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My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

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Ellen1910
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My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#1 Post by Ellen1910 »

I'm a beginner, but I don't think what I've got is a beginner's question.

I've been using jessie-lxde and icedove for the past couple of years. This morning I installed stretch-xfce4 (no resizing; the partition already existed). This afternoon I installed thunderbird on my new stretch system/partition. I opened it and was met with a welcome message and a new install appearance. I wasn't surprised, although as I recall the icedove installer picked up everything from my earlier email program without my doing anything (I may be wrong about that). But that's not my problem any way.

Shortly after installing and opening thunderbird, I returned to my jessie system principally for the purpose of looking at what icedove could provide thunderbird. I opened icedove and was met with the identical message and the identical absence of emails, folders, address book. It was as if I'd installed thunderbird on jessie, and thunderbird decided to nuke icedove. It's left the file names as icedove, but what's in them isn't icedove. All of these icedove files show modification as of today's date, and now, they have virtually nothing in any of them older than mid-September. Note: <apt-cache policy> reports jessie has icedove installed and stretch has thunderbird.

Does anyone know what happened? Is there a way to return to the pre-thunderbird installation? I have a backup created by icedove (It's stale, but I can live with it). But I'm afraid of doing anything right now for fear of making matters worse since I don't know why what happened happened.

Sorry to make this so long. Can anyone help?

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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#2 Post by dilberts_left_nut »

Ellen1910 wrote:This morning I installed stretch-xfce4 (no resizing; the partition already existed).
Elaborate on this bit please.
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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#3 Post by Ellen1910 »

I mentioned not resizing, because I wanted to avoid concerns that somehow that act had left connections between /dev/sdd5 (833GB jessie) and /dev/sdd6 (11GB stretch). Anyway, here's what I did --

I downloaded the installation files to a folder on jessie's root.

Code: Select all

~$ ls -l /stretch
total 375552
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  60567462 Nov 12 02:52 boot.img.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 304087040 Nov 12 03:08 debian-9.1.0-amd64-netinst.iso
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  15694852 Nov 12 02:52 initrd.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   4208416 Nov 12 02:52 vmlinuz
I had earlier downloaded a CD-1 which was on jessie's root, also. /debian-9.2.1-amd64-xfce-CD-1.iso

Then, I used GRUB2 to boot the installation files from /stretch. Usual commands -- added only <set gfxpayload=1280x1024x16,1280x1024> I did a manual partition zeroing out /dev/sdd6 and keeping its size unchanged. I have a slow DSL connection so I rejected the installer's offer to download software. Nevertheless, somehow I wound up with the installation of the xfce4 desktop. I know the installer didn't connect to the internet, because it left a #message in /etc/apt/sources.list saying as much. The only source listed there was <cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 9.2.1 _Stretch_ - Official amd64 xfce-CD Binary-1 20171013-13:08]/ stretch main>. I presume the installer used the CD-1 it found on jessie's root.* Everything seemed to go well, although 1) the installer assigned a new UUID to /dev/sdd6 which broke /etc/fstab on /dev/sdd5 and 2) the first time I tried to use root's password, it was rejected. I manually changed jessie's /etc/fstab from bin:bash and then, returned to jessie and "changed" the password using chroot. I exited exited chroot before returning to stretch.

I did one thing that may have been out of the ordinary. Before installing audacious and thunderbird (thus far, the only packages I've installed) I used nano to copy the /mnt/jessie/etc/apt/sources.list entry over to stretch's /etc/apt/sources.list file changing jessie to stretch wherever the former appeared. And that's all I can think of to answer the question. I hope my answer didn't go overboard. :?

* That may be more than conjecture. I vaguely remember the installer complaining it couldn't confirm something about the CD.

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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#4 Post by Ellen1910 »

As a follow-up this is my /etc/apt/sources.list file in the new installation (stretch):

Code: Select all

~$ cat /mnt/Debian9/etc/apt/*.list
# 

# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 9.2.1 _Stretch_ - Official amd64 xfce-CD Binary-1 20171013-13:08]/ stretch main

#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 9.2.1 _Stretch_ - Official amd64 xfce-CD Binary-1 20171013-13:08]/ stretch main

# Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:
#deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates main
# Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:
#deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates main

# stretch-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
# A network mirror was not selected during install.  The following entries
# are provided as examples, but you should amend them as appropriate
# for your mirror of choice.
#
# deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stretch-updates main
# deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stretch-updates main

# deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch main

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch main

deb http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main

# stretch-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch-updates main
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch-updates main

