Yeah, what the hell is up with Thunderbird? This
Just happened to me yesterday. I’m searching my
system and I can’t find “Inbox.msf.” So, now what do
I do? I like Firefox, but Thunderbird has some
serious annoyances. Good luck, Mozilla.

Erik: Check your Account Settings to see where your mail is stored. Navigate there through explorer and you’ll find Inbox.msf there.

You’re a life saver. Just had the same problem, and figured I needed to rebuild my inbox files, but I wasn’t sure.

Thanks!

Exactly the same problem. What the hell. This drives me crazy. I will get back to my good old mozilla

Thank you so much!!! File-.Compact Folders also helped a lot…

Thanks – worked great!!

Had the same problem. Thanks for the tip!!

hey, i have the same problem and it works via your suggestions.

thanks, pal

also happened to me a few times, seems like it always relates to the size of the inbox. when inbox gets close to 2GB it stops thunderbird from getting new mail.
had the same problem with previous versions too.

Great job!

MS Outlook also has a 2GB problem but for the whole PST file. What’s the mysterious 2GB threshold all about?

Bradley: I really have no idea. I wouldn’t know either because I left Outlook ages back! This page has links to some information.

Where does the mail from my in-box go after one month? Is it automatically archived somewhere or does it get erased?

Howard: It doesn’t budge. It stays in the Inbox. :)

If you use the “Grouped By Sort” feature, it is then put into the “Old Mail” section, but it does not physically leave the Inbox and is not automatically archived.

Removing inbox.msf worked nice for me also.

But doing so I got a new problem. When I close TB now, I get an annoying pop up window which tells me that thunderbird.exe encountered a problem and must be closed and whether I want to send a report or no to microsoft….

What can i do about these annoying pop-up windows?

Thanks
Peter

Peter: I doubt that has anything to do with removing inbox.msf… I’ve not had that problem. Perhaps a third-party application interfering?

Thanks so much for the tip, it was a great help.

thank you – it has just helped me out too. Easy to follow, and it worked!

Howard,
it’s a late reply but might be helpful to others as well.
Some weeks after my emails disapeared the first time I’ve found the following:
My virus scanner program found a virus in my Inbox file and put it into quarantine – and voilà – my inbox is empty next time I opened it.
1. Check the log of your virus scanner if the file Inbox is quarantined (or even removed!)
2. Restore the file and clean it up from mails with attachments (of course do not open any suspicious file, do only delete the mail!!).
3. To prevent from happening again set the full system virus scan to exclude the directory storing the Inbox file. Don’t turn off scanning in- and out-going email.

Good luck!

Thanks for this tip… I had a problem where Thunderbird had started showing 2x, 5x, even 100x the number of messages that were actually there. I also had the problem you mentioned, that the “get mail” button (or F5) didn’t work; but “Get all new messages” did. I was seriously concerned about the safety of my email data.
Upgrading to TB 1.0.7 or 1.5b2 didn’t fix the problem.
I took your advice and deleted Inbox.msf. Voila! Things are back to normal. Thank you!

you are a genius my friend. sheer genius.

Oh thank you!!! I went to several sites and none of the explanations/directions were clear.

Weird thing was is I looked at my account settings to where everything is stored and the folder was just not appearing where Thunderbird said it was when I was browsing from “My Computer”.

In the end I got to it by hitting the browse button (in thunderbird) under account settings. Then when it showed the location I right clicked and hit the browse option. Viola!

Thank you so much again. Our business was hurting because of this wacked bug.

For future reference, you probably have system files and folders hidden, which is why you could not browse to the location Thunderbird said it was in. Go to My Computer, click on Tools-Folder Options. In the View tab, make sure Show Hidden Files and Folders is checked and you should be able to browse to the location.

I wanted to thank beatle, who posted on 8 September 2005 a reply to “Howard” which helped me get started on restoring my Inbox, which had disappeared during an antivirus scan. I would not have known where to begin, otherwise. I contacted the company that had produced my antivirus program and they gave me a little program that unscrambled my quarantined Inbox. They gave me good step-by-step directions to do that and restore the Inbox, too. It was a great relief.

Thanks,
I was tired of hearing about compacting folders which I did. This problem was causing me lots of problems. You are Awesome!!!!

