Linux Mint Forums

Are you using T'bird to view web-based email (like Yahoo or Gmail) or is this a POP-only email account? Not that I can see it mattering but we need more information in order to track down the exact problem.

Also, what version of Thunderbird are you using? Did you get it from Mint's repo's or is it a custom download? Are you using M4-gnome or KDE?

I'm assuming you have your reasons for not upgrading to M5 or M6 (Mint 5 has long-term support BTW; M4 is no longer officially supported), but what about installing kmail and seeing if you still have the problem?

If your Mint 4 installation has a separate /home partition you can upgrade to Mint 6 by burning the Mint 6 downloadable ISO (Final (gnome), KDE, XFCE or Fluxbox -- your choice) and keep all your personal configuration files intact. If M4 is all in one partition you'll have to search these forums to find out how to back up your /home files.

BUT, the problem may be a corrupt T'bird configuration file, in which case upgrading, but keeping your personal settings would not help: the problem would still exist! So in the end it ma be wiser to do a fresh install: everything will be new and work perfectly.

It was for this reason I suggested installing kmail and set it up to see if it works: if it does, the problem is not M4, but T'bird itself. If kmail does the same thing, it's M4's problem. I'll point out that kmail is a KDE app; I think the gnome equivalent is evolution, but I'm not 100% positive on that. You could search for "gnome email" and synaptic would tell you exactly. But you could install kmail regardless and in truth, I prefer kmail to T'bird (just my preference). They look and behave and setup pretty much the same. Do that first: it's the fastest way to tell you where your problem lies, and what you should do to fix it.

You could also, from within Thunderbird, set up a new profile and add one email account and see what happens. If that fixes it, you may not have to upgrade at all! To start Thunderbird profile manager, in a terminal type "thunderbird -p" without the quotes. If you want t always start with the profile manager, edit your menu so the command to launch T'bird has the "-p" switch. The same procedure will work for any Mozilla product.

I can give instructions on saving your Firefox bookmarks and passwords too, if you need them due to a fresh install.

If you need specific guidance anywhere, just ask.

If your /home partition is already separate then yes, you can upgrade and all your personal information will remain intact. Your T'bird profile will still be there; whether it will still behave poorly... we'll see! At the very least you could stop using it -- but not delete it -- that way you start fresh with evolution but will still have Thunderbird to refer back to if you discover you need a specific email. Or there probably is a way to back-up the mail folders, then delete permanently Thunderbird and all it's settings, then re-install it and restore your mail folders. Should work. Your locations for those files is /home/<you>/.mozilla/thunderbird/ copy the files to a temporary location, delete the ~/.mozilla/thunderbird directory. Then run Thunderbird as normal and it will create a new profile automatically. Copy your old files back, overwriting what's there and everything should be normal again.

If you do install Mint 6, your *personal* files in your home directory will still be there but you will have to reinstall devede, picasa or whatever.

Kmail is used in KDE but you can use it in a gnome environment without any problems. It'll be in the repositories already and add a few other KDE files in order to run but you'll never notice it's not "native".