Mail.db timestamp leeway

Background

Mozilla Mail and Thunderbird store metadata about mail messages and mail folders in *.msf files in the profile folder. To determine whether the metadata are “fresh,” the timestamps on the files are examined. If the timestamp stored inside the *.msf file and the timestamp on the file itself differ by too much, the file is invalidated. This preference controls how much the timestamps can differ.

Possible values and their effects

Any positive integer value in seconds. (Default is undefined in Thunderbird 1.5 and below [allow no leeway]; 4000 in recent trunk builds)

Recommended settings

• If your profile is stored on a FAT32 partition, you may be subject to a bug that can be avoided by setting this preference to 4000.
• If you share your profile between an installation on a FAT32 partition and another filesystem, you should set this preference to a value of at least 2 to avoid bug 207038.

First checked in

2003-05-28 by David Bienvenu

Has an effect in

• Mozilla Suite (all versions since 1.5)
• Mozilla Thunderbird (all versions)
• SeaMonkey (all versions)

Related bugs

• Bug 136049 - Daylight savings change invalidates summary files
• Bug 207038 - Putting Mail on an FAT32 Partition results in rebuilding summary files

See also

• Daylight savings time