Thunderbird is not rebuilding the index properly
Some emails are showing up in search, but when I want to look at them they appear empty. I saw that one of the solutions was to delete the global-messages-db.sqlite file. I closed Thunderbird, then deleted the file. File size was approximately 1.2 GB. When I restarted Thunderbird, it said: indexing and some of the sent folders. Then it said: looking for items to index in one of my folders (or words to that effect). I left it for 48 hours and it never changed from there. I checked the new global file and it was only about 32K. I deleted it again, ran Thunderbird again and got the same result. New file was only 30K this time and activity manager showed all activites, (moving to folders, etc.) but the indexing did not advance. I had saved a copy of the old file and am using that now, but have the same problem as I had before, some mails appear empty when I click on them, although part of the content can be seen in the search window. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
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place an exception in your anti virus that stops it scanning the Thunderbird profile folder while they are in use. IT is becoming more common as anti virus products become more aggressive that actions in Thunderbird simply do not complete because the anti virus has locked the files so they can scan them. Each folder is another file and some of them can be quite large. That GB plus index cane form somewhere originally so I expect an inbox that is almost as large as compacting is also probably not completing making the problem worse.
Thank you, I will try it and let you know. Makes sense.. I'm using Windows Defender, and will let you know. I really appreciate your taking the time to answer. John
It seems to have worked perfectly. Thank you so much. For added security, I disconnected my computer from wired and wireless internet before creating the exception and removed the exception after indexing had finished. I will check if I can find all my mails over the next few days, but at least it didn't get stuck like it used to. thanks again for the great help!
johnserr said
It seems to have worked perfectly. Thank you so much. For added security, I disconnected my computer from wired and wireless internet before creating the exception and removed the exception after indexing had finished. I will check if I can find all my mails over the next few days, but at least it didn't get stuck like it used to. thanks again for the great help!
Unless you leave the exception in place the data will get out of sync again. I suggest you ask those who provide your anti virus product about providing a copy that does not need an exception. Or just leave it there permanently.
Won't this allow virus' to be downloaded? I'm using Windows Defender from Windows 10. I was making an exception to the whole folder. Should I make an exception just for the global-messages-db.sqlite file? Thanks for all the help!
I do not use defender, so can not speak to the exact functions. But you need to have everything in the mail and IMAP mail folders also excluded.
As for the global index file, that would be similar to you putting an exception in for a notepad file you keep phone numbers in. If they has a virus, your problems would be much much worse than that because they are not executable files. Likewise it is almost impossible to get a virus from an email in Thunderbird, even if the message contains one. Thunderbird does not execute script in the message, so the virus has no was to run. If it is in an attachment, an good anti virus will scan it as soon as the copy is placed in the temp folder when you select to open it. (If defender does not do that, then your security solution is not sufficient for your needs.) When the copy is scanned the anti virus will block access to it and remove it. So your protected. Email scanning is mostly smoke an mirrors to make the consumer pay for what they think is more. In fact it is more often than not less as it is not reliable so you get the aggravation and heartache that goes with it stopping you actually getting your mail.