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A folder name error shut down copies to a new folder. How to fix?

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 28 views
  • Last reply by Zenos

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I created a new folder then tried copying some other folders. But one of the subfolders being copied contained a "." in the name. This caused a copy error and disabled the new folder (under Archives). All copying to Archives is now blocked. I tried clicking on Properties | General Info | Repair Folder, but this did nothing. (TB 24.1.1 on Win 7, Gateway 64-bit).

I created a new folder then tried copying some other folders. But one of the subfolders being copied contained a "." in the name. This caused a copy error and disabled the new folder (under Archives). All copying to Archives is now blocked. I tried clicking on Properties | General Info | Repair Folder, but this did nothing. (TB 24.1.1 on Win 7, Gateway 64-bit).

All Replies (4)

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moving to the Thunderbird product queue

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the-edmeister What happened? Was part of your reply cut off? I don't know what the "product queue" means. Does it mean I need to look somewhere else for the answer?

Lloyd

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OK. I see that I posted the question under "Firefox". Sorry.

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The folders you see in Thunderbird are stored as files in your filesystem, so their names are obliged to comply with the file system's rules for file names. So periods, slashes, asterisks etc are disallowed, or if not actually forbidden, may give unexpected effects, as you have found. For instance, in windows and linux, "." means "this folder" and ".." means "this folder's parent folder".

Unfortunately Thunderbird doesn't try to validate folder names and doesn't warn you if you've created a name including any special characters.

So, bearing this in mind, make a note of the broken folder names as they appear in Thunderbird. Go to Help|Troubleshooting Information in Thunderbird, find "Profile directory" and click on "Open directory".

Now close Thunderbird.

Then, referring to your notes about the broken folder names, look through your profile and see if you can identify problematic file/folder names and repair them.