I originally posted in the Suse forum, but I suspect there is too small a pool of users to help me.

I am trying to upgrade from Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5 to 1.0 on an AMD 64 with Suse 91 32 bit installed. I say trying, because I can't seem to get 1.0 to find my actual mail messages. I have set the server folder and local mail folders. to the same, but to no avail. Ultimately, I want my kids to be able to access a mail folder that I can also access, but I wish to leave one for me. I installed without an rpm, which was probably stupid, and just uncompressed the folder I got from Mozilla, and installed it parallel to the 0.5 version.

I have lost my 0.5 address book and my mail. I lost them when I pointed 1.0 to the "Mail" directory above "Local Folders", and renamed the two that showed up as pop.pcisys.net and pop3.pcisys.net. With Konqueror, I can actually find some mail, but not much. I have never succeeded in finding my mail with 1.0. I can however, send mail to myself.
Here is how 0.5 was set up, when it worked:
0.5 Server Settings
Dads local directory: /home/dad/.thunderbird/default/thwfbm86.slt/Mail/pop.pcisys.net
kksdk local directory: /home/dad/.thunderbird/default/thwfbm86.slt/Mail/pop3.pcisys.net
local folders local directory: /home/dad/.thunderbird/default/thwfbm86.slt/Mail/Local Folders

Under 1.0, it looks like
Local folders local directory: /home/dad/.thunderbird/default/thwfbm86.slt/Mail/Local Folders
dad's local directory: /home/dad/.thunderbird/default/thwfbm86.slt/Mail/pop.pcisys.net
familiy local directory: /home/dad/.thunderbird/default/thwfbm86.slt/Mail/pop3.pcisys.net

With the above set up, version 1.0 shows only my Local Folders directory, with no messages other than the test one I sent. 0.5 shows Local Folders, "Dad's" and my kids account name. All the subfolders and mail are gone.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to help me?

On the thunderbirb page is clearly explained to remove every existing thunderbird folder before installing a new version.

I hope it isn't too late.

You should backup your existing mail folder (used by thunderbird 0.5) delete the newly created under /home/../.thunderbird/....default/Mail/ (leave the folder mail delete only the contents) than copy into the above mail folder the old you've backupped (i.e. /home/dad/.thunderbird/default/thwfbm86.slt/Mail/pop3.pcisys.net).

Try to start thunderbird, it should works.

Let me know.
walker

Like I said, I'm afraid I was stupid. I was rushing and paid the price. (In my defense, I downloaded Thunderbird several days before I did this, because my kids homework takes priority. And it was late Sunday.)

What I did was:

In 1.0, I selected Edit->account settings. I set the local folder Local Directory to the directory one level up from the local folder for 0.5, namely, /home/dad/.thunderbird/default/thwfbm86.slt/Mail. That made the directory structure that I see in 0.5 show up in 1.0, with three caveats. One: no mail was in the directories Two (and here I must go by memory): the directory structure did not contain subdirectories. Three: The root directory for one tree was pop3.pcisys.net and the other was pop.pcisys.net. Those names came from the 0.5 directory structure. (pcisys is my provider).

So, within 1.0, I right clicked, and selected to rename the top level directory trees for the two trees that looked like my 0.5 directory trees. That is when my mail disappeared from 0.5.

Yes, it was particularly stupid not to back things up first. My only defense is that I was rushing because I was pumped up on adrenalin from the Eagles game, irritated by the Steelers game, and hurrying between kids monopolizing the computer for school work.

My glimmer of hope is that I can see mail in one of the directories in Konqueror. It is even the one with financial stuff in it. I'm just hoping I can get the stuff back.

Sorry if my help came too late!

Now I can only advice you to get rid from not too well done wizard.

If you can see your old mail with konqueror I can only suggest you to try to recover it with kmail (have you got it??) I can't explain you exactly how, maybe copying them to kmail inbox (be aware copy not move!so you've got one always where they are now) configure kmail to not download mail from server end if you've got more than one account (like me,I've got three mail account) try to resent your old mail to yourself.

This is the last chance to recover in thunderbird your lostr mail but it's not gauranteed it will work.
Let me know.
walker

I've got more mail accounts than a dog has fleas, so this might work. I'm sure I do have kmail, I just haven't used it. I'll give it a shot this weekend.

If the worst happens, I can always get my old contacts and really old mail from my Windows side, so I'm not suicidal or anything. The hardest thing will be finding new contact information, like my friend who moved back to Norway (from US).

I decided it wasn't worth the effort to try and resurrect a couple months of mail, so instead I decided to nuke everything and start over.

I have succeeded, to a point. I removed Tbird 0.5. I removed all Tbird references in all users directories, except in the menu. I exported my address book on the Windows side, which is only slightly out-of-date, and I copied all my mail on the Windows side to a safe folder.

I then set up my mail accounts, and one for my wife. I gave her access to the family mail, and the appropriate permissions. I added her "identity". I then had her log in, and lo and behold, she could see the right mail!

So, I seem to have lost about two months of mail, and one important address, but otherwise, I am good to go!