#used for jessie packages
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main contrib non-free
#deb http://mozilla.debian.net/ jessie-backports iceweasel-release

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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#5 Post by Ardouos »

Go to your home directly and type in:

Code: Select all

ls -al | grep .icedove
and

Code: Select all

ls -al | grep .thunderbird
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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#6 Post by Ellen1910 »

Code: Select all

~$ ls -al | grep .icedove
drwx------  5 ellen ellen      4096 Nov 12 19:09 .icedove
lrwxrwxrwx  1 ellen ellen        20 May  1  2017 .thunderbird -> /home/ellen/.icedove
ellen@topos:~$ ls -al | grep .thunderbird
lrwxrwxrwx  1 ellen ellen        20 May  1  2017 .thunderbird -> /home/ellen/.icedove
Before I installed stretch on /dev/sdd6 jessie-gnome was on it. Months ago I noticed that jessie-gnome had switched the icedove icon to the Thunderbird icon. As far as I could see nothing was different except for the change in the icon designating the email program which still looked like and acted like icedove. I don't recall when I first noticed that change, but I do remember noting that there'd been a recent security update.

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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#7 Post by Ardouos »

Ellen1910 wrote:Months ago I noticed that jessie-gnome had switched the icedove icon to the Thunderbird icon. As far as I could see nothing was different except for the change in the icon designating the email program which still looked like and acted like icedove. I don't recall when I first noticed that change, but I do remember noting that there'd been a recent security update.
This was because of a dispute between the Debian Project and Mozilla.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_s ... #Iceweasel
https://wiki.debian.org/Iceweasel
The Debian Project subsequently rebranded the Mozilla Firefox program,[3] and other software released by Mozilla, so that Debian could distribute modified software without being bound by the trademark requirements that the Mozilla Foundation had invoked. The new names established by Debian were Iceweasel for Mozilla Firefox, Icedove for Mozilla Thunderbird, and Iceape for SeaMonkey. These changes were implemented in the subsequent version of Debian (Etch). In July 2007, Iceowl, a rebranded version of Mozilla Sunbird, was added to the unstable branch of Debian.
In 2016 Mozilla was satisfied that Debian's changes/ fixes did not impact on the quality of their product.
In 2016, a number of Mozilla employees and Debian maintainers argued that the branding was no longer needed,[5][6] and on 10 March 2016, Debian's unstable branch switched back to the Mozilla branding, with the stable branch planning to switch after Iceweasel's end of life.
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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#8 Post by Ardouos »

Ellen1910 wrote:

Code: Select all

~$ ls -al | grep .icedove
drwx------  5 ellen ellen      4096 Nov 12 19:09 .icedove
lrwxrwxrwx  1 ellen ellen        20 May  1  2017 .thunderbird -> /home/ellen/.icedove
ellen@topos:~$ ls -al | grep .thunderbird
lrwxrwxrwx  1 ellen ellen        20 May  1  2017 .thunderbird -> /home/ellen/.icedove
Looks like when you installed .thunderbird it created a symlink to .icedove. Is there anything in the .icedove directory?
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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#9 Post by Ellen1910 »

I installed thunderbird on Nov 12. That symlink would appear to have been created on May 1, and I did nothing wrt icedove or thunderbird back then. Here are my significant jessie .icedove files (2.6 GiB). The other.default folder (12.1 MiB) looks like you'd expect it to look a day after installation.

