidh]

... my Verizon DSL Lite does not have USENET either, AFAIK, ...
DH Mistake. Verizon nntp server is news.verizon.net and authentication is "plain text".

I did not bother to find out how much of USENET hierarchy is covered.
DH

[davidh]

David,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll take a look at Sage.

Gail
I was not really recommending Sage. Just that it's more flexible as a browser based RSS feed reader than the web-start-page based RSS feed readers such as http://my.yahoo.com or http://my.aol.com

Opera runs on Mac and Opera has a built in nntp (e.g. USENET) news reader. I gave the Opera news reader a short try on Windows XP and it seems pretty decent. It seems to be a full blown OLR (but I really did not test this). If you have been a TAPCIS (or Agent?) user in the past you may agree with me that OLR is the way to go and the best of all possible worlds :cool:

Operating system
MacOS
Please select your preferred language version
Opera 9
Your Mac OS X language (Opera 9.60)
http://www.opera.com/download/index.dml?step=2&opsys=MacOS&platform=MacOS


I might have actually switched from Thunderbird to Opera, because of its small footprint, for email except for the fact that Opera may not use the standard (Netscape, Mozilla, Thunderbird, Eudora, Pegasus) MBOX format for mailbox files, which makes it a no brainer for backing up mail and moving mail between mail apps.

DH

[ndebord]

I was not really recommending Sage. Just that it's more flexible as a browser based RSS feed reader than the web-start-page based RSS feed readers such as http://my.yahoo.com or http://my.aol.com

Opera runs on Mac and Opera has a built in nntp (e.g. USENET) news reader. I gave the Opera news reader a short try on Windows XP and it seems pretty decent. It seems to be a full blown OLR (but I really did not test this). If you have been a TAPCIS (or Agent?) user in the past you may agree with me that OLR is the way to go and the best of all possible worlds :cool:



I might have actually switched from Thunderbird to Opera, because of its small footprint, for email except for the fact that Opera may not use the standard (Netscape, Mozilla, Thunderbird, Eudora, Pegasus) MBOX format for mailbox files, which makes it a no brainer for backing up mail and moving mail between mail apps.

DH

David,

For my tastes, Sm is better than Thunderbird. As I read the posts at Mozillazine, I see that SM is moving ahead to FF 3.1 code instead of 3.0 code which is what FF and TB used in their latest releases. One of the unstated reasons for doing so was the poor implementation of features in the very much new and very much untested (IMO) FF 3.

[davidh]

David,

For my tastes, Sm is better than Thunderbird. As I read the posts at Mozillazine, I see that SM is moving ahead to FF 3.1 code instead of 3.0 code which is what FF and TB used in their latest releases. One of the unstated reasons for doing so was the poor implementation of features in the very much new and very much untested (IMO) FF 3.Nick, I assume SM is Sea Monkey. Do you happen to know whether Sea Monkey supports most of the TB extensions or not? The reason I'm asking is that I rather like the 'webmail' extension for TB and if it proves out as reliable enough for my purposes, I may keep it.

DH

[ndebord]

Nick, I assume SM is Sea Monkey. Do you happen to know whether Sea Monkey supports most of the TB extensions or not? The reason I'm asking is that I rather like the 'webmail' extension for TB and if it proves out as reliable enough for my purposes, I may keep it.

DH

David,

Sorry, I don't know. Really the only reason I keep SM around is to use it to update an earlier version of KM (K-Meleon), which is my browser of choice (SM's implementation of the Gecko engine is what is used in KM, not the FF variation).

For email, I use Foxmail 5 and Outlook (I know...I know).

As for FF, I use 2.0.0.17 and the old Mail Button which has been around forever for SM and FF 2. I also use Simple Mail (extension) but only as a test bed to see if there is an extension that I could learn to live with (the answer so far is Nope!).

I used to use Mozilla Suite's Messenger module (not sure of the name as my memory is hazy on it) as my regular email program (other than Tapcis of course), but moved on to Foxmail way back when Opera came out and there were some rabid fans of the program and I've stuck with it ever since.

P.S.
They claim it works... don't know myself.

http://groups.google.com/group/thunderbird-webmail-extension/browse_thread/thread/24f033a577b7c3ec/725f3fe02c95322e?lnk=gst&q=seamonkey#725f3fe02c95322e


http://webmail.mozdev.org/whatsnew.html

[Gail Sanders]

David,

Thanks, I'll check that out once I get TB straightened out re. email files. It's now either not showing Inboxes or showing them after other folders like Drafts, Sent, etc. There's no question now that TB has been corrupted somehow so I'll try to find out how to uninstall it from OSX & then I'll see if reinstalling it solves the problem. It's times like this when I really miss Tapcis!

