This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Thunderbird spontaneously changes email dates to 31/12/1969

  • 1 phendula
  • 1 inayo le ngxaki
  • 1 view
  • Impendulo yokugqibela ngu Toad-Hall

more options

Running XP Pro SP3 on old (P4) box using Thunderbird 38.7.2

Selected "edit" - "find" - 'search messages" with successful results.

In "search messages" results, highlighted desired message (located in "inbox"), selected "move to" and selected desired folder.

Message appeared in desired folder as null line dated "31/12/1969 7:00 PM" Other messages in the folder remained unchanged and usable.

Null message can now be moved to different folders but date remains "31/12/1969 7:00 PM"

Further inspection using "edit" - "find" - 'search messages" stipulating date = "31/12/1969" reveals many messages have been re-dated with same results (blank line and message text and/or message source not available).

Subsequently updated Thunderbird to 45.3.0 - no changes!

Running XP Pro SP3 on old (P4) box using Thunderbird 38.7.2 Selected "edit" - "find" - 'search messages" with successful results. In "search messages" results, highlighted desired message (located in "inbox"), selected "move to" and selected desired folder. Message appeared in desired folder as null line dated "31/12/1969 7:00 PM" Other messages in the folder remained unchanged and usable. Null message can now be moved to different folders but date remains "31/12/1969 7:00 PM" Further inspection using "edit" - "find" - 'search messages" stipulating date = "31/12/1969" reveals many messages have been re-dated with same results (blank line and message text and/or message source not available). Subsequently updated Thunderbird to 45.3.0 - no changes!

All Replies (1)

more options

Sounds like you are experiencing some corruption. This can occur due to a lack of maintenance such as compacting on a regular basis or if another program like anti-virus messed up file etc.

Suggest you do Not compact folders just yet.

Select an email which shows wrong date. click on 'More' button and select 'View Source'

At the top, it may say 'From followed by a date Further down in the headers there should be a 'Date' with date. You may also see a line 'X-Apparently-To: with email address followed by date. Or look for the last 'Received: from' which may also contain a date. What do you see?