Thunderbird not allowing local accounts

[Paul M. Foster]

Folks:

I just restarted my machine, and am using Thunderbird 91.4.1 (the
latest) 64 bit on Debian 11. I didn't reinstall Thunderbird or upgrade
it. Before I restarted the machine, I had a Thunderbird email account
for local emails, which grabbed email from my /var/mail/paulf folder.
Now that account doesn't show up in Thunderbird, and I'm unable to
create an account like that (one which grabs mail from a local folder).
The dialogs which used to be there allowing you to create a localhost
mbox account are gone. I've verified the (complicated) procedure for
doing this on the Internet, and the dialogs shown are no longer in
Thunderbird. I am unable to create a localhost email account in Thunderbird.

Any help? Did Thunderbird make some change I don't know about?

Paul

[Richard Hector]

Looks like it :-(

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=993526
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1625741

Richard

[Paul M. Foster]

Thanks for the info. Mozilla Foundation is seriously annoying me lately.

Can anyone recommend another MUA which uses mbox format and is
relatively easy to configure?

Paul

[Celejar]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2022 09:44:24 -0500
"Paul M. Foster" <pa...@quillandmouse.com> wrote:

...

> Thanks for the info. Mozilla Foundation is seriously annoying me lately.
>
> Can anyone recommend another MUA which uses mbox format and is
> relatively easy to configure?

Sylpheed?

Celejar

[pa...@quillandmouse.com]

It's starting to look that way. Actually, I'm looking at claws-mail.

--
Paul M. Foster
http://noferblatz.com
http://quillandmouse.com

[Charles Curley]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2022 09:44:24 -0500
"Paul M. Foster" <pa...@quillandmouse.com> wrote:

> Can anyone recommend another MUA which uses mbox format and is
> relatively easy to configure?

Claws-mail and mutt for two.

Or, if you want to stick with your investment in Thunderbird, use
dovecot to set up a local imap server.

--
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

[Jeremy Nicoll]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2022, at 13:35, Paul M. Foster wrote:
> Folks:
>
> I just restarted my machine, and am using Thunderbird 91.4.1 (the
> latest) 64 bit on Debian 11. I didn't reinstall Thunderbird or upgrade

> it...

I've never used TB so these questions might be crazy ...

Is TB able to import a set of mails stored in a folder somewhere
else on a machine?

If it is, is that able to be scheduled somehow - eg via cron?

Does TB have filter capabilities that affect what happens with
mails as they're imported, perhaps separately from mails
that are fetched from somewhere?

If those work, would one need a separate mechanism to get
the mails currently accumulating in "mail spool" or wherever
into (exported?) a folder from which the import could pick
them up?

I know that if this affected me I'd be hugely upset having to
consider abandoning one MUA and learning all the ins&outs
of another one, and would - in the short term anyway - prefer
to find some way of making TB still see the mails concerned.

--
Jeremy Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

[Dan Ritter]

Jeremy Nicoll wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2022, at 13:35, Paul M. Foster wrote:
> > Folks:
> >
> > I just restarted my machine, and am using Thunderbird 91.4.1 (the
> > latest) 64 bit on Debian 11. I didn't reinstall Thunderbird or upgrade
> > it...
>
> I've never used TB so these questions might be crazy ...
>
> Is TB able to import a set of mails stored in a folder somewhere
> else on a machine?

That's the capability that appears to have gone away.

> Does TB have filter capabilities that affect what happens with
> mails as they're imported, perhaps separately from mails
> that are fetched from somewhere?

Yes.

> If those work, would one need a separate mechanism to get
> the mails currently accumulating in "mail spool" or wherever
> into (exported?) a folder from which the import could pick
> them up?

As previously mentioned, the mechanism for that is now "set up
dovecot or another IMAP server".

