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Missing Folder in Recovery

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Lost a folder in my SeaMonkey mail Local Folders.

In Acronis TrueImage 2020, I followed the recovery procedure to locate the missing folder and the corresponding .msf file that goes with it. The procedure completed seemingly with no issues.

But, when I look at the structure in the file explorer, the missing folder is absent. The .msf has been restored, and another file with the correct name, but the folder is missing. 

Turns out that there are three structures for a Local Folders folder, and its contents, in SeaMonkey, the .sbf, which is a folder, the .msf, and a file with no extension. Acronis has backed up only the file with no extension, and the .msf, but not the .sbf, which is the actual folder.

Anyone know what's going on? Appreciate any comments.

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Dave, I have never used SeaMonkey for my mail but I have been using Thunderbird for many years and have had no issues with my backups showing all the correct files.

Thunderbird doesn't use .sbf folder files but does use .sbd for that purpose, along with .msf and files without an extension.

The files shown in the ATI GUI or in Explorer are controlled by the View options you have in Explorer, i.e. for some files to show the 'Show hidden / system files' option needs to be selected.

The above screen images were taken from a Disk backup of my drive where my Thunderbird profile stores it mail files.

Hello Steve: Thanks for the reply. SeaMonkey uses the same structure. I meant .sbd instead of .sbf.

Also, I should clarify. I do have show hidden files folders and drives turned on in file explorer. But, what I'm find inexplicable is that all the Local .sbd folders are shown in the ATI GUI except for the one that has gone missing. That folder was there just this Sunday evening, now gone both in SeaMonkey and in ATI.

Dave, have you got an older backup that might still have the missing .sbd folder that you could recover?

My backup drive goes back about 3 months with daily backups. I looked back for a week. The .sbd has been gone for at least that long on that drive. But, in SeaMonkey, it was there until Monday. 

Very strange Dave, have you checked the backup logs to see if any mention is made for errors related to that file / folder?

Please download the MVP Log Viewer tool (link in my signature below) and use this to review the log file for your backup operation.

OK. Got the Log Viewer. What am I looking for?

In the short view, I looked through every report for June. They all show operation succeeded.

And, I see no errors.

Well, I fixed the issue. But, I don't understand it.

The missing folder somehow got moved into another folder.

I located it by searching in the ATI GUI for the name of the missing folder, and checking where they showed in the file path. Only the .msf and the .<empty> were present there in the ATI GUI in the wrong path folder. Then just checking in SM the same path showed it was there, and then it was easy to move to the correct location using the SM GUI.

Thanks for the time and thought you gave to this, and sorry that I even brought it up here. If I'd been a better analyst of the situation, I would have seen it when I first looked in the ATI GUI for the file.

Dave

Dave, thanks for the update, the most likely explanation (and something I have done myself with Thunderbird) is basic finger trouble, i.e. clicking to open a folder in the mail GUI but actually sliding the folder on top of another one, which moves it.  Glad all if now found!