I'm using TB 38 on three different computers and I habitually use auto complete and I haven't noticed any change in the way it works.

Can you describe more precisely what issues you have with it?

Hi, Has the control changed? It used to be a combo box that I could arrow through with my up and down arrows. Now I can't seem to do that anymore. I'm not sure what happened. Do your arrow keys work, or do you have to use the mouse? I ask because I am a totally blind user of TB, and a while back the mouse controls from screen readers for the blind went away. Now I can no longer use my mouse inside of TB. So, if the arrows don't work and you have to use the mouse then the feature unfortunately won't work for me anymore.

Thanks a lot for your help, Brad

I'm struggling to visualise what you're describing.

You type in the start or part of a name. A box appears listing the entries in your Address Book that match what you have typed. I guess this is what you refer to as the combo box.

Now, habitually, I would probably click with the mouse on the wanted address. I am aware that at this point you would also be able to use the keyboard arrow keys to walk down the list to select the wanted address, then press return to enter that address into the address box.

I'll check this last bit and come back to you on it. I haven't noticed a change but maybe I haven't tried the scrolling thing yet. These actions do tend to become very automatic.

One thing that has changed its that when the address book is opened, you now see a new all-encompassing All Addresses address book, making it easy for those who like to search their address book to find any entry regardless of which subdivision it is in. Access to any specific subdivision, such as Personal Address Book now requires the user to select it, and that, I believe, demands a mouse click. Again, I'll check and report back. I'm using a tablet right now and don't have Thunderbird in front of me.

I have just opened up Thunderbird and have consciously addressed a message using just typing and the up/down arrow buttons to select between the listed Contacts. I don't see any difference. It still seems to be working as usual. I repeated this in Safe Mode, just in case any of my copious add-ons was modifying its behaviour, but again, no change.

So, I am puzzled as to what is causing your problem.

The Address Book change is probably less relevant to you, until you want to add or edit an entry. I find that the branches of the tree can be expanded and contracted, after selection, by use of the return key. So I was wrong to surmise that it needs a mouse.

Hi, again. Thank you so much for checking on this. Huh, that's odd. I wonder if I need to uninstall/reinstall or something. That's exactly what it is supposed to do. I've also put in a support ticket with my screen reader vendor to see if they know what's going on. Maybe it's happening and for whatever reason the screen reader is blocking it. It's really annoying. I've come to depend on it.

Is it because I have three address books perhaps? Should I merge them into one? If that would help, how do I go about merging them? If not, maybe I'll google that anyway to make it easier if I have to switch to a new email client because of screen reader troubles. That would really be unfortunate. I used to use Eudora, and moved to Thunderbird, which I really like a lot. I don't want to have to use Outlook or Windows Live Mail.

Thanks for all your help. I definitely appreciate your going back and checking that this still works.

Thanks, Brad

Auto-complete doesn't care which sub-address book a Contact is found it; it searches them all, unless you use an add-on to limit it, usually to associate specific address books with each email account/identity. I don't think merging your address books will change things at all.

And as far as autocomplete is concerned, it appears to me that it is oblivious to the "All Address Books" thing. I mentioned it because it's annoying many users, mainly because they are accustomed to the address book remembering which sub-address book they last used. The new arrangement always defaults to the new All Address Books option. This is likely to trip you up the next time you try to change or add to the Address Book.

You'd thnk that a screen reader would just read out all the text on the page, regardless of how it is presented, so we'd hope that the change, if any, in the drop-down list of proposed addresses would not make any difference. It will be interesting to see if the screen reader people can throw any light on this.

I will hopefully get a reply from the screen reader folks on Monday and will let you know what they say.

Thank you for all your help, Brad

Apologies if I have missed it but this is a step you almost have to take. 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.

Hi. This solved my problem. It turns out that there was an old addon that is no longer available still loading. Once I removed it, everything worked fine. Thank you so much for your answer. I'd completely forgotten about that addon being loaded. Brad