SillyDog701 Message Centre

[MMottster]

Hello, Last week I updated both my Thunderbird and Firefox programs to the most recent versions from mozilla.org. In my Thunderbird tool bar my back and forward buttons are present, but shaded gray and do not work. Unlike all other buttons in the tool bar that are brightly colored and do the task they describe. I have un-intstalled and re-installed, but it has not helped. I have tried to browse other posts to see if someone else has had a similar problem, but I have not found one. Please help.

Thank you,
Michelle

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

[Fulvio]

There is no back in my TB toolbar, nor would I care for one. There is a Next, which will move the highlighted e-mail to the Next one. There is a Forward, next to Reply, Reply All, which is an entirely different thing, use to Forward a message. Are we in the same program?
Of course there are back and forward arrows in Firefox, but that's an entirely different thing.
Where are your settings located on the toolbar?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

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"I've got a very poor sense of direction. I keep forgetting which way is forwards."
WinXP, SP3, 512 MB, 3.0.15 regular, 3.5.5 regular and portable , TB2.0.0.23, Flock2.5.2, IE8.0, SM2.0, Google Chrome2.0.x, Zone Alarm; AVG9.0, JRE1.6_17

[Somedude]

Back and Forward are to sort through new messages only, from what I read in a description of a Thunderbird addon.

~SD

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a5) Gecko/20070606 GranParadiso/3.0a5

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Fx 3.0b3, NSN 9.0.0.6, NSM 9.0a1

[MMottster]

Somedude: you are correct, the back and forward buttons are for moving through new emails. Mine do not work.

Fulvio: In the first version of Thunderbird I installed, the back and forward buttons were not in the toolbar. They were additional features you could drag and drop into the toolbar (towards the right side of the bar) when you chose to "customize" the features of the toolbar. I can drag the buttons back into the customizable option box and drag them back out into the toobar. But whenever they are in the toolbar, they are gray and non functional.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

[PaulD]

Interesting; I'd never used this in TB 2.
But experimenting, they become active (non-grey) after one has viewed one or more emails. It appears that there is some internal 'thread' (or trail) of emails viewed. The Back and Forward then take one through that thread. The emails are traced in the sequence selected, which is not necessarily those that are contiguous (adjacent) in whatever sorted sequence they are.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.9) Gecko/20061206 Firefox/1.5.0.9

[Fulvio]

I would never use Forward, since it is confusing, by name, with forwarding mail. Next does the job. As for Back, it does not, but I don't use threads. To me the entire thing is alien, and useless.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

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"I've got a very poor sense of direction. I keep forgetting which way is forwards."
WinXP, SP3, 512 MB, 3.0.15 regular, 3.5.5 regular and portable , TB2.0.0.23, Flock2.5.2, IE8.0, SM2.0, Google Chrome2.0.x, Zone Alarm; AVG9.0, JRE1.6_17

[James]

I find it useful for the newsreader embedded in Thunderbird. Next and Back are useful. I can keep my cursor on one of those buttons and just navigate from post to post without having to move it. Granted, it's no big deal but I like it.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

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James
It's later than you think.

Firefox 3.5.3, IE 8

[MMottster]

I have never used these buttons to follow threads. I do not use this email for message board style emails.

If 10 emails come in, after reading one, I click the forward bottom (on the right of my toolbar-with a different symbol than the "forward" as in forward email to new person) which then takes me to the next email automatically. I did not/do not need to close that email to get to the one in line. I can not do that now. Now I have to close or delete the current open email before I can go to the next email waiting to be opened.

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)

[Fulvio]

I, just dug out a "previous" button from View|Toolbars|Customize, which works like the "Next" button, only the other way. It works, and, I am not fighting it. It may be harder to get used to changes if a feature was used regularly. I, never, did, so I am not missing anything.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

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"I've got a very poor sense of direction. I keep forgetting which way is forwards."
WinXP, SP3, 512 MB, 3.0.15 regular, 3.5.5 regular and portable , TB2.0.0.23, Flock2.5.2, IE8.0, SM2.0, Google Chrome2.0.x, Zone Alarm; AVG9.0, JRE1.6_17

[PaulD]

"Now I have to close or delete the current open email before I can go to the next email waiting to be opened."
Is this related to the setting:
- Tools > Options > Advanced > General : "Open new messages in" ?
-- I have checked 'An existing message window'. I just click on whatever email is of interest and it pops up in the 'window 3'.

Which brings up a question: What mail windows layout are you using?
I have the Folders listing on the left ('window 1),
the mail 'index' on the right top ('window 2'), and
the current-email-of-interest on the right lower ('window 3').
If you aren't seeing all of these then put your cursor on the boundary of interest:
- left of screen => move it right
- bottom of screen => move it up
Do these boundary moves with no message open.

I can reproduce your symptoms by moving both boundaries off screen (left and down).

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.9) Gecko/20061206 Firefox/1.5.0.9

[MMottster]

Hello Paul D,

Thank you for responding. My windows layout is/was like you said. I've played with the borders of the boxes, bigger, smaller, practically off screen. I've gone back and forth with the "open new messages in" vs "an excisting message window". It doesn't change things. Those buttons are defunct.

Its not going to stop me from using Thunderbird. Its just incredibly annoying that an option I had gotten used to in a previous version no longer works. I've played with moving other buttons from the customize toolbar section (even though I don't need them) and they all seem to work. So I don't understand why these 2 buttons are not working.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

[Fulvio]

It is one of those things. I cannot even find either feature in Seamonkey mail or Thunderbird.
Yes, I did find an inactive Back button, but I never used anything like that.
To have two forwards is confusing enough. However, not having any older version, which, apparently, had the working features, I can't go any further.
In which version did this work? It got me curious.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

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"I've got a very poor sense of direction. I keep forgetting which way is forwards."
WinXP, SP3, 512 MB, 3.0.15 regular, 3.5.5 regular and portable , TB2.0.0.23, Flock2.5.2, IE8.0, SM2.0, Google Chrome2.0.x, Zone Alarm; AVG9.0, JRE1.6_17

[PaulD]

You have re-installed the latest verison of TB and that didn't help. But by default that would have used your existing profile.
Do you have more than one TB profile? If not, can you create a new one and see if the problem exists there also?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.9) Gecko/20061206 Firefox/1.5.0.9

[MMottster]

Fulvio: Unfortunately I did some "house keeping" of my software and deleted the older versions of items on my system. It was a 1.... but that's all I can remember.

PaulD: I created a new profile. The same thing happened. Grey non functioning buttons.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

[captjlddavis]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070604 Thunderbird/2.0.0.4 ID:2007060411
Theme = default
Extrensions =
AboutConfig 0.6
ChromEdit Plus 2.6.4
DictionarySearch 0.9.3
MboxImport 0.5.8.2
Nightly Tester Tools 1.2.1
Password Exporter 1.0.6
Preferential 0.8.1

Things work pretty much the way PaulD said: