My inbox won’t load

[los4words]

https://email.bt.com is what I am trying to access via web browser. I tried chatting to BT and they just advised me clear my  browsing history cache which I did. It has not solved the problem, and just meant I had to login afresh to numerous service providers whose cookies were now deleted 😢

[Stephen5000]

Clearing your 'cache' is the new equivalent of the old 1990s IT support catch all of 'turn it off & on' again. Don't think clearing cache has ever solved a specific issue that a user has, and as you say, just causes more grief of having to re-log into the 100s of web sites we all use now!

[gg30340]

---

@Stephen5000 wrote:

Clearing your 'cache' is the new equivalent of the old 1990s IT support catch all of 'turn it off & on' again. Don't think clearing cache has ever solved a specific issue that a user has, and as you say, just causes more grief of having to re-log into the 100s of web sites we all use now!

---

If a website is modified but the URL stays the same then browsers will continue to serve the old cached version for a while and as a result users may see outdated content on the website. Clearing the cache can fix some issues such as loading or formatting issues on web sites.

[Stephen5000]

Why does no one ever suggest a 'targeted' clearing of the cache? You can easily select the initials, 'BT' when clearing cache which should illicit the same result you describe, shouldn't it? Leaving all your good cache intact...

[gg30340]

@los4words 

Just to clarify and to try and ensure that we are all using the same terminology so as to avoid confusion.

Using a web browser to access your email account is called using webmail, it is not using an email client.

An email client  or an email app is a separate stand alone program that you can use to access your email account without using a web browser.

When you use your web browser to access your email account, is the actual Inbox folder, as shown below, missing or is it the contents of the Inbox that is missing?

  

[gg30340]

---

@Stephen5000 wrote:

Why does no one ever suggest a 'targeted' clearing of the cache? You can easily select the initials, 'BT' when clearing cache which should illicit the same result you describe, shouldn't it? Leaving all your good cache intact...

---

Because it is easier for those daunted by "tampering" with their settings just to clear the whole cache and there is no chance of missing anything. 

It also clears out any rubbish left behind by the many sites that people visit and never return to which can amount to a very large cache size often using in excess of 1 or 2GB storage space.

[Stephen5000]

---

@gg30340wrote:

---

@Stephen5000wrote:

I'm just curious if I let T/bird carry on it's request to download all my emails again, would it want to do it every time I opened it...

---

Try it and see, let us know next week when it's completed the download how you get on 😄

---

Just thought I'd report back on progress. I let Thunderbird carry out it's quest to download 100,000+ emails, and as I thought, I now have a duplicate of every single email from 25+ years LOL Obviously something went wrong however and after 30,000 emails, I get the following message. Thunderbird is now locked and I can't do anything with it.

Whatever 'tag' is normally used to let TBird know that an email has already been downloaded, failed.

This incident has definitely not enamoured me to 'email clients' LOL (I have 100s Gb space on my laptop!)

[gg30340]

I guess message 8 would have been the better option.

You could try making a copy of your profile and moving it out of T'bird as per this link

Export your Thunderbird Profile | Thunderbird Help (mozilla.org)

and set up a new profile as per this link

Profile Manager - Create and remove Thunderbird profiles | Thunderbird Help (mozilla.org)

Once that has been done, assuming you have not done any house keeping, start the process over again. This time as there are no emails already in your new profile it should download them again but this time using half the storage space because of the lack of duplicates.

If anything goes wrong you will still have the emails on webmail and the "old" profile that you have named and saved, assuming you can access it.

You could then do a fresh install of T'bird and try again but I would strongly recommend that you either do some housekeeping or set T'bird up as an IMAP account where it should not use as much storage space. 

It will still take some time for an IMAP account to load for the first time until it synchronises all the folders including the Inbox but after that is done it should load almost instantly. 

[Stephen5000]

---

@gg30340wrote:

IMAP account where it should not use as much storage space. 

It will still take some time for an IMAP account to load for the first time until it synchronises all the folders including the Inbox but after that is done it should load almost instantly. 

---

I fancy starting again using IMAP protocol. When I 1st set it up years ago I knew nothing about emails, and as you can see, so I just 'guessed' on POP3, & have learned very little over time. Can I do this by the same version of Tbird I already have, or would I have to delete everything it in it's entirety and start from scratch?

(I know this is now way off topic, but if you choose to move it, can you let me know where? LOL)

[gg30340]

You should not need to delete T'bird but you would need to delete your BTMail account and then set it up as an IMAP account. 

The settings you need should T'bird not populate them automatically are as per this link

BT Email server settings | BT Help