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From / To / CC are missing from the header display

  • 35 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by shamit

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Using Thunderbird 102.4.1 - have not upgraded for a few days and program was working fine. Switched on today and inbox was rebuilt - and then all the messages are there but the From / To / CC fields are all blank on the message pane. When I reply to a message all the information is available. The From/To/CC is also visible on the summary pane. Same issue on all messages in every folder. Tried to restart in troubleshooting mode with addons disabled but made no difference. I have Header Tools Lite addon - disabled that but does not fix the issue. On Windows 11 and everything was working fine until this morning.

Using Thunderbird 102.4.1 - have not upgraded for a few days and program was working fine. Switched on today and inbox was rebuilt - and then all the messages are there but the From / To / CC fields are all blank on the message pane. When I reply to a message all the information is available. The From/To/CC is also visible on the summary pane. Same issue on all messages in every folder. Tried to restart in troubleshooting mode with addons disabled but made no difference. I have Header Tools Lite addon - disabled that but does not fix the issue. On Windows 11 and everything was working fine until this morning.
Attached screenshots

All Replies (20)

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I had an older version of Thunderbird on another laptop - 102.4.0 - and everything works perfectly on that version. Therefore some change on version 102.4.1 means that the header on the message pane is blank for the fields of From / To / CC. Hope this helps with the solution....

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Good morning Still having the same problem with all updates from 102.4.1 upwards. Version 102.4.0 works fine - all headers appear normally but from 102.4.1 the From/To/CC fields are blank. Does anyone have this issue? Need help please as I do like to keep up with the latest version. Thanks in advance Shamit

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right click the folder, select properties and then the repair button to rebuilt the index of messages in the folder. THat should repopulate the fields it uses to display those headers.

You might have to disable header tools, restart Thunderbird without it and then repair.

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Hi Matt Thank you for your reply and suggestion. I did exactly as you suggested - disabled all add ons, and installed the update and then tried to repair the folder - but it did not fix the problem. Please note that every single folder has the same issue - those fields remain blank, so repairing the properties on every folder does not seem to be the way forward as it seems to be a global issue. I uninstalled 102.4.2 and re-installed 102.4.0 and the headers reappeared. Any further suggestions are very welcome. Shamit

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I have the same problems - up until 102.4.0 everything was OK, but every newer release causes From, To and Cc fields to be blank. I tried 102.4.1, 102.4.2 and the latest 102.5 - same symptoms, just like shamit. I tried to do what Matt suggested. It didn't change anything. More than that - I've been experiencing this on Windows 7 and today on another computer with Windows 10. Different accounts, different computers. The only thing in common I can think of is that both profiles are pretty old and were created at least 10-15 years ago. Maybe it is some kind of legacy compatibility issue?

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Still no solution - I am stuck on 102.4.0 - any suggestions how to fix this issue with the blank headers?

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Hello @shamit

Do you have anything under the chrome subdirectory of your profile ?

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Hi GP Thanks for the feedback. No idea what the the chrome subdirectory does but there is one file chrome.rdf and another folder overlayinfo. That folder has 4 more subfolders - browser / communicator / messenger & navigator. Each sub-subfolder has one more folder called content and there is a file in each one called overlays.rdf So this might be related to some very old files from the earliest versions em.en suggested. Attached screenshots if that helps. Thanks in advance for the help.

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From your reply I don't understand if there is a chrome subdirectory or not. Well, if there is one rename it and restart Thunderbird. This directory is intended for user customization of the Thunderbird UI. It does not exist on a new Thunderbird installation.

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Well, I'm not the question owner, but still:

  • I do have Chrome folder in my Thunderbird profile, dating back to 2014 with several files from 2005-2007
  • I turned off the Thunderbird, renamed the folder to Chrome_ and run the upgrade to 102.5
  • still no joy for me - the issue persists
  • I also tried the repair procedure and troubleshooting mode without any visible differece

Going back to 102.4.0 again...

But your question seems to mean that you also think that there's something wrong with legacy profile settings or modifications. I'm also shocked how old are these files.

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@em_en: yes, with upgrades old stuff accumulate in the profile. You can always create a new profile by starting Thunderbird with the --ProfileManager command switch. Then you could try with some test email (there is no shortage of free email providers), and if it works import your real accounts and data from the old profile.

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Good morning gp, Apologies if I was not clear - there was a chrome folder, and some other subfolders under that. I renamed the chrome folder as suggested but same result as em.en - same issue with the blank fields. Must be some conflict from some old file that is overriding the display parameters. I saw on another bug that there was once an issue with the subject going blank when the mouse was hovering over the field due to similar fonts & background. Could this be something similar? I have gone back to 102.4.0 and will try the new profile suggestion - but not sure about importing all the different emails & folders & address books from over all the years.... Worst case is stick with 102.4.0 for the moment.... Thank you for your help. Shamit

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I tried to postpone creating the new profile and moving the files back to it as long as it was possible, but now there seems to be no other way. I just need to find some spare time to experiment.

@shamit You might find this useful https://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Thunderbird I'm not sure if it is 100% up-to-date, but it should give me and you a hint what a specific file is used for and whether to keep it or not.

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shamit said

Good morning gp, I saw on another bug that there was once an issue with the subject going blank when the mouse was hovering over the field due to similar fonts & background. Could this be something similar?

It dawns on me that there is no answer in this thread to this simple question, are the fields here but not visible ? It should be easy to get this information because first hovering over the area should change the cursor to a hand, then clicking displays (normally) a menu where the first entry is the mail address.

Modified by gp

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Fair point and worth checking - so I just reinstalled 102.4.5 and the cursor does not change to a hand when you hover over the From / To / CC fields.

All the information is intact in the main file because it is possible to reply to the message and in that case all the fields in the new message are all correctly filled in.

Modified by shamit

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Problem still with us with 102.6

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Well, if you are 3 in this boat, maybe one of you can try to recreate a new profile and import everything from the old one to see if it fixes it ?

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That is on my to-do list, but it is complicated with ~~1M messages over 20 years in the archive.

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Another possibility could be then to create a new profile, install the ImportExportNG add-on, and import just one Mbox file (surely you don't have your 1M messages in a single folder ?) to do a quick check to see if a clean profile solves it.

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Good afternoon Has anyone managed to set up a new profile and check whether the problem is solved? I gave it a try but unfortunately not quite sure how to set up the new profile and then import the messages.

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