Thunderbird is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Thumderbird process, or restart you computer.
OK I know this is a long running issue, and have read lots of threads on the matter. I´ve been using TB for many years, and this happens occasionally to me. I shut the process down and restart to fix it. The reason for this post is an observation on when it occurs.
On my desktop, I can´t remember it ever happening. The problem is on a Win7 Dell Laptop. I frequently just close the laptop with various windows open, and reopen later and carry on. Today, I got the error message. Last night, Thunderbird was an open window (but I can´t remember if it was the active window when I closed the screen). I looked at the parentlock in the profile and it was date stamped 28 Feb and today is 9 March. There was no sign of an active TB window in the taskbar, even though I know for sure it was an open program when I closed down.
So today, I shut down the thunderbird.exe process, and restarted, and sure enough, parentlock updated and TB launched without a problem.
Conclusion is that thunderbird is crashing while going into or coming out of sleep mode. I´m not looking for a fix, as I work around it, just offering my observations on the issue.
All Replies (4)
> Today, I got the error message. You mean, "(Not Responding"? Or, are you seeing "unresponsive script"?
What addons do you ahve installed?
Have you tried Thunderbird in safe mode - http://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/safe-mode
Does problem go away?
Hi Wayne. Thanks for your reply. The error message is exactly as per the title. It occurs at random times when trying to launch thunderbird, after it has been previously running. There are only two add-ons, lightning calendar and the english dictionary.
Safe mode isn't an option, because to boot into safe mode would in itself kill the already running process. For that, I can kill it from task manager.
To be clear, the process leading to the error seems to be:
1. Laptop running normally, working in various programs including thunderbird 2. Close the lid on the laptop to put it into sleep mode. 3. Open the lid, all programs resume normally, except *sometimes* the thunderbird window has disappeared from the task bar. 4. Attempt to relaunch thunderbird, and the error message as per the title of the thread appears. 5. Open taskmanager, kill thunderbird.exe process 6. Then able to restart thunderbird without error.
I stress at point 3 that this is only an occasional but regular error.
Cheers Ray
before you cause the computer to sleep or close the lid, set thunderbird to offline with File | Offline | Work Offline. After waking computer, reset thunderbird to online (uncheck Work Offline).
Does that help?
I've flagged that I have this problem too. I have recently discovered the circumstances causing the problem so put it out here in case it is useful.
My thunderbird is set up (working files and profiles) on a NAS.
If I put the machine to sleep with thunderbird running, then whenever I close thunderbird after waking from sleep, the GUI closes but the process "thunderbird.exe" keeps running (visible in task manager). The GUI cannot be restarted because "Thunderbird is already running". I have to manually end the process in Task Manager and then Thunderbird will start as normal.
If I remember to close thunderbird before putting the machine to sleep, then the process terminates as it should and Thunderbird will start normally after sleep.
This looks to me like some simple bug. For what its worth, when I wake from sleep, any open windows explorer panes report that a reconnection to the NAS failed, but I click those messages away and click into the explorer pane and all comes good.
Hope this added info helps.
The suggestion to work offline before sleeping might be a manifestation of a similar work around to terminating before sleeping.
My system is Win 7.a X64