Something Wicked this Way Comes?

[BobH]

When I tried to wake my PC today, I found that the UPS system was off. Probably the result of a power strike during last night's rain, methinks. After some futzing around, I got the UPS back up and running and tried to boot the PC. At first I got strange responses with my monitor not displaying anything onscreen but showing an orange 'not ready' light. Windows would not boot.

After resetting things again, I was able to boot and the monitor behaved normally; but, of course, I got the prompt to Restart Windows Normally or choose other options. I chose to restart normally and the boot completed. When it did, I got a reminder that Adobe Flash needed updating. I distrust these Flash Player prompts but proceeded to do the update. Although it tried to install McAfee, I caught it and only installed the Adobe app.

I normally run Thunderbird and Firefox along with any other apps du jour. When I started Thunderbird, it behaved erratically. When I chose an inbox on any email account, it displayed the main account screen instead of the list of message in the inbox. I finally was able to view each email account's Inbox, but what is even more strange is that several of my accounts showed dozens of old messages and indicated that they were unread . . . some dated from years ago. (I generally opt to show only unread emails.) I presume some email server somewhere cleared its cache or something in this TB start up triggered an event that caused the dump to me. A quick scan of the old messages shows nothing consequential. A lot of them were Undelivered Mail messages, but some were not. There were dozens of notices from Eileen's Lounge some of which were years old.

An even stranger phenomenon is that fact that when I select these messages and right-click, I do not get the option to mark them read. The panel that was presented included the option to Archive the selected messages - which I chose - and the messages were removed from my Inbox>Unread screen.

I report all this and ask if anyone else has had similar experience; and - if so - did they ever find a reason for it.

[PJ_in_FL]

Bob,

Do you use Thunderbird to agregate POP email accounts from various locations and accounts (YAHOO, GMAIL, etc.)?

I do that with an Outlook client (no Exchange link on my home PC) and occasionally I've had a Outlook forget about all the thousands of emails I've already received and thus go about downloading them all again, creating a mess of duplicates. If Thunderbird was open when power went off, it could have lost it's database that kept similar information on the emails that were already received. Don't know of a recovery other than if the Thunderbird help files (probably in one of the hidden "...\Application" folders) can be restored from a recent backup.

HTH

[BobH]

Thanks, PJ.

I use TB with several different email accounts but they are under the domain of my ISP. I suspect that you are correct about some control element being corrupted or lost. All of the valid, recent email that I received had 2 copies of each in the various email accounts. The old stuff was not duplicated, but I guess there was still some vestige on the ISP's email server or my TB settings made it think they should be sent again, although I don't know why email from 3 years ago would still be on the ISP's servers.

Thanks for the input.

[ChrisGreaves]

... I got a reminder that Adobe Flash needed updating. I distrust these Flash Player prompts but proceeded to do the update. Although it tried to install McAfee, I caught it and only installed the Adobe app.

Bob, How'd you do that?

I too, in a moment of weakness, d/l the install_flashplayer16x32_mssa_aaa_aih.exe from the McAfee site and found that I could CANCEL, but in two runs (one after a reboot) didn't see any option to suppress McAfee.
I hate McAfee because it falsely reports that my Word VBA utility template UW.DOT has a virus.

[BobH]

Sorry, Chris. I've slept more than twice since making that post and don't recall. Now, if you want to discuss the 1952 US presidential election in which the Chicago Tribune reported that Dewey beat Truman, I'm your man.

[ChrisGreaves]

Sorry, Chris. I've slept more than twice since making that post and don't recall. Now, if you want to discuss the 1952 US presidential election in which the Chicago Tribune reported that Dewey beat Truman, I'm your man.

[Jay Freedman]

... I got a reminder that Adobe Flash needed updating. I distrust these Flash Player prompts but proceeded to do the update. Although it tried to install McAfee, I caught it and only installed the Adobe app.

Bob, How'd you do that?

I too, in a moment of weakness, d/l the install_flashplayer16x32_mssa_aaa_aih.exe from the McAfee site and found that I could CANCEL, but in two runs (one after a reboot) didn't see any option to suppress McAfee.
I hate McAfee because it falsely reports that my Word VBA utility template UW.DOT has a virus.

If you go to Adobe's site instead of McAfee's site, it offers to install McAfee but you can just uncheck the box.

[Rudi]

Bob, coming back to your OP; I for one won't be able to answer your questions about the strange behaviour of your PC. As a matter of fact, I doubt there will be any conclusive answer, as most replies can only speculate at what could have caused this randomness on your PC. Since you asked if anyone else has experienced this phenomenon, I can say that I've on rare occasion seen strange things in a single app...for example, a reset of settings, or a loss of customization on toolbars/ribbons, and even old emails remarked as unread for reasons i do not know, but I've never seen a broad range of issues across apps and in system startup as you describe in your OP.