I am in process of setting up new Windows computer and I am copying data from old PC.
I copied Thunderbid profile folder to new computer set it up in Thunderbird. When Thunderbird started it recognized profile, loaded and all folders in it were ok except ones that had characters outside of plain ASCII (a-z, A-Z).
Those folders are ignored. Folder actualy shows in a list but as empty. Messages are lost. To be more preciseinstead of one folder two same named foleds showed up both empty. What I noticed was that folder path was leding to strangelz named folder, containing only numbers. That strangely named folder did exist, was empty, but it was not part of copied backup - it was created by Thunderbird.
I checked files for problematic folder on disk. Files were there and according to size I concluded that content is there, just it is not loaded.
Afrer I renamed message folder files and replaced non plain ASCII characters with ASCII, and then run Thunderbird, folder content was shown properly.
I find this as serious issue. Users are not aware that Thunderbird, althrough it accepts folder names with non ASCII characters, when they are created, and worked with that it normaly on one computer, when moved to new computer, those folders are silently ignored and messages appear lost.
There are two possible solutions:
1. Thunderbird should be fixed to load folders with non ASCII characters in name properly, or
2. On folder creating, it should warn user and do not accept non ASCII characters in name. It should also warn for all existing folders with non ASCII characters in name.
