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Local folder is stuck building summary since last time messages from inbox where moved there: no other operation such as repairing can be done.

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

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A few days ago i moved a few emails from inbox to a local folder, as i do tens of time everyday. The operation got stuck, as it sometimes happens -- browsing through emails i only see the body of the last email i was looking at before moving them to the local folder. So i closed TB, as i always do in those situations Except that this time as i access the local folder i cannot see most of the emails. I try to repair the folder and get the message that another operation is running. I try later, the same. I realise that the local folder is stuck building the summary, so nothing else can be done. I delete the local folder msf file and relaunch TB: same as before I delete the inbox msf file: same as before. I still cannot see the emails in the local folder and cannot run any other operation as it is constantly busy with the summary. Many thanks!

A few days ago i moved a few emails from inbox to a local folder, as i do tens of time everyday. The operation got stuck, as it sometimes happens -- browsing through emails i only see the body of the last email i was looking at before moving them to the local folder. So i closed TB, as i always do in those situations Except that this time as i access the local folder i cannot see most of the emails. I try to repair the folder and get the message that another operation is running. I try later, the same. I realise that the local folder is stuck building the summary, so nothing else can be done. I delete the local folder msf file and relaunch TB: same as before I delete the inbox msf file: same as before. I still cannot see the emails in the local folder and cannot run any other operation as it is constantly busy with the summary. Many thanks!

All Replies (4)

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re :moved a few emails from inbox to a local folder

I'm presuming you are talking about moving emails from an IMAP mail account folder over to a folder in 'Local Folders' mail account.

Suggest you synchronise folders for offline use then perform the copying to 'Local Folders' mail account whilst in 'Offline' mode. It might help to improve the process because whilst you are getting copies, it is possible the imap folder is auto synchronising with server. It is also possible you have an AV product scanning as well.

Exiting Thunderbird whilst emails are in process of moving is not something I would advise doing.

Have you made a backup of your profile or mail acocunt etc ?

Do you compact your eg: Inbox on a regular basis to remove all traces of 'marked as deleted' emails?

When you copy emails over to a folder in 'Local Folders' mail account, are you always moving to the same folder or do you have several folders in Local Folders account for organising emails? Advise you use various folders in order to keep file size reduced.

re :I still cannot see the emails in the local folder Exit Thunderbird. re : Folder in Local Folders which should contain all those emails. Open the mbox file in 'Local Folders' mail account using a text editor program like Notepad2. Emails are written one after the other in the order they were put in that file. Oldest will be at the top. Can you see all of those emails?

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Hi Toad-Hall, thanks for the quick reply and sorry for the double posting. This was clearly a mistake due to the fact that i was not receiving the email to confirm the post. Apologies for any inconvenience.

In order:

Yes, i am moving emails from an IMAP inbox to a folder on the hard drive

Yes, i compact online folders regularly

No, i have many folders, so now i am discussing what happened with one specific local folder X

Yes, i can still all the emails in the folder file, which is nearly 200MB

Thanks for all other suggestions.

Any idea about how to solve this current issue? I have being using TB for nearly 15 years on different OS, but have not experienced this before. By the way, i am currently on a Mac OS.

Looking forward to receiving some suggestions on how to sort this hung email transfer. I badly need to access some of these emails to reply from there.

Many thanks regards

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re :Yes, i am moving emails from an IMAP inbox to a folder on the hard drive

So, you are not moving these emails to another mail account eg: 'Local Folders' mail account which is external to imap mail account but still within the Thunderbird profile folder and stored on your computer.

Do I understand correctly that you are moving the emails completely out of Thunderbird to an external folder on the computer. Is this because you have setup the 'Local Folder' mail account in a different location or moved the Profile?

Please state the process you are using to do this 'moving'.

Usually you select emails and use 'Save As' or 'Save selected messages' in eg: eml format, to another folder outside of Thunderbird profile folder.

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I've had a search around and discovered this : http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=145767&highlight=building+summary+file+inbox

person called a9909 had Thunderbird stuck on building summary file.

the advise was to delete this file: compreg.dat in the profile dir. and thisresolved that issue allowing access again.

Exit thunderbird Access profile make a copy of 'compreg.dat' and store on desktop - just in case :) delete 'compreg.dat' file.

Start Thunderbird.