Support:Frequently Asked Questions

From Spicebird

Here are some of the frequently asked questions about Spicebird and possible answers.

1 How do I import my stuff from Thunderbird?
2 Why won't Spicebird connect to any server?
3 Why does Spicebird fail with invalid certificate?
4 Why doesn't the Instant Messenger login into my IM account?
5 How to setup Gmail account in Spicebird

[edit] How do I import my stuff from Thunderbird?

Spicebird Beta 0.4 does not have Thunderbird profile migration wizard. Spicebird Beta 0.7 and above shall have it. The wizard will popup the first time you run Spicebird and help you in migrating your Thunderbird data (mails, filters, addresses, settings etc.) to Spicebird.

If your current Spicebird profile is not important, move away your current Spicebird configuration folder to somewhere else and copy the Thunderbird configuration folder to Spicebird configuration folder.

On GNU/Linux you can do:

mv ~/.spicebird ~/.spicebird.bak
cp -R ~/.thunderbird ~/.spicebird

On Windows you can do:

Move C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Spicebird to C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Spicebird.bak
Copy C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Thunderbird to C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Spicebird

With this procedure you should get all the mails, account settings, addresses, filters etc. from Thunderbird to Spicebird.

[edit] Why won't Spicebird connect to any server?

First, make sure you have Internet connection. Then check if the default RSS applets in the home screen of Spicebird are showing news items. If they aren't, then most likely you firewall/antivirus program is blocking Spicebird from accessing the Internet. Add a rule to your firewall/antivirus program to allow Spicebird to connect to the Internet. In worst case you can do that disable your firewall/antivirus (not recommended).

In case you are able to see news in the RSS applets, check your mail account configuration thoroughly. There could be an error in configuration. For example, configuring Gmail IMAP with the account wizard creates a normal IMAP account where as Gmail only works with IMAP SSL. In this case, go to the account manager and set SSL.

[edit] Why does Spicebird fail with invalid certificate?

Spicebird does not allow invalid or self signed certificates inline with Mozilla Firefox security standards. If you need to connect to a server with self signed certificate, add an exception for your server as follows:

In the menu, go to Tools > Options
Click "Advanced", then "Certificates", then "View Certificates"
Go to "Servers" tab, and click "Add Exception..."
Enter the URL of your server. The URL will look like follows (replace <servername> with your server domain name):
- For IMAP over TLS:
```
<servername>:143
```
- For IMAP over SSL:
```
<servername>:993
```
- For SMTP over TLS:
```
<servername>:25
```
- For SMTP over SSL:
```
<servername>:465
```
- For Jabber over TLS:
```
<servername>:5222
```
- For Jabber over SSL:
```
<servername>:5223
```
Click "Get Certificate"
Ensure "Permanently store this exception" is checked
Click "Confirm Security Exception". Nothing will appear to happen now, but the certificate will be added
Click "Cancel". You should now see the server listed in the exceptions list

Spicebird lacks a simpler user interface to add SSL certificate exceptions which could be fixed in future. See bug #261.

[edit] Why doesn't the Instant Messenger login into my IM account?

This must to be related to https://bugzilla.spicebird.org/show_bug.cgi?id=399, which will be fixed in Spicebird 0.7 version.
Try to login multiple times. If it does not work after 3 attempts, restart and login.