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Thunderbird 115.4.1 Search Not Working Properly - Finds email, but then nothing!

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  • Last reply by jyunte

jyunte
jyunte
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I have several accounts set up in Thunderbird. I click on one account and use the search feature (CTRL-K) to look for messages sent from a particular contact, "Kevin". Thunderbird shows a list of all messages that "mention" the name Kevin. I click on the contact in the list so that I can see all the email from the particular Kevin that I'm interested in. Thunderbird opens a new window with email previews of sent/received from that contact.

...But that's where it ends. I can't select any single email. Right-clicking the preview does nothing. I can't expand the preview to see the entire email. If I click the highlighted subject line link, Thunderbird opens yet another window which shows the subject line and "0 messages". There is no message text displayed. If I click "Show results as a list", Thunderbird opens a window with just one line which reads "Search 0 Messages". I can't even highlight the email address of that contact and copy/paste it into a new message!

This makes the Search function completely useless! I can see that messages from this contact exist, but I can't get to them without manually scrolling back through (maybe years of) messages to find the one I'm looking for.

What am I doing wrong... or is this a problem with Thunderbird?

I have several accounts set up in Thunderbird. I click on one account and use the search feature (CTRL-K) to look for messages sent from a particular contact, "Kevin". Thunderbird shows a list of all messages that "mention" the name Kevin. I click on the contact in the list so that I can see all the email from the particular Kevin that I'm interested in. Thunderbird opens a new window with email previews of sent/received from that contact. ...But that's where it ends. I can't select any single email. Right-clicking the preview does nothing. I can't expand the preview to see the entire email. If I click the highlighted subject line link, Thunderbird opens yet another window which shows the subject line and "0 messages". There is no message text displayed. If I click "Show results as a list", Thunderbird opens a window with just one line which reads "Search 0 Messages". I can't even highlight the email address of that contact and copy/paste it into a new message! This makes the Search function completely useless! I can see that messages from this contact exist, but I can't get to them without manually scrolling back through (maybe years of) messages to find the one I'm looking for. What am I doing wrong... or is this a problem with Thunderbird?

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jyunte
jyunte Question owner
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Update: I found a thread from a year or so ago which mentioned deleting the "global-messages-db.sqlite" file in the Thunderbird profile to force Thunderbird to re-index the messages: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/rebuilding-global-database. This seems to have fixed the problem and I can now find, select, and view messages again!