Gail

Search for 'rss' and 'omea' on this forum and you will find about 3 threads dealing with RSS feed readers. Omea is probably pretty good for RSS feed reader, but I rejected Omea, I think, because it uses MS IE "under the hood".

DH

[sidney]

I'll try to find out how to uninstall it from OSX

The application itself is completely in /Applications/Thunderbird.app, and your profiles are all in /Users/youruserid/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles (which often is written in documentation as ~/Library/Thunderbird).

To delete everything, simply drag /Applications/Thunderbird.app and ~/Library/Thunderbird to the trash.

If you want to save the contents of mailboxes first , you'll find them in your profile.

[Gail Sanders]

The application itself is completely in /Applications/Thunderbird.app, and your profiles are all in /Users/youruserid/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles (which often is written in documentation as ~/Library/Thunderbird).

To delete everything, simply drag /Applications/Thunderbird.app and ~/Library/Thunderbird to the trash.

If you want to save the contents of mailboxes first , you'll find them in your profile.


Sidney,

After trying to figure out what was going with TB, I quit for a while & then, when I came back to try it again, the folders were back! But, I assume this erratic cycle will repeat again so thanks for the above information. Since I'd rather not have to recreate the different account settings if I can avoid it, do you know if I'd have to do that if I delete TB.app but leave the profile folder alone?

Since TB has been so erratic lately, I think I'll try out SM, at least for email. I don't want to use it for a browser too since if it gets corrupted, then both the browser & email program will be unusable.

Gail

[sidney]

do you know if I'd have to do that if I delete TB.app but leave the profile folder alone?

If you simply replace /Applications/Thunderbird.app with a new copy (drop a new copy in the folder and agree to replace the old one, or delete the old one and drop in a new one -- same thing either way) then the new one will use your exiting profile and no settings will be lost.

The bad news is that it is more likely that the corruption is in the profile rather than in the app, but it is worth a try.

If Thunderbird is working for a while, you can use the ImportExportTools (Mboximport enhanced) 2.0 add-in to export your message folders as mbox files and then import them when you recreate your profile.

[Gail Sanders]

Search for 'rss' and 'omea' on this forum and you will find about 3 threads dealing with RSS feed readers. Omea is probably pretty good for RSS feed reader, but I rejected Omea, I think, because it uses MS IE "under the hood".

DH

Thanks for the warning about Omea. When I searched "RSS", I found the following link which has a very detailed comparison: http://www.aggcompare.com/.

[Gail Sanders]

Opera runs on Mac and Opera has a built in nntp (e.g. USENET) news reader. I gave the Opera news reader a short try on Windows XP and it seems pretty decent. It seems to be a full blown OLR (but I really did not test this). If you have been a TAPCIS (or Agent?) user in the past you may agree with me that OLR is the way to go and the best of all possible worlds :cool:

DH

David,

I'm an old Tapcis user & definitely prefer OLRs. That's one of the things I liked about TB before it started crashing - the newsgroups could be downloaded & read offline. Do you know if having too many messages in newsgroups (however that's defined) can be a problem with TB? I downloaded months worth of messages for a few different newsgroups. They're deleted now so I don't know how large the files were.

About Opera, isn't it less secure than the Gecko products? I read that a while ago but I'm not sure where I read it or if it's still accurate, assuming that it was then.

[sidney]

Do you know if having too many messages in newsgroups (however that's defined) can be a problem with TB?

I have my inbox folder and university mail folder on an IMAP server as well as certain newsgroups all configured to download for offline reading and have not had a problem with it. And I haven't seen anything like the problem you are describing discussed anywhere.

[davidh]

Thanks for the warning about Omea. When I searched "RSS", I found the following link which has a very detailed comparison: http://www.aggcompare.com/.
Gail, this probably does not affect you at all if you use only Mac. But there are several RSS readers that use MS IE under the hood.

Of course, RSS readers are not the only kinds of Windows software that do this.

One possible remedy, if the third party app does not need scripting for one's purposes, is to set MS IE Internet Zone security to HIGH. And avoid using MS IE for browsing at all, i.e. use FF, Opera, Chrome, Windows Safari, etc.

I just am posting this msg. for lurkers, since you said you use a Mac.

DH

[davidh]

David,

I'm an old Tapcis user & definitely prefer OLRs. That's one of the things I liked about TB before it started crashing - the newsgroups could be downloaded & read offline. Do you know if having too many messages in newsgroups (however that's defined) can be a problem with TB? I downloaded months worth of messages for a few different newsgroups. They're deleted now so I don't know how large the files were.

