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Despite proper settings and reinstallation, Tbird fails to get emails automatically without user intervention.

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  • Last reply by sfhowes

For many years Tbird worked great but recently on only one PC it no longer gets emails when they are received. I have to manually click 'Get messages'. I have triple checked that Server Settings -> Download new messages every 1 minute and Allow immediate notification when new messages arrive are checked. I have tried reinstalling Tbird. It works fine on my other PCs.

For many years Tbird worked great but recently on only one PC it no longer gets emails when they are received. I have to manually click 'Get messages'. I have triple checked that Server Settings -> Download new messages every 1 minute and Allow immediate notification when new messages arrive are checked. I have tried reinstalling Tbird. It works fine on my other PCs.

All Replies (5)

Is this for a POP or IMAP account? Are the other computers set to check every 1 min.? Does the result change if you set them all to, say, 10 min.?

This is an imap account on AOL. I don't think the value of the setting has anything to do with it. Normally and on the working computers, Thunderbird displays and reports the new email as soon as it is notified by the AOL server. My hunch is that something is corrupt in a settings file on this particular computer, but reinstalling did not clear the problem.

The setting could very well affect downloading if the server rejects too-frequent connections. I don't have any issues receiving mail on my AOL IMAP account (10 min. between checks, default server settings).

Reinstalling seldom fixes problems that are usually due to issues in the profile folder, which is not affected by reinstalling. You could add the account to a new profile and see if it performs better. To start Profile Manager, close TB, Winkey+R, type thunderbird.exe -p Your current profile is unaffected and can be accessed through PM.

Settings for AOL: imap.aol on port 993, SSL/TLS, smtp.aol.com on port 465, SSL/TLS; authentication = normal password or OAuth2, User Name = email address.

Thanks for your recommendations. I tried them and the result is the same.

-I was able to create a new profile. I connected to the same AOL email account. Using the default settings, it worked correctly. Messages received were displayed as received and in no case more than the 10 minute update period.

-I went back to the original (defective?) profile. I changed the 'Download new messages every xx minutes' to 10 minutes. Still no updates as new emails come in.

I could consider just using the new profile, but it does not include a ton of off-line folders I use all the time. Is there a way to bring them over automatically?

It can't be done automatically, but the manual method is straightforward. Launch TB in the old profile, Help/Troubleshooting Information, click Open Folder to open the profile in Explorer. Close TB, open the Mail/Local Folders subfolder, where you will see mbox files named after the folders, with no extension, along with .msf files with the same names as the mbox files. Also, .sbd (subdirectory) folders that also contain mbox/msf pairs. Copy the mbox files (not the msf files) to the Mail/Local Folders location in the new profile. When you start TB in the new profile, the folders should appear under Local Folders in the (left) Folder Pane.

There is an add-on that may be preferable if you have many subdirectories: ImportExportTools NG. Install in the new profile, then right-click Local Folders, ImportExportTools NG/Import mbox file, 'Import one or more mbox files', and navigate to Mail/Local Folders of the old profile.