This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Hierdie gesprek is in die argief. Vra asseblief 'n nuwe vraag as jy hulp nodig het.

After manually migrating Thunderbird, mails are empty.

  • 4 antwoorde
  • 1 het hierdie probleem
  • 19 views
  • Laaste antwoord deur Edward256

Edward256
Edward256
more options

Hi. With a new computer, I manually migrate my profile from a Windows computer to an Ubuntu 14.04 computer (standard copy). I copy everything, with the exception of ".default\Mail\pop.gmail.com\Inbox" because when it got to 62% of 485MB, it says "Error: Cannot read C:\...\Inbox". When I open Thunderbird, all mails that I have saved in the Gmail Inbox are empty. I can read all the other saved mails in Local Main, and one other account, but not in Gmail. I've tried any commands that sounds like downloading or syncing messages, but no luck. Only recent mails since the migration seems to have content. Please help? Got a few bills sitting there.

/Edward

Hi. With a new computer, I manually migrate my profile from a Windows computer to an Ubuntu 14.04 computer (standard copy). I copy everything, with the exception of ".default\Mail\pop.gmail.com\Inbox" because when it got to 62% of 485MB, it says "Error: Cannot read C:\...\Inbox". When I open Thunderbird, all mails that I have saved in the Gmail Inbox are empty. I can read all the other saved mails in Local Main, and one other account, but not in Gmail. I've tried any commands that sounds like downloading or syncing messages, but no luck. Only recent mails since the migration seems to have content. Please help? Got a few bills sitting there. /Edward

Gekose oplossing

I copy everything, with the exception of ".default\Mail\pop.gmail.com\Inbox" because when it got to 62% of 485MB, it says "Error: Cannot read C:\...\Inbox".

That folder will have 2 files. inbox and inbox.MSF.

The MSF file is an index into the other which actually contains your mail. The MSF conains just enough information to fill the lists of mail in Thunderbird. It saves making accesses to the main store and slowing the user interface. Looks to me like you best look to fixing the issues with the main MBOX file that goes bad at 62%

I suggest you run some file diagnostics over your old hard drive. It clearly has issues. Before hand, you might try using the import export tool to export from your old windows installation in EML format. That might recover things that will be lost when the disk repair occurs.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/

Lees dié antwoord in konteks 👍 1

All Replies (4)

Zenos
Zenos
more options

How is Ubuntu accessing the c:\ drive? Or do you mean that its the original copying of the data from c:\ (presumably within Windows) when it stops copying?

Where are you copying from and to? A shared partition/folder? An external drive? Would a copy yo a local file be more successfully?

Do you run this account with complete download of messages, or headers only? I'm wondering if the download effort is necessary or even useful; in general you'd expect the POP account's folders to hold complete copies of the messages.

Edward256
Edward256 Vraag-eienaar
more options

Well, I haven't shared the C drive from the old Windows computer, but did share my home folder on the new computer. So from the old Windows I drag and drop from C:\Documents and Settings\Edward\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxx.default\ to \\192.168...\lhome\.thunderbird\xxx.default\. As I'm doing that, the file Inbox stops at 62% with an error. Everything else gets copied over without problems.

I later try to copy this Inbox file within the same computer (eg C to E) and it still stops at 62%. Knowing some programming I try to copy one byte at a time and it stops at 62%, this time presenting the Windows Error Code 0x17.

Thing is with Gmail is that I believe Thunderbird does download the latest emails from Gmail, meaning that it holds some sort of checksum on the whole inbox so I don't get the whole thing, and whatever I delete in Thunderbird doesn't get deleted from Gmail. There are some messages I do move to the Local Main, but some that I feel are important I keep in the Gmail Inbox.

Matt
Matt
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

Gekose oplossing

I copy everything, with the exception of ".default\Mail\pop.gmail.com\Inbox" because when it got to 62% of 485MB, it says "Error: Cannot read C:\...\Inbox".

That folder will have 2 files. inbox and inbox.MSF.

The MSF file is an index into the other which actually contains your mail. The MSF conains just enough information to fill the lists of mail in Thunderbird. It saves making accesses to the main store and slowing the user interface. Looks to me like you best look to fixing the issues with the main MBOX file that goes bad at 62%

I suggest you run some file diagnostics over your old hard drive. It clearly has issues. Before hand, you might try using the import export tool to export from your old windows installation in EML format. That might recover things that will be lost when the disk repair occurs.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/

Edward256
Edward256 Vraag-eienaar
more options

Well, something happened... With the Export / Import, I got the saved mail onto the new computer. Except it is now 14MB, but all that I had saved is there.

Thanks.