About Opera, isn't it less secure than the Gecko products? I read that a while ago but I'm not sure where I read it or if it's still accurate, assuming that it was then.
I only use TB for email. So I can't comment on TB for USENET/nntp.

For the purpose of security, when considering the types of threats prevalent today, I don't think there is any browser setup that can beat Mozilla plus NoScript. Mozilla would include both FF and SM, I think. FF 3.0 takes advantage of Google security scans of the Internet, I don't know if SM does that.

I use Finjan Secure Browsing, Firekeeper, McAfee Siteadvisor, and Cookie Monster plugins for FF for additional security and privacy. However, I'm guessing that NoScript probably gives an order of magnitude higher security than any other of these plugins. Cookie management can give not only privacy protection but also exploit protection since using session cookies for example decreases the chance of password theft out of cookies, such as by Wi-Fi man in the middle attacks. All my plugins probably have some redundancy, but I've never seen more than one at a time give me an alert so I keep them all. However on my old Win 98 lower powered PC I uninstalled a couple (not NoScript!) out of FF because of performance hit.

DH

[Gail Sanders]

If you simply replace /Applications/Thunderbird.app with a new copy (drop a new copy in the folder and agree to replace the old one, or delete the old one and drop in a new one -- same thing either way) then the new one will use your exiting profile and no settings will be lost.

The bad news is that it is more likely that the corruption is in the profile rather than in the app, but it is worth a try.

If Thunderbird is working for a while, you can use the ImportExportTools (Mboximport enhanced) 2.0 add-in to export your message folders as mbox files and then import them when you recreate your profile.

Sidney,

I tried replacing Thunderbird.app with a new copy but when I tried to open the .dmg file, I got a message saying that the disk image failed to mount because it wasn’t recognized. I re-downloaded the file in case it was corrupted but the result was the same. Then I got a strange message which, if I was using Windows, would have led me to wonder if I might have a Trojan. It said “the IP traffic now exceeds your threshold of 200 mb”. I had been in the process of sending a 4-line email. So I ran VirusBarrier (which I use along with NetBarrier) but it froze. To make a long story short, the entire cycle from a few days ago repeated itself & I could no longer boot into the system again. I've now restored it again using the cloning program, SuperDuper.

I don’t know whether OSX gets corrupted & then starts affecting each program I use or whether TB crashes (which so far has always been the first program to crash), which then messes up the OS. I spoke to an Apple tech. who said I should bring the system into an Apple store since the problem hasn’t been solved yet.

At first I thought that it’s now obvious that the newsgroups didn’t cause the problem since they’re gone. But, I’m now wondering whether I could have gotten a virus from one of the newsgroups. I'm running VirusBarrier now & it's working ok again. For email, I don't allow TB to show images which are attached but I don't know if that applies to newsgroups. I’ve assumed that the messages were all text but do you know if TB downloads non-text data as well?

I think you’re right though that it was the profile that was corrupted because when I drill down, some folders name have assorted numbers right after their name. Fortunately, I’ve backed up my profiles to CDs occasionally & I found the last CD which didn’t have that aberration. It goes back to the beginning of September but at this point, I think it’s worth copying that profile back into TB or SM & then seeing if the crashes continue.

Re. Mboximport enhanced - is that better than just copying your profile to the a program & erasing the prefs.js file?

If you or anyone else reading this has any other suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks,
Gail

[Gail Sanders]

David,

For my tastes, Sm is better than Thunderbird. As I read the posts at Mozillazine, I see that SM is moving ahead to FF 3.1 code instead of 3.0 code which is what FF and TB used in their latest releases. One of the unstated reasons for doing so was the poor implementation of features in the very much new and very much untested (IMO) FF 3.

Nick, what have you heard about the poor implementation of features? I've noticed that when going down the bookmark list, if I pause for more than a fraction of a fraction of a second over a folder name, that folder will be opened. Also, the last couple of days, when I try to save a file, I get a message that the Source can't be read. I assume though that the second error is probably caused by the same systemic problem that's causing other errors since it just started happening yesterday. Have you read anything about these kinds of errors?

TIA

[sidney]

Then I got a strange message which, if I was using Windows, would have led me to wonder if I might have a Trojan. It said “the IP traffic now exceeds your threshold of 200 mb”

In case you didn't realize it, that's a message from Netbarrier. There's a setting there called "IP Traffic Threshold Warning". Or perhaps you thought it was strange that you got the message downloading something much less than 200Mb. I downloaded the NetBarrier users manual and didn't offhand see any explanation of how they measure traffic for that warning. 200Mb per hour? Per login? Since you last reset the meters?

