[Enigmail] Enigmail has screwed up

[Charly Avital]

James Rome wrote the following on 12/11/07 5:59 PM:
> I am running Thunderbird on OS X Leopard. After my upgrade, I rebuilt
> Fink

Just for future reference:
<http://macgpg.sourceforge.net/>
<http://www.py-soft.co.uk/~benjamin/download/mac-gpg/>
I value Fink, that I have used for a long time, and also DarwinPorts,
but maybe a direct approach to installation with binary installers, or
by compiling src could be considered.

> and built gpg2 instead of gpg. When I configured Enigmail and put
> gpg2 in the path, it stopped working.

It is just *possible* that when Fink installed gpg2, it also installed
gpg-agent, and Thunderbird's OpenPGP Preferences choose to use
gpg-agent. *If* this is what happened, it will not work, because
gpg-agent must be configured specifically to work in your system, and I
don't believe Fink, DarwinPorts or MacPorts do that.

> I built gpg, but now Enigmail will
> not display its preferences screen. There is a flash and nothing
> happens, so I cannot change this.
> 
> I uninstalled and reinstalled enigmail, with no luck getting this to work.
> 
> There is no chrome directory in my profile to delete.

That's unusual, but I'll take your word for it.

In $HOME/Library/Thunderbird there "should" be
/Profiles/[string].default/chrome.

If there isn't, there should be, at least
/Profiles/[string].default/Mail where your e-mails should be stored.

I am not an expert, and maybe you should wait for better advice.

My "cobbler's suggestion" is that you remove the 'Thunderbird' folder
from its present location $HOME/Library/Thunderbird, "park" it somewhere
where it will not be recognized by Thunderbird.
Then make a clean installation of Thunderbird, launch it to check it
displays properly. It will ask you to create an account, create it.
Then install OpenPGP, and when it is integrated in Thunderbird, please
ascertain, first of all, that in 'Advanced', "Use gpg-agent for
passphrases is NOT enabled. In 'Basic", the default options should be
enabled (ask for passphrase, remember the passphrase for x minutes).

Then try to replace the Mail folder that has just been created by
Thunderbird, with the Mail folder that you have parked away in the "old"
Thunderbird folder, and light a candle to the urchins of cyberspace.
This *might* restore the e-mails, but it will not restore other account
settings that you had previously, they are somewhere in that Thunderbird
folder that you have put aside. But as it seems there's something wrong
in it, that prevents OpenPGP Preferences to show in your current
installation, it's preferable to re-use its components with utmost care.

I am running Leopard 10.5.1 on an Macbook Intel Core 2 Duo, Thunderbird
2.0.0.9, Enigmail 0.95.5, gpg2 2.0.7 with gpg-agent enabled, and/or
gnupg 1.4.8rc1. Upgrading from Tiger to Leopard didn't affect
Thunderbird or Enigmail (erase, clean install and restore).

Good luck.
Charly

> 
> Help please.

For all it is worth.