-dsr-

[Jeremy Nicoll]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2022, at 19:52, Dan Ritter wrote:
> Jeremy Nicoll wrote:
>> On Wed, 5 Jan 2022, at 13:35, Paul M. Foster wrote:
>> > Folks:
>> >
>> > I just restarted my machine, and am using Thunderbird 91.4.1 (the
>> > latest) 64 bit on Debian 11. I didn't reinstall Thunderbird or upgrade
>> > it...
>>
>> I've never used TB so these questions might be crazy ...
>>
>> Is TB able to import a set of mails stored in a folder somewhere
>> else on a machine?
>
> That's the capability that appears to have gone away.

Well, I said I'd not used TB. But on another client I used to use (until its
author stopped maintaining it) these were separate facilities. One could
define a mail account from which mails would be fetched, but they'd
just be read from a folder. I did use that, when migrating from a client
on a separate OS; that OS separated mail fetch from mail debatch so
while still using that client on its own OS I spun off duplicate sets of
incoming mails and had the new client debatch from those folders.
Only once I was certain I had the new client working satisfactorily did
I update it to fetch direct from mail servers and stop using the local
folder source.

Separately at any time one could manually do an import of mails from
some place. Clearly the latter facility had to exist so that people could
move mail from one mail client to another.

In this situation I'd wonder if for example one could start TB from the
commandline telling it to import from a folder, though that might not
work if TB is already running.

I'd also consider using some screen automation utility to automate
the otherwise manual process of initiating an import via TB's menus.

[John Conover]

pa...@quillandmouse.com writes:
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2022 11:58:09 -0500
> Celejar <cel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 5 Jan 2022 09:44:24 -0500
> > "Paul M. Foster" <pa...@quillandmouse.com> wrote:
> >
> > ...
> >
> > > Thanks for the info. Mozilla Foundation is seriously annoying me
> > > lately.
> > >
> > > Can anyone recommend another MUA which uses mbox format and is
> > > relatively easy to configure?
> >
> > Sylpheed?
> >
> > Celejar
> >
>
> It's starting to look that way. Actually, I'm looking at claws-mail.
>

Yea, and claws-mail is not compatible with Gmail's oauth2, which is
now required by Google, (as of this month,) and Thunderbird is
compatible, but no longer supports local mbox delivery for a LAN.

Kind of a mess.

John

--

John Conover, con...@rahul.net, http://www.johncon.com/

[Celejar]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2022 13:28:55 -0500
<pa...@quillandmouse.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 5 Jan 2022 11:58:09 -0500
> Celejar <cel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 5 Jan 2022 09:44:24 -0500
> > "Paul M. Foster" <pa...@quillandmouse.com> wrote:
> >
> > ...
> >
> > > Thanks for the info. Mozilla Foundation is seriously annoying me
> > > lately.
> > >
> > > Can anyone recommend another MUA which uses mbox format and is
> > > relatively easy to configure?
> >
> > Sylpheed?
> >
> > Celejar
> >
>
> It's starting to look that way. Actually, I'm looking at claws-mail.

Claws started out as a fork of Sylph, but eventually evolved into a
distinct application. Sylph is very good, if not the newest and
shiniest thing. Claws is probably very good, too, although I've never
used it.

Celejar

[Celejar]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2022 12:33:36 -0800
con...@rahul.net (John Conover) wrote:

> pa...@quillandmouse.com writes:
> > On Wed, 5 Jan 2022 11:58:09 -0500
> > Celejar <cel...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On Wed, 5 Jan 2022 09:44:24 -0500
> > > "Paul M. Foster" <pa...@quillandmouse.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > ...
> > >
> > > > Thanks for the info. Mozilla Foundation is seriously annoying me
> > > > lately.
> > > >
> > > > Can anyone recommend another MUA which uses mbox format and is
> > > > relatively easy to configure?
> > >
> > > Sylpheed?
> > >
> > > Celejar
> > >
> >
> > It's starting to look that way. Actually, I'm looking at claws-mail.
> >
>
> Yea, and claws-mail is not compatible with Gmail's oauth2, which is
> now required by Google, (as of this month,) and Thunderbird is

? I'm still downloading my Gmail email via POP3 with getmail, without
OAuth2. For a couple of years now, Google has been pushing OAuth2, but
has still allowed ordinary POP3 / IMAP access to email using "app
specific passwords." Has something changed recently?

https://support.google.com/mail/thread/23019816/how-can-i-continue-to-use-pop-based-email-after-oauth-is-required-next-year

> compatible, but no longer supports local mbox delivery for a LAN.