I'm very suspicious of VirusBarrier and NetBarrier. My misgivings are not made any easier when I see the screenshot in the users manual that says "Warm [sic] me if the incoming IP traffic is greater than 200 MB".

The problems you are having with Mac OS X are not typical. My first thought was that perhaps your hard disk has started to die, but when you mentioned having an antivirus and a personall firewall program, that does raise a red flag. I had never heard of those two programs before. It's strange to someone who is used to Windows to run without protection, but there aren't viruses out there for the Mac, other than a couple proof of concepts that are not in the wild and Word macro viruses that are very easy to avoid by using anything except Word such as the recently released OpenOffice 3.0. And personal firewalls are most useful for mitigating the effects of virus and trojan horse infections, again, not a serious problem on MacOS.

I suggest uninstalling those two programs and see if you still have problems.

Re. Mboximport enhanced - is that better than just copying your profile to the a program & erasing the prefs.js file?

What Mboximport would let you do is get a backup of your mailbox files in a format that can be imported into anything that understands mbox format, or import back into a completely fresh installation of Thunderbird with a new profile that you can be sure doesn't have anything corrupted.

[ktinkel]

Gail —

In addition to other ideas, you could post in Snarkish (http://snarkish.com/), which includes the remnants of the CIS Mac Forum. Lots of Mac expertise over there.

[ndebord]

Nick, what have you heard about the poor implementation of features? I've noticed that when going down the bookmark list, if I pause for more than a fraction of a fraction of a second over a folder name, that folder will be opened. Also, the last couple of days, when I try to save a file, I get a message that the Source can't be read. I assume though that the second error is probably caused by the same systemic problem that's causing other errors since it just started happening yesterday. Have you read anything about these kinds of errors?

TIA

Gail,

Ever since the FireFox Young Turks took over Mozilla, things have gone downhill with the splitoff apps: by that I mean FireFox and Thunderbird. I liked the Suite. When I realized they were going for fancy over functionality, I moved on or rather back to Foxmail. I keep SeaMonkey around, but I don't much use it.

For current info, MozillaZine is the place. I'm afraid I'm not the guy to help with specific problems there.

[Gail Sanders]

In case you didn't realize it, that's a message from Netbarrier. There's a setting there called "IP Traffic Threshold Warning". Or perhaps you thought it was strange that you got the message downloading something much less than 200Mb. I downloaded the NetBarrier users manual and didn't offhand see any explanation of how they measure traffic for that warning. 200Mb per hour? Per login? Since you last reset the meters?...

I suggest uninstalling those two programs and see if you still have problems.

What Mboximport would let you do is get a backup of your mailbox files in a format that can be imported into anything that understands mbox format, or import back into a completely fresh installation of Thunderbird with a new profile that you can be sure doesn't have anything corrupted.

Sidney,

I hadn’t realized that the message was from NetBarrier & I also thought it was strange that I got the message about uploading more than 200MB when I was downloading substantially less than that. Thanks very much for downloading the user’s manual & looking for that message.

While the problems could be due to VirusBarrier & NetBarrier, I’ve used those 2 programs for almost a year without any problems till recently. It turns out the date of the latest TB update places it between my TB backup CD which doesn’t have corrupted data & the one that does. Also, since my last email, there have been a few messages on the TB message board in which people have said that they’re having serious problems with getting into the program since the update. So, while I could remove VB & NB at this point, I’d rather try to reinstall TB first, especially since I haven't had any more error messages from NetBarrier about the 200 mb being uploaded. Another possibility, along the lines that you’re talking about, is that the program Little Snitch, an anti-spyware program, is the problem. Have you heard of any problems caused by that? It’s always popping up when I’m online, asking if I want to allow access to one page or another. Maybe I’ll try disabling that too.

I’ve tried to uninstall the current version of TB but don’t see a way to do that. When I click on the Thunderbird.app file, I get an error message saying that the diskimagemounter program can’t open the Thunderbird.dmg file. I downloaded a new version, in case mine had been corrupted but the diskmountimager wouldn’t open that either. Do you have any suggestions for uninstalling or reinstalling Thunderbird & if you click on the .dmg file of the latest version, does it allow you to uninstall TB?

At this point, I’ve moved 1 of my accounts over to SeaMonkey, which went smoothly, thank goodness. Do you know if SM has regular security updates & if it’s considered to be a secure program? If so, that’s probably what I’ll switch to.

Thanks very much again.

