Flurching technology!

Feel free to skip this growl, but I need to growl...

 

I use Thunderbird to send my e-mails because I've got a dozen different addresses on different platforms and I'm not going to connect to each address in the morning to check my messages.

Now... I don't know if the fact that I still use ADSL is the issue, if it's Thunderbird that's hiccoughing, or if it's Gmail that blew a fuse, but I've been having odd issues recently:

- sometimes I have to send my message from a different address if I add an attachment to an answer (I can't always change the address; that's okay with friends and family, not with co-workers).

- sometimes the message I'm typing isn't saving to the draft folder (I've had to copy my text, abandon the modifications, close/re-open Thunderbird, and start my message again).

- sometimes I send a message, but the SMTP connection closes and the message doesn't leave my inbox OR sometimes it does, but it says it didn't, which is why I started adding one of my addresses in BCC to make sure that the e-mail was sent.

And we come to last night... I was answering someone for work (but not a fellow) and that person has been helping me a lot. When the draft-saving failed, I copied my text, closed everything and re-opened Thunderbird. I restarted the message, added my backup address in BCC, and clicked "Send".

Thunderbird told me that sending failed - I got no message to my backup address and even connected to that account to make sure that it was empty, and it was.

It's a very important answer, so I connected to Gmail. There's nothing in the "Sent" folder, but my answer (and its attachment) shows with the initial message that's still in the inbox. Still no trace of my answer on the backup address.

I had an issue like this a few weeks ago: my answer wasn't in the "Sent" folder, but one of my colleagues got my answer nonetheless.

If the message reached my correspondent, I can hope that I'll get a confirmation that my attachment was received, but it's Sunday and not everyone's glued to their keyboard...

If the message is lost, I'm going to look like a muppet when I send a new message to inquire/apologise tomorrow.

Flurching technology!