Code: Select all

~$ ls -l /home/ellen/.icedove/au82l5l7.default
total 27796
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen     3561 Nov  5 18:54 abook.mab
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen     5529 Nov 12 01:05 addons.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen        0 Aug 21 22:36 AlternateServices.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen   524288 Jul  8  2015 blist.sqlite
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen   462057 Aug  5 21:30 blocklist-addons.json
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen    27953 Aug  5 21:30 blocklist-gfx.json
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen   205020 Aug  5 21:30 blocklist-plugins.json
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen   242138 Nov 12 01:09 blocklist.xml
drwx------ 2 ellen ellen     4096 Oct 18 21:17 calendar-data
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen    98304 Nov 11 07:01 cert8.db
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen      154 Oct 21 12:24 compatibility.ini
-rw-r--r-- 1 rogellener ellen   229376 Feb  8  2016 content-prefs.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen   524288 Oct 18 22:09 cookies.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen    32768 Nov 12 01:05 cookies.sqlite-shm
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen        0 Oct 21 12:28 cookies.sqlite-wal
drwx------ 3 ellen ellen     4096 Sep  8 15:09 crashes
drwx------ 2 ellen ellen     4096 Nov 12 05:33 datareporting
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen       91 Jun  4 13:47 directoryTree.json
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen     6905 Sep  9 05:47 downloads.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen      373 Oct 18 21:17 extensions.ini
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen     2772 Nov 12 01:11 extensions.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen     1046 Jun 27  2016 folderTree-1.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen     1046 Jul  8  2016 folderTree-2.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen     1341 Nov 14  2016 folderTree-3.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen     1722 Oct 18 22:09 folderTree.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen   196608 Jul  8  2015 formhistory.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen 21823488 Nov 12 05:33 global-messages-db.sqlite
drwx------ 3 ellen ellen     4096 Aug  6 17:35 gmp
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen     6983 Aug 12 12:56 history.mab
drwx------ 5 ellen ellen     4096 Aug 18  2016 ImapMail
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen    16384 Nov 11 07:01 key3.db
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen  1081344 Aug  5 21:30 kinto.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen    12809 Jul 10  2015 localstore.rdf
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen     1130 Nov  8 19:54 logins.json
drwx------ 3 ellen ellen     4096 Jul  8  2015 Mail
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen      482 Jul  8  2015 mailViews.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen     2201 May  3  2017 mimeTypes.rdf
drwx------ 2 ellen ellen     4096 Jul 29 15:20 minidumps
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen   224181 Nov 12 05:34 panacea.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen   131072 Jul 26  2016 permissions.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen  1245184 Nov 12 05:33 places.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen    32768 Nov 12 05:34 places.sqlite-shm
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen   459120 Nov 12 05:34 places.sqlite-wal
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen      492 Aug  5 21:23 pluginreg.dat
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen    20093 Nov 12 01:49 prefs.js
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen    26219 Nov  9 00:53 revocations.txt
drwx------ 2 ellen ellen    20480 Nov 12 05:18 saved-telemetry-pings
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen    23445 May 26  2016 search.json
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen     7532 Oct 18 21:17 search.json.mozlz4
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen       87 Mar 10  2016 search-metadata.json
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen    16384 Jul  8  2015 secmod.db
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen        0 Aug 21 22:36 SecurityPreloadState.txt
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen       53 Nov 12 05:17 sessionCheckpoints.json
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen     1023 Nov 12 05:37 session.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen   327680 Jul  8  2015 signons.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen      791 Nov 12 01:10 SiteSecurityServiceState.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen    98304 May  1  2017 storage.sdb
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen      512 Aug  5 21:47 storage.sqlite
-rwx------ 1 ellen ellen       29 Jul  8  2015 times.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen    15675 May  1  2017 training.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen        8 May  1  2017 traits.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen       10 Oct 18 22:09 virtualFolders.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen   131072 Oct 18 22:09 webappsstore.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen    32768 Nov 12 05:17 webappsstore.sqlite-shm
-rw-r--r-- 1 ellen ellen        0 Oct 21 12:25 webappsstore.sqlite-wal
-rw------- 1 ellen ellen     6193 Nov 12 05:34 xulstore.json
Just a reminder to anyone helping out. I don't care about thunderbird on stretch -- just icedove on my old jessie system.

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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#10 Post by HuangLao »

search for the .icedove folder it sounds like a configuration problem, ie: icedove no longer sees your folder that stores all of the mail data. Either that or you deleted that folder accidentally in which case the emails are gone.

Do you have backups?

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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#11 Post by Ellen1910 »

I started out wanting to figure out what went wrong, but I do want my emails, etc. back. On a practical level, can anyone tell me what use I can make of this 692 MB folder?

Code: Select all

~$ ls /home/ellen/.icedove/au82l5l7.default/ImapMail/mail.centurylink.net
Archives.msf  Family.sbd          Paid Bills            Trash
Cars          INBOX               Paid Bills.msf        Trash.msf
Cars.msf      INBOX.msf           Paid Bills.sbd        Trash.sbd
Cars.sbd      INBOX.sbd           Security Freezes      Vanguard
Drafts-1      Junk.msf            Security Freezes.msf  Vanguard.msf
Drafts-1.msf  McDivitt            Sent-1                Web Orders
Drafts-1.sbd  McDivitt.msf        Sent-1.msf            Web Orders.msf
Drafts.msf    msgFilterRules.dat  Sent-1.sbd            Web Orders.sbd
Family        Newegg              Sent.msf              Z Audio
Family.msf    Newegg.msf          Templates.msf         Z Audio.msf

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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#12 Post by Ellen1910 »

Are we all aware that icedove and thunderbird are different names for the same debian package?

