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Some messages in Thunderbird are blank; suspect corrupt profile

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  • Last reply by david

La_Sombra
La_Sombra
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This morning, my wife's Thunderbird messages on version 102.11.2 were blank. They were IMAP messages on gmail, and a quick check showed the were not blank on the server. I tried deleting the entire gmail folder set from the IMAP mail directory, but that only made it worse. So I loaded my wife's profile from a backup. It solved the problem, but for how long? Another person with a similar issue previously noted that another symptom was a vast increase in storage requirements for the profile, and I saw that the profile was more than three times the size it used to be. There were a series of files named NSTMP in the gmail profile that aren't present on my profile. I deleted them from my wife's profile and recovered the storage, without changing the performance. I suspect the profile became corrupt and the corruption resulted in generation of multiple NSTMP files, and eventually started wiping out message content as well. Because I think the profile I restored was likely corrupt, I am guessing this problem will recur, unless someone can tell me how to fix it for good.

I'm running Windows 7 with all updates current as of the time MS stopped supporting it.

This morning, my wife's Thunderbird messages on version 102.11.2 were blank. They were IMAP messages on gmail, and a quick check showed the were not blank on the server. I tried deleting the entire gmail folder set from the IMAP mail directory, but that only made it worse. So I loaded my wife's profile from a backup. It solved the problem, but for how long? Another person with a similar issue previously noted that another symptom was a vast increase in storage requirements for the profile, and I saw that the profile was more than three times the size it used to be. There were a series of files named NSTMP in the gmail profile that aren't present on my profile. I deleted them from my wife's profile and recovered the storage, without changing the performance. I suspect the profile became corrupt and the corruption resulted in generation of multiple NSTMP files, and eventually started wiping out message content as well. Because I think the profile I restored was likely corrupt, I am guessing this problem will recur, unless someone can tell me how to fix it for good. I'm running Windows 7 with all updates current as of the time MS stopped supporting it.

All Replies (3)

david
david
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That sometimes happens when compacting files. You did the right thing in deleting them. Does it happen often? No, it's actually quite rare.

La_Sombra
La_Sombra Question owner
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Thanks, David!

Can't say for sure if it solved the problem, but I am hopeful that I guessed right. I think the problem has to do with the size of my wife's gmail inbox (rather large). I am advising her to move some messages to an offline location. My theory is that a large IMAP store keeps Thunderbird busy synchronizing and compacting, and that sooner or later such activity will generate an error.

If anyone wants to try to diagnose the specific cause, I have backups to before the time the nstmt files started accumulating, which I guess is when things began to unravel. If the problems recur, I will use one of them to restore the account, though I will have to preserve the local folders first. But if someone wants to try to find the root cause, let me know and I can put the files in a shared location.

Thanks again for the help. If the problem doesn't recur in a month, I'll mark this "solved."

david
david
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I hope all goes well.