How to force Thunderbird to just accept the mail settings?

[Red Squirrel]

Thunderbird INSISTS that the mail settings are valid no matter what before it even lets you configure an account. This is really annoying. It does not even tell you what part fails, it just says that it fails. Is there a way to bypass this whole process and just force the settings? At least that way I can troubleshoot one part at a time, pop3 or SMTP, not both.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've EVER seen this work. I always end up having to import an old profile from before they had that BS part of the setup process.

 

[gsaldivar]

I have used Thunderbird occasionally to open mbox files and have encountered this requirement before. If I recall, I got around this by using properly formatted (but fake) info. Such as server name "pop.1234abcz.com" etc.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Managed to get it working. I put a valid, but wrong, smtp server and it took it. The SMTP server I want to configure is for an ISP that I'm not on, so I can't connect to it from here. Once it let me in I was able to go in account settings and change it to the proper one. Really annoying they do this though.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Hmm, I never ran into this problem before--I've been using Thunderbird for 3-4 years now. Of course, I have no idea the name structure of the smtp server you were trying to use so I can't guess on the problem.

I think I hate iOS Mail's inability to properly configure POP servers as it seems the Apple support page indicates life only exists for IMAP. A in Apple stands for A-holes, I guess.

BTW, I have several Thunderbird profiles configured and one has >50 POP/SMTP configs. Of course, I root them to a central Inbox (so I don't have to have 50 instances each of Inbox/Drafts/Sent/Trash so I am happy.

 

[Red Squirrel]

It's only if you have no profiles setup that it does this. Instead of just bringing you straight inside the app where you can just create a new mail account and manually input all the settings, it has this wizard thing that it forces you through and wont let you out till everything is valid. In my case the SMTP was not valid, but I knew that, it only works when the machine is on that ISP's network, it's how they're setup so not just anyone can start using the smtp to send spam.

 

[mrjminer]

It's only if you have no profiles setup that it does this. Instead of just bringing you straight inside the app where you can just create a new mail account and manually input all the settings, it has this wizard thing that it forces you through and wont let you out till everything is valid. In my case the SMTP was not valid, but I knew that, it only works when the machine is on that ISP's network, it's how they're setup so not just anyone can start using the smtp to send spam.

I just got it with invalid settings.

Give me a minute to try it again to see if it will take me to the inbox stuff again to see what I did. Only took me like 2-3 minutes of never having used it, newb ;P

Nevermind, you got it. I did it the same way

 

[BarkingGhostar]

What about just creating the information in the prefs.js file? I'm in that file all the time when I'm adding new boxes. Of course you want to not have Thunderbird open when doing this otherwise it will overwrite your changes when you exit.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Hmm it's just clear text? Good to know. I'll have to remember that one next time. That's just in the "application data" profile folder I'm guessing?

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Yessir, clear text. And if you want to merge multiple Inboxes then add the following line:

user_pref("mail.server.server15.deferred_to_account", "account1");

But make sure you have already moved pre-existing mail from their original Inbox or you will not be able to access them.