Inquiry in jessie:

Code: Select all

~$ apt-cache policy icedove
icedove:
  Installed: 1:45.1.0-1~deb8u1
  Candidate: 1:52.4.0-1~deb8u1
  Version table:
     1:52.4.0-1~deb8u1 0
        500 http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates/main amd64 Packages
     1:52.3.0-4~deb8u2 0
        500 http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates/main amd64 Packages
     1:45.8.0-3~deb8u1 0
        500 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ jessie/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates/main amd64 Packages
 *** 1:45.1.0-1~deb8u1 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     38.7.0-1~deb7u1 0
        500 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main amd64 Packages
ellen@topos:~$ apt-cache policy thunderbird
thunderbird:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1:52.4.0-1~deb8u1
  Version table:
     1:52.4.0-1~deb8u1 0
        500 http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates/main amd64 Packages
     1:45.8.0-3~deb8u1 0
        500 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ jessie/main amd64 Packages
Inquiry in stretch;

Code: Select all

/# apt-cache policy thunderbird
thunderbird:
  Installed: 1:52.4.0-1~deb9u1
  Candidate: 1:52.4.0-1~deb9u1
  Version table:
 *** 1:52.4.0-1~deb9u1 500
        500 http://security.debian.org stretch/updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:52.3.0-4~deb9u1 500
        500 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stretch/main amd64 Packages
     1:45.8.0-3~deb8u1 500
        500 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian jessie/main amd64 Packages
root@topos:/# apt-cache policy icedove
icedove:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1:52.4.0-1~deb9u1
  Version table:
     1:52.4.0-1~deb9u1 500
        500 http://security.debian.org stretch/updates/main amd64 Packages
     1:52.3.0-4~deb9u1 500
        500 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stretch/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://security.debian.org stretch/updates/main amd64 Packages
     1:45.8.0-3~deb8u1 500
        500 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian jessie/main amd64 Packages

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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#13 Post by Ardouos »

Ellen1910 wrote:Are we all aware that icedove and thunderbird are different names for the same debian package?
Really?? Did you read my post?

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 53#p658625
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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#14 Post by Ellen1910 »

@ Arduous

Yes I did. Did you read mine? Really read it? Debian installers appear to be continuing to use the term "icedove". Does that explain why security updaters created a thunderbird symlink to icedove in the .icedove folder. What's the function of that symlink?

But enuf with the history already. Could I get a little help here? :)

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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#15 Post by bw123 »

Ellen1910 wrote:@ Arduous

Yes I did. Did you read mine? Really read it? Debian installers appear to be continuing to use the term "icedove". Does that explain why security updaters created a thunderbird symlink to icedove in the .icedove folder. What's the function of that symlink?

But enuf with the history already. Could I get a little help here? :)
Just wow, that's a long thread. I still don't understand how you started with a netinst to a separate partition and got another install iso as a source to the same partition, apparently overwriting jessie with stretch? You know, for a beginner, you sure do some complicated things, but I like that. With your great attitude you will go far. Good Luck.
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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#16 Post by bw123 »

As a follow-up this is my /etc/apt/sources.list file in the new installation (stretch): Code: Select all ~$ cat /mnt/Debian9/etc/apt/*.list
aha! chroot much?
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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#17 Post by dilberts_left_nut »

Icedove is just a dummy package that depends on Thunderbird
https://packages.debian.org/stretch/icedove

This is so existing installs with icedove continue to work as expected.
Presumably the new tbird package install script checks for presence of an existing .icedove profile folder and links to it if found too.

You need to provide some relevant info if you want any helpful help - your descriptions of your setup are pretty unclear.

What has your Stretch install got to do with your old Jessie install?
You don't mention sharing a /home partition so the two should be completely independant.

Even so, it looks like your existing icedove profile is still there, but why it would be affected by a fresh install on a separate partition remains a mystery.

At the moment it just looks like user error to me.
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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#18 Post by Ellen1910 »

It may be "user error" but that's what I'm here for -- to figure out what the error was so I can correct it. So here's more info on my setup.

