I bought a new USB drive (Verbatim Store 'n' Go 8GB) and copied my Thunderbird Portable folder onto it. But the program usually won't load first time, coming up with an error message. Now, if I keep trying it will eventually load, but not the next time. If I copy the folder to an old USB drive it works first time. If I copy the folder to my desktop - it works first time. If I copy it to the desktop of another computer - it works. So presumably this has to do with the USB drive, but can anyone suggest where I can look to find out how to fix it, please?
New: fb2kPortable / foobar2000 (Apr 18, 2024), Platform 29.4 (Apr 10, 2024)
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Where did you buy the drive from? If it was purchased online through e-bay or a similar service, there is a possibility that you were scammed and its either a non-working drive or has been hacked to report a false size.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
Bought online but from a store, not ebay etc. \capacity seems consistent -- at least it's got 4+ GB on it! And it works fine in all other apps.
the same problem with a 4 Gb, and is a recent problem because I have been using PTh since the beginning of PApps.com I think is a problem with the PTh version...
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report
I've just tried it with version 1.4.0.0 and still doesn't load from the Verbatim USB drive (which I also checked via system management tools), so possibly not a version problem.
I don't suppose it would be possible to quote the error message verbatim? Or buy a handful of 8GB drives to hand out to developers to test.
With 8GB the file system has to be FAT32 or something else that can handle volumes that big. But I'd expect one FAT32 volume to be the same as another. So as described there's insufficient information to begin guessing at the reason.
MC
Sorry, my budget can't quite run to distributing 8GB drives even to developers! But I can quote some information from the error message (which is under Windows XP Home with SP2)
The error program offers to send information to Microsoft as follows:
Error signature
EventType : InPageError P1 : c000009c P2 : 00000002
Error report contents
C:\DOCUME~1\JENNY~1.JEN\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER4de8.dir00\Thunderbird.exe.mdmp
C:\DOCUME~1\JENNY~1.JEN\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER4de8.dir00\appcompat.txt
(neither of which I can find on the hard drive...)
and event viewer shows:
Category: (100) Type: Error Event ID: 1000
Faulting application Thunderbird.exe, version 1.8.20071.3104, faulting module Thunderbird.exe, version 1.8.20071.3104, fault address 0x005d1e3e.
Second event in event viewer
Category: (100) Type: Error Event ID: 1005
Windows cannot access the file G:\PortableApps\ ThunderbirdPortable\App\thunderbird\thunderbird.exe for one of the following reasons: there is a problem with the network connection, the disk that the file is stored on, or the storage drivers installed on this computer; or the disk is missing. Windows closed the program thunderbird.exe because of this error.
Program: thunderbird.exe
File: G:\PortableApps\ThunderbirdPortable\App\thunderbird\thunderbird.exe
Additional Data
Error value: C000009C
Disk type: 2
----------------
File system on the flash drive is FAT32.
Have you run
from cmd.exe to see if that makes a difference? It will run better if you can do it before launching any programs or accessing any files from the drive.
The second error message suggests that something with the filesystem or driver is preventing Windows from accessing the entire program file. That's not a good sign, especially if you can copy the program file from there to somewhere else.
If you right click on that thunderbird.exe and choose properties then digital signatures, does the signature show up as okay?
See also http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884070
MC
Thanks for your suggestions. I ran chkdsk and it found no problems, so not unexpectedly Thunderbird still crashed out with the usual error messages. Then I looked at the (right click) properties of thunderbird.exe and can't see where to look at its digital signature (three tabs: general, version and compatibility and I can't see dig. signatures on any of them).
The Microsoft knowledge base article wasn't reassuring! But failing all else (bar replacing the flash drive) would it make sense to reformat the flash drive, and how would I get Windows XP to recognise it as new hardware so it reinstalls the drivers?
XP Home should be able to show a digital signature. Download one of the recent releases from this sight (SumatraPdfPortable would work), right click | properties on Sumatra_PDF_Portable_0.8_Rev_3.paf.exe and see if you don't get a digital signatures tab.
You could try deleting \PortableApps\ThunderbirdPortable\App and then re-installing the latest TBP package. Or download the eraser drop target and drop the \PortableApps\ThunderbirdPortable\App folder on it to make sure the files are wiped clean before reinstalling. (As long as you don't include \PortableApps\ThunderbirdPortable\Data your settings should be okay -- assuming they aren't as bad as the executable.)
The Windows page suggested
which searches out and marks bad sectors; but I'd expect the firmware in the USB drive to be doing that automatically. The fact that you can get TBP to load occasionally suggests that it can sometimes find the correct data and/or that it hasn't marked that block of data bad.
Maybe just reformatting will do it, but if there is a utility on the manufacturer's web site for re-initializing or upgrading the firmware or formatting that drive, I'd definitely go for it. If you still have problems, exchange it for a new one.
[Fixed your link; just > after the href="" - RM]
MC
... it still ain't working! All files and unused space passed through EraserPortable (I'm glad to have found that for other reasons), drive checked and formatted, and with only a new copy ThunderbirdPortable on it (it has a digital signature)... same old story and same old errors.
So thank you for all your time and effort, but I guess I'm now going to have to try to get this drive replaced with a new one.
Can I get round my problem by running Thunderbird on each of my computers but having my settings, emails etc stored on a flash drive? (not exactly portable, but does solve my immediate problem). If so, which files do I need to have on the flash drive and which on the 'host' machine, and which lines in profiles.ini?
(Just for completeness I copied my ThunderbirdPortable folder to an old spare USB drive... and it worked OK, so the fault seems to lie with the new Verbatim drive, though I foresee fun and games convincing the retailer of that...