I have a virtual machine (alphatauri) running on my server with my thunderbird folder. In my desktop computer I mount the thunderbird folder in fstab with
I have Opensuse 15.5 in my desktop computer and opensuse 15.4 in the virtual machine.
Usually I use thunderbird from My desktop computer, but when I’m away sometimes I enter to my virtual machine and I can use thunderbird there. I did so this past weekend and (i didn’t notice then) I left thunderbird open in the virtual machine.
I have been using thunderbird since sunday evening in my desktop computer and it has been working, but today I had some updates in my desktop computer, one of them was thunderbird. The system ask for a reboot and I did so, then when I opened thunderbird after the reboot ALL my folders were lost. This is how it looks like
I thougnt my .thunderbird folder may have been unmounted but it is not the case, and then I thought it could be hidden in configuration but I marked all that and I can see any folder
Then I closed TB in my dektop computer and went to the virtual machine to see i I could open it there… and then was when I noticed I had left it opened. It was working, showing all recent mail. I closed it, opened it again … and same issue, folders are hidden.
But they must be there because if I click “get messages” it reports its donwnloading messages from each of the (several) accounts I have configured.
Any idea what may have happened and how to solve it?
I think I missed some info:
In my desktop PC I was using … or it was update to 115.5.2.lp155.1.1-x86-54 from mozilla repo, but when the issue appeared I change to the last version from opensuse (115.5.0-150200.8.139.1) with same results.
In my virtual machine I’m using 115.5.2-lp154.1.1 from mozilla repo
I have been testing and I can send mail… and then, after sending mail, closing TB open it again… my folders appear but I can’t show the unified folders (I use it instead of all folders from all my mail accounts)
I have two profiles, but I think one of them is an old one from one crash I had in TB and I restored in a new profile… but I left the old one there just in case
fernando@AlphaTauri:~> cd .thunderbird
fernando@AlphaTauri:~/.thunderbird> ls
04r74epm.perfil appreg console.log Crash Reports g13by0sl.default installs.ini Pending Pings profiles.ini
fernando@AlphaTauri:~/.thunderbird> du -sh *
50G 04r74epm.perfil
4,0K appreg
32K console.log
404K Crash Reports
22G g13by0sl.default
4,0K installs.ini
0 Pending Pings
4,0K profiles.ini
fernando@AlphaTauri:~/.thunderbird> ls -lh
total 416K
drwx------ 1 fernando users 4,4K dic 13 11:27 04r74epm.perfil
-rw-r--r-- 1 fernando users 335 dic 12 2005 appreg
-rw-r----- 1 fernando users 30K feb 11 2020 console.log
drwx------ 1 fernando users 4,6K dic 13 10:21 Crash Reports
drwx------ 1 fernando users 2,8K dic 4 2017 g13by0sl.default
-rw-r--r-- 1 fernando users 44 ago 30 2019 installs.ini
drwx------ 1 fernando users 0 nov 29 23:58 Pending Pings
-rw-r--r-- 1 fernando users 223 ago 30 2019 profiles.ini
fernando@AlphaTauri:~/.thunderbird> cat profiles.ini
[Profile1]
Name=perfil
IsRelative=1
Path=04r74epm.perfil
Default=1
[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=g13by0sl.default
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1
Version=2
[Install3DDF446CE6CB1A45]
Default=04r74epm.perfil
fernando@AlphaTauri:~/.thunderbird>
From TB troubleshhoting information it opens 04r74epm.perfil. And The other one (g13by0sl.default) seems not to be used since 2017.
Now I had restored the folders, and I think I can see all messages but I can’t enable the unified folders view
I have solved the Unified Folders issue. What was happening was that I enabled the unified folders vie (selected the option) and it was automatically disabled with no warning. here I found the solution. I had to delete the smart mailboxes folder and start TB again, then I selected the unified folders vie and voila! they were there again.
I think it is all working again.
In this instance I don’t understand the point of running a virtual machine on your desktop, or is it because you can, or do you believe it provides you some kind of a more secure environment?
The virtual machine is not running on my desktop computer, is running in a server 365/24, so I can access my files and also my TB messages from anywhere.
So, let me see if I’ve got this straight, you use other desktop machines (local) and a desktop computer (remote) to access a desktop OS running in a virtual machine on your server so you can access your TB email client running on the server? Okay, isn’t it just like us admin to complicate the simple…
Why not use IMAP on all the other machines (including the remote desktop) and use TB w/POP3 on the server to save emails offsite and eliminate all the remote TB server accesses and future similar inevitable folder issues?
Or are you hosting your own email on your server?
ha, ha, yeah, you are almost right.
Yes, the good solution is to have a IMAP server, but last time I checked out I thought I will take me a while to configure it and migrate my mail to it, so it is in the todo list.
The solution I’m using is really a quick fix. I have a proliant server at home with ESXi and several VMs, a couple of them are always running as they are servers and I have some others I use occasionally. I had a opensuse VM to use at home from a old laptop, using it as a dumb terminal. And I had the mail folder of thunderbird in my desktop computer, so I thought “I can move the mail folder to the VM” an so I did, I move the folder as it was, I let the VM running and mounted the folder in my desktop computer using sshfs in fstab. The whole process took me … 5 minutes? and it works. I use tb usually from my desktop computer but I can use it connecting with x2go from anywhere.
But yes, It may have problems. The current problem was produced because I open both TB at once (because i did not noticed I have left the one in the local machine opened). TB versions are the same or almost the same always, because they are upgraded from the mozilla repo, but two instances of the program using the same profile at once… bad thing.
