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solution to problem: IMAP mail disappears when changing computers

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lieszkol
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solution to problem: IMAP mail disappears when changing computers

First, thank you for making thunderbird portable! There is a slight problem, though, when using IMAP servers. Thunderbird seems to write the absolute path to the mail folders in panacea.dat, in the profile directory. When the drive letter changes, Thunderbird gets confused, and after starting it again, all previous imap mail messages disappear. To fix this problem, the drive letter for the folders specified in panacea.dat must be updated before thunderbird is started. I've written a little batch file to do this, I wanted to share it, so I'm attaching it. However, I'm sure there would be a better way to do this.

Perl.exe and perl58.dll also need to be put in the same directory as the batch file, which should be in the "PortableThunderbird" directory. If the relative path to panacea.dat is not profile/panacea.dat then that needs to be updated in the batch file.

----------- begin batch file ----------
@rem = '
@goto endofperl
';

# Updates the panacea.dat file to point to the current drive.
# Required if accessing IMAP folders using a flash drive
# whose drive letter changes each time it is plugged in.

$curdir = substr(`cd`, 0, 1);
chomp($curdir);

$panacea_path = 'profile/panacea.dat';

open (FILE,"$panacea_path") || SafeQuit("Can't Open $panacea_path: $!\n");
@LINES=;
close(FILE);
$SIZE=@LINES;
open (GUEST,">$panacea_path") || SafeQuit("Can't Open $panacea_path for output: $!\n");

for ($i=0;$i

John T. Haller
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You sure?

I use Thunderbird Portable with IMAP folders all the time and have never had an issue when switching computers, drive letters or paths. Did you specify a specific location for your mail folders or something?

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

pfeerick
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I am having similar problems

I've posted before, and this issue doesn't appear to have been resolved, so I am glad to see somebody has posted a possible solution. I didn't specify the locations to mail folders or any such absolute paths - I just add a new account, load up all my emails for OFFLINE use, switch thunderbird to offline mode, and if I run it up on the same machine multiple times, there isn't a problem.

The problem seems to occur when I change to another machine - or maybe if the drive letter changes (which it does). The first time I run thunderbird after running it on a different machine with a different drive letter, I can see all my emails fine, but the second time, it looses them all, plus folders. If I then take it online again, it has to download all the emails again.

If I dump it to the hard drive (D:\), and run it and configure it from there - or just dump a pre-configured version from there, sync emails for offline use, and take it home, and dump thunderbird in the same location as on the other computer (D:\), there isn't a problem.

I checked the file mentioned, and the wrong drive letters are listed in it - ie on my home machine my drive letter is R:, and at uni it goes to E:. Both E: and R: are lised in the panacea.dat, resulting in the paths to the offline mail folders being wrong.

I think the keyword here maybe offline use - the other person didn't say.

Stephane
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Even if it is on the same computer

Hello,

I've got this problem even if I close and open another time on the same computer without having ejected my USB key !!!

Who say right ?

John T. Haller
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Hmmm... me thinks it may be offline mode that's having the issue. Normally, the stuff in panacea.dat doesn't care about the path (even though it's in there). I'll investigate further, add it to known issues and see if there's a way to handle this between sessions. I could delete panacea.dat and that would cause TB to recreate it (technically, it's just listed as a "mail cache" file), but I think it stores folder view info in there as well. Anybody have any more info on its inner workings?

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Stephane
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Prefs.js file mixed drive letters

I have the same problem. I show the content of my prefs.js file and I saw some path with my last drive letter (E) and the drive letter on which it's currently run (J). I think it's not good.

What can I do ?

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