FWIW, BTW, getmail (which does support mbox delivery) does have support
for Gmail's OAuth2 (in case you want / need to use it) via its
getmail-gmail-xoauth-tokens script:

https://www.bytereef.org/howto/oauth2/getmail.html

You can also find detailed instructions in the file
"getmailrc-examples.gz", in Debian's getmail6 package.

Celejar

[rhkr...@gmail.com]

kmail (for kde prior to 4.8.4, and maybe a few later versions, but by 4.14.2.,
it no longer supported mbox)

e.g., kmail, kmail 1.13.7 under kde 4.8.4 (on Debian Wheezy (yeah, I know)

or the kmail in TDE (the Trinity Desktop Environment)

[Brad Rogers]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2022 12:33:36 -0800
con...@rahul.net (John Conover) wrote:

Hello John,

>Yea, and claws-mail is not compatible with Gmail's oauth2, which is

Many CM users are successfully collecting mail from google using oauth2.

--
Regards _
/ ) "The blindingly obvious is never immediately apparent"
/ _)rad "Is it only me that has a working delete key?"
I must be hallucinating, watching angels celebrating
There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) - Eurythmics

[didier gaumet]

Hello Celejar,


Sylpheed does not manage Mbox mailboxes, only MH mailboxes

[didier gaumet]

Le mercredi 05 janvier 2022 à 09:44 -0500, Paul M. Foster a écrit :
>
> Can anyone recommend another MUA which uses mbox format and is
> relatively easy to configure?
>
> Paul

Hello Paul,

For GUI MUAs,
others have suggested Claws-mail (with the mbox plgin, by default Claws
only manages MH mailboxes) and I confirm it can do what you want. 
A problem is that certain MUAs (Balsa, Geary, etc...) manage Mbox
mailboxes but cannot associate a Mbox with a true local account
(/var/mail/...) or do this with severe limitations.
Confronted like you to Thunderbird changes (integrated OpenPGP instead
of gpg standard integration, and now movemail management
suppression...), I chose Evolution and do not regret it: I find it to
be slighty better, with the only drawback of NNTP, still perfectible

For CLI/TUI MUAs,
I think they are all genuine MUAs, designed to cope with /var/mail Mbox
mailboxes

Cheers :-)

[didier...@gmail.com]

Le jeudi 06 janvier 2022 à 09:40 +0100, didier gaumet a écrit :

[...]

> For CLI/TUI MUAs,
> I think they are all genuine MUAs, designed to cope with /var/mail
> Mbox
> mailboxes

Correction, they are almost all designed to cope with Mbox, but for
example mh/nmh/mmh are not (MH mailboxes)

[Eric S Fraga]

On Wednesday, 5 Jan 2022 at 11:26, Charles Curley wrote:
> Or, if you want to stick with your investment in Thunderbird, use
> dovecot to set up a local imap server.

dovecot is also quite useful for letting those MUAs that do not support
oauth2 access services which require it.

--
Eric S Fraga with org 9.5.2 in Emacs 29.0.50 on Debian 11.2

[Celejar]

On Thu, 06 Jan 2022 10:40:10 +0000
Eric S Fraga <e.f...@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

> On Wednesday, 5 Jan 2022 at 11:26, Charles Curley wrote:
> > Or, if you want to stick with your investment in Thunderbird, use
> > dovecot to set up a local imap server.
>
> dovecot is also quite useful for letting those MUAs that do not support
> oauth2 access services which require it.

And there's also this, although I have not used it and don't know how
well it works:

https://github.com/simonrob/email-oauth2-proxy

Celejar

[Celejar]

Sorry, my mistake. I conflated its support for importing from and
exporting to mbox with actual use of mbox.