Code: Select all

df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs           383M   11M  373M   3% /run
/dev/sdd6        10G  2.5G  7.1G  26% /
tmpfs           1.9G   12M  1.9G   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sdb3       3.9G  3.6G   82M  98% /mnt/KNOPPIX
/dev/sdb1       4.1G  1.6G  2.6G  38% /mnt/WD400_Vol1
/dev/sdd5       833G   64G  753G   8% /mnt/Jessie
/dev/sdb5        30G   25G  4.6G  85% /mnt/WD400_Vol3
/dev/sdc2       105G   80G   26G  77% /mnt/SATA_VOL2
/dev/sdc1       128G   90G   39G  71% /mnt/Windows
/dev/sdd1        75G   44G   32G  59% /mnt/XP-Oregon
tmpfs           383M  4.0K  383M   1% /run/user/108
tmpfs           383M  8.0K  383M   1% /run/user/1000
That's from stretch. Formerly, I used /dev/sda as my home directory -- mounted on /home in jessie-gnome (/dev/sdd6). It still retains my old /home directory. Now, that volume is unlinked which I guess explains why it doesn't appear in the above list. Presumably, it wasn't mounted when I installed thunderbird -- see below.

jessie-lxde is on /dev/sdd5; stretch-xfce4 is on /dev/sdd6. Two days ago -- before the stretch installation -- jessie-gnome was on /dev/sdd6. The email programs on the two different desktops and on the two different volumes were identical. It didn't matter which desktop I happened to be on; I had the same info to hand.

During installation the only action I took with respect to /dev/sdd6 was to wipe it. After installation the only action I took was installation of audacious and thunderbird. Now when I click the icedove icon in jessie-lxde (there is no thunderbird icon), the email program appears without my old folders, my copies of older emails, or my old address book. Those features are also missing in thunderbird on stretch-xfce4.

So what was my error?

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Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#19 Post by dilberts_left_nut »

Ellen1910 wrote:So what was my error?
Not knowing where your mail data is and not understanding your own needlessly complex setup.
Ellen1910 wrote: I used /dev/sda as my home directory -- mounted on /home in jessie-gnome (/dev/sdd6). It still retains my old /home directory. Now, that volume is unlinked which I guess explains why it doesn't appear
Ellen1910 wrote: It didn't matter which desktop I happened to be on; I had the same info to hand.
How?
That doesn't happen by magic, you had to set that up.

Where is this?
Ellen1910 wrote:this 692 MB folder?

Code: Select all

~$ ls /home/ellen/.icedove/au82l5l7.default/ImapMail/mail.centurylink.net
Archives.msf  Family.sbd          Paid Bills            Trash
Cars          INBOX               Paid Bills.msf        Trash.msf
...
Ellen1910 wrote:During installation the only action I took with respect to /dev/sdd6 was to wipe it. After installation the only action I took was installation of audacious and thunderbird. Now when I click the icedove icon in jessie-lxde (there is no thunderbird icon), the email program appears without my old folders, my copies of older emails, or my old address book.
Of course - it's a fresh install - how would your old data get there?
Those features are also missing in thunderbird on stretch-xfce4.
So what did you change in that install?
AdrianTM wrote:There's no hacker in my grandma...

Ellen1910
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Joined: 2006-09-30 13:49

Re: My emails, folders, address book are gone. Help!

#20 Post by Ellen1910 »

One man's "needlessly complicated setup" is another woman's "security blanket." Each time I add a hard drive, I install fresh copies of whatever operating systems I've been using and begin using that new hard drive as my active system. I keep the old hard drives in place as 1) security (they proved they worked in the recent past) and 2) history (I mount them because, then, I have quick access to that history). What's a few lines in /etc/fstab, and I don't require elegance (usually, no one else sees my system setup but me).

My old mail data -- the 692MB folder -- is on /dev/sdd5 (jessie) and holds the old ImapMail sub-folder which, at the moment, isn't doing me any good.

My complaint is that when I asked apt to install thunderbird on my new stretch installation (on /dev/sdd6) the installer complied, but it also reached out and messed with my icedove email program on /dev/sdd5. It created a new folder called kovaoodr.default. There is no ImapMail sub-folder under kovaoodr.default.

Thankfully, it left the original folder (au82l5l7.default) in place, and that folder does have an ImapMail folder.

Code: Select all

 ls -l /mnt/Jessie/home/ellen/.icedove/
total 16
drwx------ 10 ellen ellen 4096 Nov 12 05:38 au82l5l7.default
drwx------  4 ellen ellen 4096 Nov 13 14:05 Crash Reports
drwx------  6 ellen ellen 4096 Nov 13 16:16 kovaoodr.default
-rw-r--r--  1 ellen ellen  104 Nov 12 19:09 profiles.ini
Please. Tell me how to get reconnected with au82l5l7.default.

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