Perpetual Dysfunctional Add Security Exception Notification Prevents Account Access
I have finally succeeded in porting an early OSX Thunderbird profile to a brand new Windows 10 system. For some 5+ days, the new installation was thwarted by a perpetual add security exception notification, which not only displayed a long-defunct mail server address and port, but refused likewise to respond to its Confirm Security Exception button. Effectively, the profile suffered perpetual recurrence of a crashed security exception notification, which did not crash Thunderbird itself, but prevented access to the mail server. Yet the accounts were properly configured; and Thunderbird would successfully access each configuration, download mail, and send mail in trouble-shooting mode.
Because it was so time-consuming to diagnose and repair this problem, I thought I'd post the solution to this problem to save others the trouble:
I believe the problem was engendered by two issues:
1. Our mail host recently reconfigure our server access paths and ports. This required re-configuring the imported profile.
2. Furthermore, Thunderbird evidently either stores and/or reads our password-and-server-path-and-port data (to or from pkcs11.txt) in such a way that when it attempts to log into the server, it uses the path from pkcs11.txt or elsewhere, instead of the path+port combination we designated in our account setup. The latter, ignored or un-registered instance is the only means provided for configuring the account, there's nothing the end user can do but prowl Thunderbird internals for the bogus path used, which survives somehow as an unwanted artifact of the profile import process (Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> About:profiles link).
Answers to a similar problem report indicated that we could simply delete our pkcs11.txt file, and that Thunderbird would automatically re-generate a properly populated copy, but I found this not to be the case. Just the same, here's how to fix a broken Thunderbird profile, which, as a consequence of needing to re-configure the profile before using it, suffers perpetual re-presentation of the said, dysfunctional Confirm Security Exception dialog (featuring a bogus [artifactual] server path and/or server port value):
What you need, is a good pkcs11.txt file; and to get one, you do have to jettison the pkcs11.txt in your profile. The problem is (as pkcs11.txt somehow supports a cipher of your password), how to create a good pkcs11.txt. You do this by creating a new account with the proper login information. Once I had created that account, copying the pkcs11.txt from that account into your imported profile should fix your dysfunctional Security Exception problem (given of course, that the causes are the same).
Perpetual Dysfunctional Add Security Exception Notification Prevents Account Access
I have finally succeeded in porting an early OSX Thunderbird profile to a brand new Windows 10 system. For some 5+ days, the new installation was thwarted by a perpetual add security exception notification, which not only displayed a long-defunct mail server address and port, but refused likewise to respond to its Confirm Security Exception button. Effectively, the profile suffered perpetual recurrence of a crashed security exception notification, which did not crash Thunderbird itself, but prevented access to the mail server. Yet the accounts were properly configured; and Thunderbird would successfully access each configuration, download mail, and send mail in trouble-shooting mode.
Because it was so time-consuming to diagnose and repair this problem, I thought I'd post the solution to this problem to save others the trouble:
I believe the problem was engendered by two issues:
1. Our mail host recently reconfigure our server access paths and ports. This required re-configuring the imported profile.
2. Furthermore, Thunderbird evidently either stores and/or reads our password-and-server-path-and-port data (to or from pkcs11.txt) in such a way that when it attempts to log into the server, it uses the path from pkcs11.txt or elsewhere, instead of the path+port combination we designated in our account setup. The latter, ignored or un-registered instance is the only means provided for configuring the account, there's nothing the end user can do but prowl Thunderbird internals for the bogus path used, which survives somehow as an unwanted artifact of the profile import process (Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> About:profiles link).
Answers to a similar problem report indicated that we could simply delete our pkcs11.txt file, and that Thunderbird would automatically re-generate a properly populated copy, but I found this not to be the case. Just the same, here's how to fix a broken Thunderbird profile, which, as a consequence of needing to re-configure the profile before using it, suffers perpetual re-presentation of the said, dysfunctional Confirm Security Exception dialog (featuring a bogus [artifactual] server path and/or server port value):
What you need, is a good pkcs11.txt file; and to get one, you do have to jettison the pkcs11.txt in your profile. The problem is (as pkcs11.txt somehow supports a cipher of your password), how to create a good pkcs11.txt. You do this by creating a new account with the proper login information. Once I had created that account, copying the pkcs11.txt from that account into your imported profile should fix your dysfunctional Security Exception problem (given of course, that the causes are the same).
