thunderbird 68 keeps resizing message and drafting windows
Since Thunderbird 68 (with necessary security updates) was released, I have had an interface problem: The message and draft windows keep popping back to a screen-real-estate-hogging size. Initially, this was just when the program restarted for any reason; now, it's even in the midst of a session if the program gets minimized so I can work on something else (since the .1.2 update). The message pane is turned off (as it should be by default), and all views are set to plain text.
Steps to reproduce:
Close the message pane in the main program. Open a message, and resize it so that it is around 50% of screen height and is just wide enough to accommodate the longer of the toolbar and the line length in plain-text mode (normally the equivalent of around 90 characters in my default setup). Happily read messages for a while, and perhaps even respond to a couple of them (taking a similar step in the composition window, both with and without the address sidebar showing). Minimize Thunderbird, work on something else, then bring Thunderbird back to the foreground... and find that the window resizing has "snapped back" to program default.
(I've asked this question before, and got blown off by a True Believer. No, unless you wear bifocals YOU DO NOT KNOW OR UNDERSTAND MY WINDOW-SIZING NEEDS. Over the last five years or so, "support" has gotten increasingly dismissive of people who actually need to work in a mode that isn't all-bells-and-whistles-and-stupid-graphical-BS-displayed.)
System: Win10 Home 64, 1368x766 laptop screen, Tbird 32 (and, BTW, the downloader SHOULD ask if we want 32 or 64 instead of assuming; setting a default is one thing, not providing early and obvious ability to change it is another, especially given the dumbness of putting all install and data files into the "user" folder hierarchy without install-time ability to direct otherwise)
All Replies (7)
Oops, forgot to mention: I have repeatedly deleted the xulstore.json file with no effect.
I do not see you being blown off. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1269519
Could you please do the following:
- Open the menu
> Help > Troubleshooting Information, then click Copy text to Clipboard.
- Open a reply to this post, and paste your troubleshooting information.
I would also suggest you try
- Restart Thunderbird with add-ons disabled (Thunderbird Safe Mode). On the Help menu, click on "Restart with Add-ons Disabled". If Thunderbird works like normal, there is an Add-on or Theme interfering with normal operations. You will need to re-enable add-ons one at a time until you locate the offender.
- Restart the operating system in safe mode with Networking. This loads only the very basics needed to start your computer while enabling an Internet connection. Click on your operating system for instructions on how to start in safe mode: Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, OSX
- If safe mode for the operating system fixes the issue, there's other software in your computer that's causing problems. Possibilities include but not limited to: AV scanning, virus/malware, background downloads such as program updates.
Second set first: I've already done all of the safe-mode tests with no joy (problem persisted). As mentioned in the other thread... then crickets.
There are no background downloads going on, except the occasional background check for e-mail by Thunderbird.
First request:
No joy, exceeds the maximum message length. Here are the basics:
- begin basic "troubleshooting data" ***
Application Basics
Name: Thunderbird Version: 68.1.2 Build ID: 20191008153335
Update Channel: release User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.1.2 OS: Windows_NT 10.0
Launcher Process: Enabled
Multiprocess Windows: 0/0
Disabled
Remote Processes: 0
Enterprise Policies: Inactive
Google Location Service Key: Missing
Google Safebrowsing Key: Missing
Mozilla Location Service Key: Missing
Safe Mode: false
Mail and News Accounts
[masked for privacy]
* * * Extensions
Name
Version
Enabled
ID
Amazon.com 1.1 true amazondotcom@search.mozilla.org
Bing
1.0
true
bing@search.mozilla.org
CompactHeader
3.0.0beta3
true
{58D4392A-842E-11DE-B51A-C7B855D89593}
DuckDuckGo
1.0
true
ddg@search.mozilla.org
Google
1.0
true
google@search.mozilla.org
ImportExportTools NG
4.0.4
true
ImportExportToolsNG@cleidigh.kokkini.net
Lightning
68.1.2
true
{e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103}
Lightning Calendar Tabs
2.3
true
lightningcalendartabs@jlx.84
No Message Pane Sorting by Mouse
1.5
true
nomessagepanesort@janek.org
Phoenity Buttons
3.2
true
buttons@dillinger
Send Later
7.2.0
true
sendlater3@kamens.us
Twitter
1.0
true
twitter@search.mozilla.org
Wikipedia (en)
1.0
true
wikipedia@search.mozilla.org
Xpunge
1.0.0
true
{786abda0-fd14-d247-bf69-38b2fc18491b}
- end basic "troubleshooting data" ***
A window size problem will be fixed in the next update
Hopefully it's this window size problem... because, thanks to legacy code that's not entirely Thunderbird's responsibility, one never knows...
The release notes for 68.2 have a fix listed for sizing issues of windows https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/68.2.0/releasenotes/
This appears to have at least partially solved the problem.
The reading window now seems to reliably retain its size.
The composition/drafting window is changing size less often since the update was installed two days ago — only once, and that might have been because I was replying to a heavy-HTML message with multiple attachments from an Outlook user.
All of which leads me to believe that any window-size problems are related not to Thunderbird itself, but to overrides in the HTML rendering engine? I'm speculating — it shouldn't be a problem because I operate in plain-text mode, but "shouldn't be" is a frequent source of software problems.
So, since it appears to be only a partial solution, I've not marked this as a solution. Yet.