"TB already running but not responding". This happens every time I try restarting TB after closing it! Can it be corrected?
It used to be a rare occurence, but now every single time I close TB and shortly thereafter, during the same session, I try to re-launch tb I have to call up Task Mgr and kill thunderbird.exe. It is an annoyance which I would like to get rid of. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Chosen solution
SOLVED! Having tried - unsuccessfully! - Christ1's and sfhowes' suggestions, for which I am grateful to them, I set out to solve the problem on my own. And finally I found the culprit! Which is me in the first place, since I made a mistake. But also TB has its part of responsibility, since it failed to warn me of the stupid mistake I made. And it would be a very easy warning! The fact is that my TB is setup with two separate accounts: one is an ordinary account, while the other is a certified mail account. Very seldom do I write or receive messages on the latter. So when I open TB it asks me for the two passwords, one for each account. Since I generally use the normal account I write my PW for it, but, to save time, I do not bother to insert the other PW, and simply click the OK tab. THIS IS MY MISTAKE, since in so doing I am in reality giving the wrong PW to the certified mail account! However nothing warns me for my mistake, and - oddly - TB allows me to freely work on the normal account. In the meantime however the certified mail account "hangs", awaiting for the correct PW. So when I finally close TB, thunderbird.exe remains active, and must be deleted for TB to start correctly. The easy and proper way out is, of course, to hit the "cancel" tab, NOT the OK tab in the PW request for the certified mail. But the trap would be avoided altogether if TB continued to ask me for the PW, preventing further operations in either account. Thank you all!
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Thank you for the information, christ1. I carefully checked that: -I do not have the problem as a consequence of reopening TB too soon after I close it; -I never moved the profiles folder, nor did I use an external drive to store it, or other similar events; -the problem remains even when I open TB directly. This said, I hunted for the profiles.ini file. I found three of them, as in the attached file. All three of them show [profile0] in them. This, according to one of the articles you suggested ("Profile in use") should insure proper operation. Which however I do not have. I shall appreciate new suggestions. Thank you again.
I hunted for the profiles.ini file.
Why? I don't think the article mentions 'profiles.ini'. There's only one 'profiles.ini' for Thunderbird, so nothing to worry.
Did you read the article at all?
Did you read the article at all?
Of course I did! And it does mention "profiles.ini" under the general header "Solutions". I copy and paste the beginning:
Check the profiles.ini file Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey 2 look for the profile folder based on the information stored inside the profiles.ini file (see the linked article for details). You can use a text editor such as Notepad to open the "profiles.ini" file to see what information it contains. Here is an example:
Several examples and additional considerations follow. Regards.
Thank you, sfhowes, for your suggestion. I did find six (!) parent.lock files, but all of them were 0 (zero) size. In any case I deleted all of them, but this did not solve my problem, which continues as before. Please try again. Thank you.
To sfhowes. Your hint on AV gave me some hope, 'cause I recently installed Avira in place of AVG, and this might have been the origin of my problem. I thus tried disabling Avira, but the problem is still there. I also tried safe mode, with the same result. No, we are not there yet. Thanks anyway!
Of course I did! And it does mention "profiles.ini"
You're of course correct. My apologies. I don't have many more ideas though.
To be sure anti-virus isn't the problem you may try to start *Windows* in safe mode with networking enabled.
- Win8 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/windows-startup-settings-including-safe-mode
- Win7 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Start-your-computer-in-safe-mode
- XP http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/boot_failsafe.mspx
Still in Windows safe mode, start Thunderbird in safe mode.
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/safe-mode
Does the problem go away?
If that doesn't help creating a new profile and starting Thunderbird with the new profile may be worth a try.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-multiple-profiles
Chosen Solution
SOLVED! Having tried - unsuccessfully! - Christ1's and sfhowes' suggestions, for which I am grateful to them, I set out to solve the problem on my own. And finally I found the culprit! Which is me in the first place, since I made a mistake. But also TB has its part of responsibility, since it failed to warn me of the stupid mistake I made. And it would be a very easy warning! The fact is that my TB is setup with two separate accounts: one is an ordinary account, while the other is a certified mail account. Very seldom do I write or receive messages on the latter. So when I open TB it asks me for the two passwords, one for each account. Since I generally use the normal account I write my PW for it, but, to save time, I do not bother to insert the other PW, and simply click the OK tab. THIS IS MY MISTAKE, since in so doing I am in reality giving the wrong PW to the certified mail account! However nothing warns me for my mistake, and - oddly - TB allows me to freely work on the normal account. In the meantime however the certified mail account "hangs", awaiting for the correct PW. So when I finally close TB, thunderbird.exe remains active, and must be deleted for TB to start correctly. The easy and proper way out is, of course, to hit the "cancel" tab, NOT the OK tab in the PW request for the certified mail. But the trap would be avoided altogether if TB continued to ask me for the PW, preventing further operations in either account. Thank you all!