[sidney]

While the problems could be due to VirusBarrier & NetBarrier, I’ve used those 2 programs for almost a year without any problems till recently.

While it is possible that the most recent version of Thunderbird is the one with the problem, another likely possibility is that a recent MacOS X update introduces an incompatibility with NetBarrier/VirusBarrier. So I'm still suspicious of them. That's a problem with using such software in MacOS: The OS itself is designed to be resistant to malware that messes with it, which makes it resistant to something like Net/VirusBarrier that has to insert itself in ways that ordinary applications don't have to. At any time a security update may change something that Net/VirusBarrier is counting on, and the app is not a popular or important enough product for Apple to worry about maintaining compatibility with.

Another possibility, along the lines that you’re talking about, is that the program Little Snitch, an anti-spyware program, is the problem

Never heard of it, but yes, I would try disabling it to see if it makes a difference.

When I click on the Thunderbird.app file, I get an error message saying that the diskimagemounter program can’t open the Thunderbird.dmg file

Oh! That implies that your Thunderbird.app file is an alias, not the actual program. You would get that effect if when you installed Thunderbird you did it by opening the Thunderbird.dmg file, then dragged Thunderbird.app from the mounted image to your disk, but the Thunderbird.app icon showed a little curved arrow for "alias" instead of showing a plus sign (while you were dragging it) which means "copy". That could have caused all sorts of problems. If the Thunderbird.app on your disk was an alias, then you could only run it if Thunderbird.dmg exists and is mounted (open). Worse, that means that Thunderbird would be running from a monted disk image, which can lead to corruption problems.

Uninstalling Thunderbird does not require running it. You simply drag the Thunderbird.app file from the Applications folder into Trash.

When you install Thunderbird, you open the Thunderbird.dmg file, then in the folder window that opens up drag the Thunderbird.app icon that is there into the Application folder. I don't have a copy of Thunderbird.dmg handy to check it and I'm online with too slow a connection to download a copy right now, but there are two typical setups for installation: Sometimes the mounted folder has a Application folder in it and you can drag and drop the Thunderbird.app icon right into that Application icon. If they don't give yo that, then you open another Finder window, open the Application folder, and then drag and drop Thunderbird.app into that, making sure that you have the little plus on the icon when you are dragging and not the curved arrow. If you don't have the plus symbol, play with pressing the shift or ctrl or option keys while you are dragging: I never remember which key does what so I use trial and error if I have to do that.

f you click on the .dmg file of the latest version, does it allow you to uninstall TB?

Yes, you do not have to trash the old Thunderbird.app before installing the new one, as it will just overwrite the old one. Installing a new one will not affect your existing profile, so if you want to keep it, just do the install, and if you want to trash the old profile and start anew, delete the profile before doing the installation.

Do you know if SM has regular security updates & if it’s considered to be a secure program?

I haven't paid attention to SeaMonkey, sorry.

[Gail Sanders]

While it is possible that the most recent version of Thunderbird is the one with the problem, another likely possibility is that a recent MacOS X update introduces an incompatibility with NetBarrier/VirusBarrier.

Good point. I'll look at Intego's site & check out Apple's message board to see if I see anything about that.


Oh! That implies that your Thunderbird.app file is an alias, not the actual program.

I'm sorry, but the saying there was an .app extension was an error on my part. I meant to say that when I click on the Thunderbird.dmg file, I get an error message saying that the diskimagemounter program can’t open the file.



When you install Thunderbird, you open the Thunderbird.dmg file, then in the folder window that opens up drag the Thunderbird.app icon that is there into the Application folder.

That's the problem- no folder window opens up. That's when I get the error message.

Yes, you do not have to trash the old Thunderbird.app before installing the new one, as it will just overwrite the old one. Installing a new one will not affect your existing profile, so if you want to keep it, just do the install, and if you want to trash the old profile and start anew, delete the profile before doing the installation..

Thanks for the letting me know that. Now I just have to figure out how to get the .dmg file to open!

Thanks very much for your detailed suggestions. I'll try disabling some of the security programs & let you know what happens. I really appreciate your efforts to help out & get to the bottom of this.

Gail

[Gail Sanders]

Some good news - I'm now using the external drive & I just downloaded a new Thunderbird.dmg file. Then I was able to open it up & copy the .app file to the Applications folder of both the internal & external drive! (It's great when things work as they're supposed to.) I'm not going to try the program again though until I can boot from the internal drive because if TB is at least one the underlying problems, & if the new copy of the program is no better than the old one, I can't afford to have it mess up my external drive.

