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Thunderbird 102.1.2: Saved Search folders display 0 results

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  • Last reply by Jimadine

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I upgraded from Thunderbird 91.12.0 to 102.1.2 one week ago. Windows 10 21H2. I have many Saved Search folders. Since I upgraded when I click on any of them, no results (messages) are listed. If I right-click any of them, and left-click 'Properties', against 'Select folders to search' it now states '0 folders chosen', which is unexpected. I can fix this by manually re-choosing the folders for each one, but this shouldn't be necessary.

I did make a backup of my Thunderbird profile before the upgrade. I tried restoring one of the *.msf files from this backup to see if that would resolve it for the one saved search folder...but no.

Has anyone else come across this problem, and/or know a solution?

I upgraded from Thunderbird 91.12.0 to 102.1.2 one week ago. Windows 10 21H2. I have many Saved Search folders. Since I upgraded when I click on any of them, no results (messages) are listed. If I right-click any of them, and left-click 'Properties', against 'Select folders to search' it now states '0 folders chosen', which is unexpected. I can fix this by manually re-choosing the folders for each one, but this shouldn't be necessary. I did make a backup of my Thunderbird profile before the upgrade. I tried restoring one of the *.msf files from this backup to see if that would resolve it for the one saved search folder...but no. Has anyone else come across this problem, and/or know a solution?

Chosen solution

This is resolved. After some googling, I inspected the file virtualFolders.dat in my pre-102, backed-up Thunderbird profile. Comparing this to the 102 copy of virtualFolders.dat, which was populated with only a few lines†, I noticed a difference in the form of the email account references:

Old: mailbox://myusername@pop.mail.yahoo.co.uk

New: mailbox://myusername%40yahoo.co.uk@pop.mail.yahoo.com

†These few lines only existed because, after encountering this issue, I manually set the folders on a few of the Saved Searches. This turned out to be useful in terms of identifying the differences in the form of the account reference seemingly changed/required by Thunderbird 102.

The fix was very simple, but obviously relies on having a pre-102 backup copy of your profile (or at least, virtualFolders.dat):

  1. Make a backup of your current profile, in case things go awry. Example path to profile: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\8tbwqop8.default
  2. Locate the virtualFolders.dat file from the pre-102 backup (NOT the backup from step 1)
  3. Make a copy of virtualFolders.dat file from step 2 and open the copy in an editor like Notepad++
  4. Find and replace the old account references with the new, as above
  5. Save the file
  6. Copy the file to your current profile e.g. C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\8tbwqop8.default
  7. Open Thunderbird and check that Saved Search folders show messages i.e. that the issue is resolved
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Chosen Solution

This is resolved. After some googling, I inspected the file virtualFolders.dat in my pre-102, backed-up Thunderbird profile. Comparing this to the 102 copy of virtualFolders.dat, which was populated with only a few lines†, I noticed a difference in the form of the email account references:

Old: mailbox://myusername@pop.mail.yahoo.co.uk

New: mailbox://myusername%40yahoo.co.uk@pop.mail.yahoo.com

†These few lines only existed because, after encountering this issue, I manually set the folders on a few of the Saved Searches. This turned out to be useful in terms of identifying the differences in the form of the account reference seemingly changed/required by Thunderbird 102.

The fix was very simple, but obviously relies on having a pre-102 backup copy of your profile (or at least, virtualFolders.dat):

  1. Make a backup of your current profile, in case things go awry. Example path to profile: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\8tbwqop8.default
  2. Locate the virtualFolders.dat file from the pre-102 backup (NOT the backup from step 1)
  3. Make a copy of virtualFolders.dat file from step 2 and open the copy in an editor like Notepad++
  4. Find and replace the old account references with the new, as above
  5. Save the file
  6. Copy the file to your current profile e.g. C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\8tbwqop8.default
  7. Open Thunderbird and check that Saved Search folders show messages i.e. that the issue is resolved