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TB deletes email if save/send fails due to network connectivity

  • 1 cavab
  • 3 have this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by Matt

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Last night I wrote up a long email on an IMAP Gmail account in TB, but my network was down while writing it and TB couldn't save to drafts while composing. It popped up a dialog informing of me of this, giving me only two options - Retry or Cancel.

I chose Retry a few times with no luck, then figured I would go back to finishing my email and would try again when done. However, I couldn't continue typing the email with the dialog box up, so hit Cancel to get rid of it. But this closed my entire compose window and I lost 30m of work typing it up. Not saved to drafts or anything else.

I know TB can't save an IMAP email to the remote drafts folder if there's no network connectivity, but for the love of god please don't create a situation where the only options are to leave the Retry/Cancel dialog box open and blocking the compose window, or hitting cancel and losing your entire message. Maybe a "Try again later" option that unblocks the compose window without closing it, or something.

I love Firefox and Thunderbird and everything you guys do for the web, but this issue has got me walking on eggshells with TB now.

Last night I wrote up a long email on an IMAP Gmail account in TB, but my network was down while writing it and TB couldn't save to drafts while composing. It popped up a dialog informing of me of this, giving me only two options - Retry or Cancel. I chose Retry a few times with no luck, then figured I would go back to finishing my email and would try again when done. However, I couldn't continue typing the email with the dialog box up, so hit Cancel to get rid of it. But this closed my entire compose window and I lost 30m of work typing it up. Not saved to drafts or anything else. I know TB can't save an IMAP email to the remote drafts folder if there's no network connectivity, but for the love of god please don't create a situation where the only options are to leave the Retry/Cancel dialog box open and blocking the compose window, or hitting cancel and losing your entire message. Maybe a "Try again later" option that unblocks the compose window without closing it, or something. I love Firefox and Thunderbird and everything you guys do for the web, but this issue has got me walking on eggshells with TB now.

All Replies (1)

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for safety's sake, change the draft folder Tools menu (alt+T) account settings > copies and folders to drafts on local folders.

For the longer term, I suggest you file a bug in Bugzilla for this undesirable situation. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/