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Thunderbird randomly stops receieving new e-mails, gets fixed by killing it via task manager and running it again

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  • Posljednji odgovor poslao Toad-Hall

s3x
s3x
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Hello,

I've been using Thunderbird for years with the same setup: - Windows 10 64bit - Thunderbird always running, with 4 linked mailboxes (all POP), each checking for new mail every 5 minutes - The OS is typically running for a month or longer without restarting (I always hibernate my PC instead of shutting it down)

Everything was working just fine until recently. In the past month (or two, I'm not sure) Thunderbird just stopped receiving new e-mails on 3 different occasions. No error messages or anything, I always notice only when the sender calls/texts me, asking me about an e-mail I didn't get which is very annoying. When this happens, Thunderbird seems to work normally (I can browse all the mailboxes, move e-mails between folders etc.) but it just never downloads new messages from any of the mailboxes (not even when I hit F5 or the "Get messages" button - which normally displays a brief "Host contacted, sending login information..." message in the status bar but does absolutely nothing when this problem occurs). When I spot this problem and kill Thunderbird via task manager (closing normally doesn't help because it will still run in the background) and run it again, it immediately downloads the missing e-mails on startup and resumes working normally. But I'm getting really nervous about possibly missing important message(s) because Thunderbird is my primary (and for 99 % of time, the only) way of accessing my mailboxes (I only login to the web UI when I suspect Gmail or other web hosts to false flag an e-mail from legit sender as spam - but I typically only do this couple times a year).

My Thunderbird is (always) up to date (v 140.3.1esr).

Do you have any idea how to fix this, please? TIA! 🙏

Hello, I've been using Thunderbird for years with the same setup: - Windows 10 64bit - Thunderbird always running, with 4 linked mailboxes (all POP), each checking for new mail every 5 minutes - The OS is typically running for a month or longer without restarting (I always hibernate my PC instead of shutting it down) Everything was working just fine until recently. In the past month (or two, I'm not sure) Thunderbird just stopped receiving new e-mails on 3 different occasions. No error messages or anything, I always notice only when the sender calls/texts me, asking me about an e-mail I didn't get which is very annoying. When this happens, Thunderbird seems to work normally (I can browse all the mailboxes, move e-mails between folders etc.) but it just never downloads new messages from any of the mailboxes (not even when I hit F5 or the "Get messages" button - which normally displays a brief "Host contacted, sending login information..." message in the status bar but does absolutely nothing when this problem occurs). When I spot this problem and kill Thunderbird via task manager (closing normally doesn't help because it will still run in the background) and run it again, it immediately downloads the missing e-mails on startup and resumes working normally. But I'm getting really nervous about possibly missing important message(s) because Thunderbird is my primary (and for 99 % of time, the only) way of accessing my mailboxes (I only login to the web UI when I suspect Gmail or other web hosts to false flag an e-mail from legit sender as spam - but I typically only do this couple times a year). My Thunderbird is (always) up to date (v 140.3.1esr). Do you have any idea how to fix this, please? TIA! 🙏

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Toad-Hall
Toad-Hall
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I notice you mention POP and you also mention Gmail. It's common to have Thunderbiord pop account using these setting 'Leave messages on server' It's also common to choose one the options for deleting such as 'Until I delete them'

Unfortuantely, it's not possible for Pop accounts to put deleted emails into the gmail Trash, so when you delete, gmail just removes the Inbox label and keeps emails archived in 'All Mail'.

It is a known coincidence that Gmail deliberately stops allowing the download when it detects users are using Pop on a third party email client like Thunderbird. It seems they are causing an annoyance because they want you to access the webmail account and sort out/delete emails.

So - just in case this particular issue is effecting the gmail account do the following to rule it out because we dod not know whether there is more than one issue going on.

In all of those cases I've been involved with and there have been quite a few - the following has always fixed the issue.

  • Logon to Gmail webmail account via a browser.
  • Access 'All Mail' folder

If you choose to delete an email from 'All Mail' they will be removed from Inbox etc so it saves time doing it in that folder. Delete a load of old emails and any emails that have no label to seriously reduce the contents of the 'All Mail' folder. Then empty the gmail Trash. Note Gmail will auto clear emails from Spam and Trash periodically - usually they remove anything thats been in those folders every 30 days.

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