[ndebord]

At this point, I’ve moved 1 of my accounts over to SeaMonkey, which went smoothly, thank goodness. Do you know if SM has regular security updates & if it’s considered to be a secure program? If so, that’s probably what I’ll switch to.


Gail,

SeaMonkey has the same updates as FireFox and Thunderbird in terms of security fixes. Sometimes they are a little later, other times same release dates.

[Gail Sanders]

Gail —

In addition to other ideas, you could post in Snarkish (http://snarkish.com/), which includes the remnants of the CIS Mac Forum. Lots of Mac expertise over there.

Kathleen,

Thanks a lot for the link. I never used that forum as I didn't used to have a Mac.

[ndebord]

Some good news - I'm now using the external drive & I just downloaded a new Thunderbird.dmg file. Then I was able to open it up & copy the .app file to the Applications folder of both the internal & external drive! (It's great when things work as they're supposed to.) I'm not going to try the program again though until I can boot from the internal drive because if TB is at least one the underlying problems, & if the new copy of the program is no better than the old one, I can't afford to have it mess up my external drive.

Gail,

If you're worried about TB messing up your HD, then a portable app version may be one way to go:

http://www.freesmug.org/portableapps/thunderbird/

[Gail Sanders]

Sidney,

After another crash, I restored my system again (& got an extra backup drive to be on the safe side). The good news is that when I turned off Little Snitch, the crashes stopped. So, thanks very much for suggesting that one of the programs to protect against malware could be the problem.

Now, though, TB is getting mixed up about which account I'm writing from when I reply to email from 1 of the accounts. When I start a new email that account, the program knows which email address to use & the other accounts are fine. Do you have any idea about which setting might be causing the problem which only occurs when I reply to emails from that one account?

TIA,
G

[Gail Sanders]

Nick,

Thanks for the suggestion. At this point (at least for the past 2 days), the program is no longer crashing the system but I'll look into that in case the crashes start up again.

Gail,

If you're worried about TB messing up your HD, then a portable app version may be one way to go:

http://www.freesmug.org/portableapps/thunderbird/

[Gail Sanders]

That's good to know. I'm surprised though because isn't Seamonkey maintained by volunteers affiliated with the Mozilla Foundation while Firefox & TB are maintained by employees of Mozilla? If so, I'm surprised that they're able to come with security patches at close to the same time.

Gail,

SeaMonkey has the same updates as FireFox and Thunderbird in terms of security fixes. Sometimes they are a little later, other times same release dates.

[sidney]

Now, though, TB is getting mixed up about which account I'm writing from when I reply to email from 1 of the accounts

That doesn't ring a bell. Check the properties for each account and make sure that each has the correct settings in Default Identity and the correct Outgoing Server selected.

When you reply to a message the From box in the compose window should say an email address and then which account it is using. When you get the wrong one, is it showing the wrong account along with the wrong email address?

[ndebord]

That's good to know. I'm surprised though because isn't Seamonkey maintained by volunteers affiliated with the Mozilla Foundation while Firefox & TB are maintained by employees of Mozilla? If so, I'm surprised that they're able to come with security patches at close to the same time.

Gail,

From Netscape to the Mozilla Suite to Seamonkey. The developers split into two groups that I would characterize as the Young Turks (FireFox) and the Old Turks (SeaMonkey). When Mozilla (the company) decided to go with a standalone browser and a separate email client (Thunderbird), they refused to allow the Mozilla Suite followers to use the name as that was their company name and they didn't want confusion to reign. Forget that Mozilla Suite was the original. So those who continued to want a Netscape Communicator style Suite of programs split off and renamed the Mozilla Suite to Seamonkey. They all work off the same Gecko engine: usually FireFox is ahead of Seamonkey, but not by much. There any number of variations on the Gecko Engine out there, including my favorite K-Meleon and Camino for the Mac.

[Gail Sanders]

Sidney,

Yes, the account names are accurate. For the account which is having a problem with finding the correct email address to use, there are a few requirements for using its SMTP server including using it only if "Your Internet Service Provider's mailserver is unsuitable for technical reasons". So, for many years now, I've been using my ISP's SMTP server with no problem. At this point, I'll change the settings to use the SMTP server for the account which has been having problems to see if it makes a difference. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to wait till tomorrow to try that because even though I haven't used TB for several days, my Mac froze up again a few hours ago. So, it now looks like TB wasn't causing the freeze-ups after all.

However, I re-installed the latest OSX security update yesterday. That's the same update that I installed (along with the latest TB update) the day before the first freeze-up. So, it looks like that's the update underlying the freezeups, rather than the TB update. I went to MacFixit.com & saw lots of advice about what to do if OSX updates freexe your Mac so I'll try some of those suggestions next. I'm surprised though that the many Apple techs. I spoke to didn't mention any of those things.