Celejar

[Brad Rogers]

On Thu, 06 Jan 2022 15:19:27 +0000
"Jeremy Nicoll" <jn.ml....@letterboxes.org> wrote:

Hello Jeremy,

>but other servers that use OAuth2 - notably Microsoft ones - regularly
>revoke users' access tokens and the users currently have to set those

Not using oauth myself, I'd failed to do more than simply glance at some
of those messages as it' not really of interest to me. Having just read
a few in more of those messages in depth, that certainly seem to be the
case. What a palaver. The cynic in me says they're doing this to
discourage non-preferred software from being used.

--
Regards _
/ ) "The blindingly obvious is never immediately apparent"
/ _)rad "Is it only me that has a working delete key?"

Never give in until they crack
Emergency - 999

[Jeremy Nicoll]

On Thu, 6 Jan 2022, at 05:31, Brad Rogers wrote:

> Many CM users are successfully collecting mail from google using
> oauth2.

In the last couple of days there's been a flurry of discussion on the CM
Developers' mail list about some problems with OAuth2 though.

My impression, not knowing the ins&outs, is that CM is ok with google

but other servers that use OAuth2 - notably Microsoft ones - regularly
revoke users' access tokens and the users currently have to set those

up again manually.

[pa...@quillandmouse.com]

On Thu, 6 Jan 2022 15:26:23 +0000
Brad Rogers <br...@fineby.me.uk> wrote:

> On Thu, 06 Jan 2022 15:19:27 +0000
> "Jeremy Nicoll" <jn.ml....@letterboxes.org> wrote:
>
> Hello Jeremy,
>
> >but other servers that use OAuth2 - notably Microsoft ones -
> >regularly revoke users' access tokens and the users currently have
> >to set those
>
> Not using oauth myself, I'd failed to do more than simply glance at
> some of those messages as it' not really of interest to me. Having
> just read a few in more of those messages in depth, that certainly
> seem to be the case. What a palaver. The cynic in me says they're
> doing this to discourage non-preferred software from being used.
>

That's not cynicism, it's realism. Microsoft alone has been doing this
kind of thing for decades. Case in point: when I switched from
Thunderbird to Claws-Mail, I had to sign into my Google account and
okay the use of this "new" email client, before I could fetch my gmail
mail in Claws-Mail. Including two factor authentication on my cell
phone. The only way I knew to do that was because my wife had had to go
through it earlier on her Mac.

Paul

[John Crawley]

On 06/01/2022 03:26, Charles Curley wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2022 09:44:24 -0500
> "Paul M. Foster" <pa...@quillandmouse.com> wrote:
>
>> Can anyone recommend another MUA which uses mbox format and is
>> relatively easy to configure?
>
> Claws-mail and mutt for two.
>
> Or, if you want to stick with your investment in Thunderbird, use
> dovecot to set up a local imap server.

This issue hit me this morning too. With a huge decades-long investment in TB.
Much websearching later, discovered that setting up dovecot as a local imap server is nowhere as complicated as it looks [1].

Just install dovecot-imapd + dependencies
It's configured by default to do exactly what's needed here (serve /var/mail<username>).

Then set up a new imap account on Thunderbird:

name and email address <username>@<hostname>

Server Type: IMAP Mail Server
Server Name: localhost, Port: 143
User Name: <username>
Connection security: None
Authentication method: Password, transmitted insecurely

It seems to be working now. Just have to wait to see if it fetches new messages as they arrive...

[1] https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=2089364&sid=3a7ead4db70a4207632405a9aa06dc59#p2089364

--
John

[Bob Crochelt]

John,

thanks for this.  Seems to work here as well

Bob C.

[Marc Shapiro]

DISCLAIMER:

    * I am running on Devuan, then days, not Debian

    * I get my Thunderbird directly from Mozilla  (Currently 91.5.1)

I have local accounts set up so that I can receive e-mail sent by cron. 
I have had no difficulty with receiving these e-mails. Over the last two
months, I have used 91.4.0, 91.4.1, 91.5.0, and now 91.5.1.  None have
given me any problems with receiving e-mail sent by cron to my local
account.  Under "Local Folders" I have an account with my name. 
Properties shows the location of this to be 'mailbox:///var/mail/marc'. 
No soft links required.  Am I misunderstanding the problem, here?

Marc