Join the Mozilla’s Test Days event from Dec 2–8 to test the new Firefox address bar on Firefox Beta 134 and get a chance to win Mozilla swag vouchers! 🎁

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 Profile Appears to be Corrupted

  • 2 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by danno59

more options

Hi My Thunderbird profile appears to be corrupted. Some of the issues I've been having include: ~Thunderbird crashes for no apparent reason. ~Sometimes it re-downloads emails (old or new) in one or more POP & IMAP email accounts. Sometimes two copies of the same email are re-downloaded at once. ~Sometimes an attachment is corrupted and will not open or if it does some of it is missing or jumbled. I have to re-download them from the provider's site. The size of the attachment is the same whether it's corrupted or fine. ~Sometimes emails appear with no "header" information (Sender, Subject, Date etc) just a pile of garbled characters in the body. ~The RHS day's event view in calendar does not always update to the current date.

I have been using Thunderbird for over 15 years so my profile folder probably has a few files that may be corrupt or obsolete. Is there any way to clean out the profile folder of all non required/old files or to "repair" it by overwriting some of the files. Alternatively, can I move my current email accounts and local folders, contacts, calendar and filters to a new profile so as to have a "clean" start.

Thank you for your assistance!

Hi My Thunderbird profile appears to be corrupted. Some of the issues I've been having include: ~Thunderbird crashes for no apparent reason. ~Sometimes it re-downloads emails (old or new) in one or more POP & IMAP email accounts. Sometimes two copies of the same email are re-downloaded at once. ~Sometimes an attachment is corrupted and will not open or if it does some of it is missing or jumbled. I have to re-download them from the provider's site. The size of the attachment is the same whether it's corrupted or fine. ~Sometimes emails appear with no "header" information (Sender, Subject, Date etc) just a pile of garbled characters in the body. ~The RHS day's event view in calendar does not always update to the current date. I have been using Thunderbird for over 15 years so my profile folder probably has a few files that may be corrupt or obsolete. Is there any way to clean out the profile folder of all non required/old files or to "repair" it by overwriting some of the files. Alternatively, can I move my current email accounts and local folders, contacts, calendar and filters to a new profile so as to have a "clean" start. Thank you for your assistance!

All Replies (2)

more options

All of the issues you describe bar the last I would tend to attribute to an antivirus product if one is installed. They are well known to cause such issues.

The garbage appearance can usually be mitigated by right clicking the folder selecting properties and then the repair button (that rebuilds the message index only). But it is probably better in the long term to put an exception in your anti virus for scanning in the Thunderbird profile folder while it is running.

My understanding of the u0pdating of the day in calendar is it is a bug that is being addressed, until them you will need to restart Thunderbird each day to force the issue.

more options

Hi Matt

I have tried rebuilding the message index by using the repair folders button numerous times but there is no change in the displayed emails.

I will recheck my antivirus as it has been the same one I've used for years but maybe there has been a change due to updates. I will come back with an update after I've checked.

Re the calendar, thanks for the update.