Hello, I have a different problem with my Thunderbird. It occurs in recent AND the newest version. It GETS mail no problem, but when I got to view mail, deleat or move emails to folders, , I may get through 4 keystrokes or more of the task and then I get a hangup and my HD indicator runs constantly for almost a minute!! Once the HD stops, Thunderbird will alow me to read a few more pieces of mail then it will lock again.

Here is what I tried…. I made a NEW folder as a subfolder to INBOX and called it TEMP inbox. Then Thunderbird was unlocked to run, I copied about 45 pieces of mail from INBOX to TEMPinbox. That opperation worked fine, and the files moved over correctly. Once inside this TEMPinbox folder, I could read my mail, move to folders with NO hangups!!! So, whats up with the INBOX that I get glitches that hault the program and cause continuous HD opperation that DOESN’T occur when inside the subfolder ?

ALSO, I have tried reloading the program, going into system restore to a few days BEFORE this problem started etc. But none works to correct it… IF I deleate the program and reload from scratch, won’t I LOOSE all my email and folder system too ???

Hope this explains things enough so someone who will know what this all about. I have used Thunderbird for a LONG while now and love it along with its companion browser which have never given a problem until now…

Thanks so much in advance for the help.

…..Gary

Gary: Do you compact your folders regularly? File -> Compact Folders

Thank you so much. Your solution is exactly what I needed. All of a sudden my Inbox summary pane stopped showing anything. Even though the left pane would indicate that I got n number of new mail, the summary pane would be blank. I panniced because I have been using this for well over a year and all of a sudden why is it crapping out on me. I tried compacting the folder, that worked somewhat by showing me the summary right after a compaction but when I go to some other folder and come back, the summary would go blank again.

I tried your solution and it seems to have fixed the problem. Thanks again.

This solution didn’t work for me, but I have found one that does. I have two POP3 accounts in Local Folders -> Inbox.

The solution that worked for me is: Tools -> Account Settings -> Server Settings -> Advanced -> “Inbox for a different account” -> “Local Folders”.

Thank you, Agustin (and thank you jackol’s den)!

I also have 2 POP accounts. The trick of deleting the Inbox.msf file didn’t work, even when I tried deleting both of them. Thank goodness I read to the end of this thread and tried Agustin’s fix. It works now!

Thank You, Thank You, Thank you!!!!!! I can not say it enough! Especially to Mikhail (November 9, 2004 post) & Agustin (September 14, 2006 post)! This has been driving me crazy ever since I upgraded to Vista HPE (64bit) . Never had it happen with XP. Mozilla’s forums have been useless!!!! Finally searched Googled and found this thread.
Thanks for saving my sanity & my emails! : )

Worked for me to delete the inbox.msf file. Ironically mine said it was 0kb but deleting worked. First time it loaded after I deleted the file it took 20 seconds or so – I guess it was rebuilding data – but the next load, it was back to normal.

My Get Mail button had ceased to work. I could only get my mail by clicking on the right-hand side drop down menu and clicking get all messages. It fixed this as well.

Thanks Agustin ,
I too having two POP3 accounts in my Thunderbird. Your Solution Perfectly worked. Thank you so much. Thansk to Jackol too..

Regards,
Khadar.

I have the same problem, but mine is more pronounced. I regularly download 1-5K messages per hour. I’ve found the only solution is to use a paperweight to hold down the enter key while downloading messages, shut down Thunderbird and delete the Inbox.msf file. I’ve tried changing the timing of downloads, prioritizing pop traffic , removing filters, removing virus checkers etc etc none of which help.

I hope changing msf data storage gets off the “wish list” and into production with Thunderbird 3.0.

I’m wondering if this is a newer more pronounced version of an old bug. Deleting the Inbox.msf file doesn’t seem to fix the problem, when you re-open Thunderbird it still keeps giving the error message as it loads new messages. I’m on OSX 10.4.11, perhaps this is an OS-speciic version of the problem?

Deleteing the .msf files worked for me. I found that I had multiple Inbox.msf files as well as multiples of all the others (Sent.msf, Draft.msf, etc) I deleted them all. Now there is one of each and Thunderbird is working well. I’m not sure if the multiple files were important but thought I would throw it out there for those with superior knowledge and intellect. Many THANKS to all that helped with the fix.

I have added to Thuderbird, a new Pop account in addition to my default account. No probs with default account. Sending mail with new account is fine but when I hit get mail, i get error message :saying Thunderbird has stopped working and then it shuts down. Please help!