In the meantime, I've been using webmail to access my email. After using Tapcis for many years & then TB more recently, webmail is really, really slow. But at least the email will still be there even if (or when) my computer crashes again...

If you have any other ideas about what I can check to find out why the settings I've used for a long time for outgoing mail are no longer working right (for 1 of the accounts), please let me know.

That doesn't ring a bell. Check the properties for each account and make sure that each has the correct settings in Default Identity and the correct Outgoing Server selected.

When you reply to a message the From box in the compose window should say an email address and then which account it is using. When you get the wrong one, is it showing the wrong account along with the wrong email address?

[ndebord]

Sidney,

Yes, the account names are accurate. For the account which is having a problem with finding the correct email address to use, there are a few requirements for using its SMTP server including using it only if "Your Internet Service Provider's mailserver is unsuitable for technical reasons". So, for many years now, I've been using my ISP's SMTP server with no problem. At this point, I'll change the settings to use the SMTP server for the account which has been having problems to see if it makes a difference. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to wait till tomorrow to try that because even though I haven't used TB for several days, my Mac froze up again a few hours ago. So, it now looks like TB wasn't causing the freeze-ups after all.

However, I re-installed the latest OSX security update yesterday. That's the same update that I installed (along with the latest TB update) the day before the first freeze-up. So, it looks like that's the update underlying the freezeups, rather than the TB update. I went to MacFixit.com & saw lots of advice about what to do if OSX updates freexe your Mac so I'll try some of those suggestions next. I'm surprised though that the many Apple techs. I spoke to didn't mention any of those things.

In the meantime, I've been using webmail to access my email. After using Tapcis for many years & then TB more recently, webmail is really, really slow. But at least the email will still be there even if (or when) my computer crashes again...

If you have any other ideas about what I can check to find out why the settings I've used for a long time for outgoing mail are no longer working right (for 1 of the accounts), please let me know.

In the short run, can you use an email extension for FF? Simple Mail?

[sidney]

If you have any other ideas about what I can check to find out why the settings I've used for a long time for outgoing mail are no longer working right (for 1 of the accounts), please let me know.

There is something that has been tickling in the back of my mind as if I've seen this before, but I can't yet grab hold of it.

Just to clarify what you are seeing: Is it the case that when you are looking at a mail from that account if you click on the Create a New Message toolbar icon, then the To field shows the correct address, but if you click on Reply then the From field shows the wrong address? When the From field shows the wrong address, is there an arrow on the right side of that field that when you click on it drops down a list of From addresses to select from, including the correct address? If all that is the case, what is the To address in the email that you are replying to, the email address of the correct account or the incorrect one?

[Gail Sanders]

Sidney,

Everything you mentioned is true. But I’m not sure what you mean when you ask which of the accounts is listed in the "To" address because the address listed there belongs to the person who sent the email I’m responding to. Please clarify what you mean. Thanks for thinking about this.

[Gail Sanders]

In the short run, can you use an email extension for FF? Simple Mail?

I've never heard of it before but after looking it up, the idea that folders could be saved into a flash drive sounds promising. That way when the computer crashes, I'd still have the data. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Gail Sanders]

There any number of variations on the Gecko Engine out there, including my favorite K-Meleon and Camino for the Mac.

Thanks for the summary of how the different programs relate to each other. I just looked at K-Meleon & it says it's lighter & more customizable than Firefox but what kinds of things does it omit that Firefox has? Also, I was surprised that the default interface looks more like IE than Firefox.

I tried Camino a couple of times but I didn't see any advantages to using it instead Firefox so I went back to FF.

[sidney]

I’m not sure what you mean when you ask which of the accounts is listed in the "To" address

Whoops, that was a mistype. I meant to type "From". So, if I understand you correctly, Create A New Message just works, but when you click on Reply then the From field shows the wrong address. Back to my questions:

1) When you click Reply and then the From field shows the wrong address, is there an arrow on the right side of that field that when you click on it drops down a list of From addresses to select from, including the correct address?

2) If the answer to #1 is yes to all that, here is another question: How is the email you are replying to addressed? That is, what is in the To field of the email that you are replying to? Is it the email address of the correct account or the incorrect one?

[ndebord]

I've never heard of it before but after looking it up, the idea that folders could be saved into a flash drive sounds promising. That way when the computer crashes, I'd still have the data. Thanks for the suggestion.

Gail,

All of this is short-term stuff, untill you either get TB (or SM) working to your satisfaction or move on to a different email program.

As for the other Gecko engines (browsers), that is just stuff to contemplate down the road. FireFox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey are the mainstream Gecko products out there with a track record and enough people using them to help if you run into problems, like now...

[Gail Sanders]

Sidney,

1) When you click Reply and then the From field shows the wrong address, is there an arrow on the right side of that field that when you click on it drops down a list of From addresses to select from, including the correct address?

2) If the answer to #1 is yes to all that, here is another question: How is the email you are replying to addressed? That is, what is in the To field of the email that you are replying to? Is it the email address of the correct account or the incorrect one?

The answer to #1 is yes. The emails that I'm replying to are addressed correctly & are downloaded into the correct accounts. The problem only appears sometimes when I reply from one of the accounts (the one which has a different host from the others). When I used to use Mozilla, I had a different profile for each account but once I realized that they could be merged into one profile with TB, that's what I've been doing. One potential way to deal with this is to just doublecheck which email address is listed in the "from" field before sending emails from that account. It would be a nuisance but easier than using webmail. OTOH, I need to make sure the system isn't crashing every few days before I start using TB again.

After several reinstalls, it seems that Apple's latest security update is what's causing the crashes (but not the aberrations in TB). After speaking to an Apple tech who told me to reinstall the OS (again), then reinstall all my programs, & then copy over the data, I found some alternatives at http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20081013202627665 (thank goodness!). There are some suggestions of things to do if security updates prevent booting up or cause other symptoms. Have you ever run into problems with any of the security updates?

[sidney]

The problem only appears sometimes when I reply from one of the accounts (the one which has a different host from the others)
Is that sometimes you get a message with which it always happens, or sometimes replying to a message will work correctly and sometimes replying to that same message will not work correctly? If it's the former, all I can think of is using View Message Source to compare messages that work with ones that don't and try to figure out what is common about each of those categories. If it is the latter, then I am mystified.
One potential way to deal with this is to just doublecheck which email address is listed in the "from" field before sending emails from that account.
It may well come to that.

Have you ever run into problems with any of the security updates?
No, I've been lucky with that. The suggestions in that MacFixit article look good, at least well worth a try.

[Gail Sanders]

Is that sometimes you get a message with which it always happens, or sometimes replying to a message will work correctly and sometimes replying to that same message will not work correctly? If it's the former, all I can think of is using View Message Source to compare messages that work with ones that don't and try to figure out what is common about each of those categories. If it is the latter, then I am mystified.


Sidney,

I noticed that replies to emails in the Inbox of the problematical account had the correct address in the From field while replies to some of the emails in the subfolders did not. But that pattern isn’t consistent & I think it was probably caused by the fact that there are so few emails in the Inbox since I recently cleared it out. In the meantime, I’m now using Tapcis again since I still have a Compuserve account! It’s a relief the way it works the way it’s supposed to every time. But, I'll keep a eye on the source code in TB's message headers (when I use it) to see if I can find any patterns. Thanks again for your suggestions.

[sidney]

I noticed that replies to emails in the Inbox of the problematical account had the correct address in the From field while replies to some of the emails in the subfolders did not

How do emails end up in the subfolders? Is it possible that they arrived in some other account and you moved them to a subfolder of that account? Or are you using Thunderbird's message filter facility to move them automatically?

[Gail Sanders]

How do emails end up in the subfolders? Is it possible that they arrived in some other account and you moved them to a subfolder of that account? Or are you using Thunderbird's message filter facility to move them automatically?

Sidney,

I've moved all the emails into the subfolders so that's a good point, especially since some of them did arrive into 1 of the accounts & I moved them into another one. But I did that several weeks ago & the erroneous "from" addresses have been from more recent emails. In any case, I can't doublecheck the full headers for the emails because Thunderbird is now acting as it did at the beginning of this thread, showing text only without formatting in some areas & omitting important sections (including email addresses) in others. So, I'm giving up on it for now.

I did try SeaMonkey & that had fewer problems but it's also eliminating formatting & showing text-only in certain areas. So, I'm concluding that whatever it is that has caused OSX to freeze-up & have to be reinstalled 8 or 9 times in the past few weeks (I've lost track at this point) is probably what's behind the TB & SM problems. I've decided to go back to an XP system since I can't keep reinstalling OSX every few days. Once I have everything set up, I might give TB another try to see if I have any better luck with the Windows version since I used that for years without a problem. At this point though, I haven't decided.

In any case, thanks very much for your suggestions & for trying to get to the root of the TB problems I've been having.