Odd behavior in Thunderbird - program offers up prompts asking if I "want to open the next email" repeatedly for all emails.
Unfortunately, this is a problem my mother is having, and she is neither technologically literate or particularly patient, so I have a fairly limited amount of information available. For the second time in less than a week, she has had an issue in which Thunderbird displayed a message asking something along the lines of "Do you want to open the next email?" repeatedly. I'm guessing it's likely a message box prompt, as she mentions the standard Yes and No buttons. Upon clicking no, it moves on to the next email in the archive and asks again, etc. I'm not sure what happens if you click yes. It seems to be repeating this for every email in the archive, but given my mother's inbox is usually several hundred emails, we haven't actually checked if it stops at some point. During this process, she says it locks her out of other options, she can't even exit the program. (That said, this is normal behavior for those Yes/No message boxes - when used properly, they're there for a reason and are designed so you can't simply ignore them.) Both times, she resorted to turning the computer off entirely, followed by a scan using a new Christmas gift - a FixMeStick (It's a USB thumbdrive with an antivirus program on it that claims to be superior to software competitors because viruses can compromise software on the computer but not an external tool.)
The first such scan found an unopened email in her junk mail bin that was "suspicious". It had never been opened, but we figured it could have been some manner of self-extracting virus. After all, for the email to be there, Thunderbird must have actually downloaded it from the mail server and run that data through some form of analysis to label it as junk. The antivirus program deleted the offending email and a secondary scan came up clean, indicating it had indeed been solved.
Last night it happened a second time. This time, the virus scan has detected nothing.
Googling this behavior has come up with nothing informative - just people who want Thunderbird to not preview an email after the one above it was deleted.
Has anyone encountered any kind of behavior like this, or any suggestions as to how to proceed?
If it happens again, I'll have her write down the messages she gets so I can provide the exact phrasing. If nothing else, that generally seems to help with the google searches.
All Replies (5)
Without knowing the following - it is all guess work:
- imap or pop mail account
- Is she is going to the next message in a different folder
- the exact process she is using
- Does she open emails using Message Pane, or Tab or Window
I have one idea - If she has got to the end of one folder and wants to see next email which may be in a different folder, then there is a pop up message asking to open next in a different folder.
'Tools' > 'Options' > 'Advanced' > 'General' tab
In search type: nav
look for this line: mailnews.nav_crosses_folders
default value = 1
Double click on that line to get an 'Enter integer value' pop up window.
Enter the appropriate value depending upon what behaviour you require.
So enter eg: 0 - (Always go to the next folder without prompting)
Mail Navigation preferences Set the "Advance to next unread message in [x] folder" behavior
- 0 - Always go to the next folder without prompting
- 1 - Ask before going (the default behaviour)
- 2 - Never go to the next folder with unread messages
click on 'OK' Click on 'OK' to close and save Options.
Toad-Hall said
Without knowing the following - it is all guess work:
- imap or pop mail account
- Is she is going to the next message in a different folder
- the exact process she is using
- Does she open emails using Message Pane, or Tab or Window
-POP email type. -No folder changing - all in the inbox. (Might switch folders if you cancel all the way through, but the email collection is too big to test that.) -you need to ask specific questions. This is a case of a person who doesn't use an email client trying to help someone who's computer illiterate with their problems. (I stick to webmail; if someone emails me a virus, it has to get through Google to get to my computer.) -Usually the message pane, but sometimes in a window.
You did get the part that this message was popping up repeatedly, right? It's not just a single occurrence when she swaps to a different folder.
re :-you need to ask specific questions.
Q: What is the exact pop up message...word for word?
'Tools' > 'Account Settings' > 'Server Settings' for the pop mail account. OR right click on mail account name in left Folder Pane and select 'Settings' then select 'Server Settings' for the pop mail account.
Q: Which of the following is selected?
- 'Check for new messages at startup'
- 'Check for new messages every eg: 10 minutes'
- 'Automatically download new messages'
- 'Fetch headers only'
- 'Leave messages on server'
The first three should be selected if you want to auto check and download emails. 'Fetch headers only' option - Any messages whose message body wasn't downloaded will display a message "Only the headers for this message were downloaded from the mail server. Click here to download the rest of the message.' - if this is the pop up message or similar that she is seeing, then it is because she is not downloading the full message; only the header. Uncheck the 'Fetch headers only' option so it is not selected.
'Leave messages on server' - POP mail accounts by default tend to download from server and then the message is deleted from the server, so the only copy is on your computer - in thunderbird profile folder. Selecting this option means a copy is left on the server. Although this would also mean having to check the server periodically to remove old emails and free up the limited space on the server.
click on 'OK' to save and close the Account Settings window.
Q: Is she using this view: 'View' > 'Folders' > 'All' ?
I need to know the process she is using as there are several ways to select emails. To read emails, first she would select the Inbox in the left Folder Pane so she can see a list of emails to the right of the Folder Pane.
Q: Does she then use a mouse to single click on an email in the list, so it shows in the lower Message Pane or does she use a mouse to double click on an email to open it in a new tab or new window?
Then to read the next email - what does she do ? Q: Does she use the mouse to click on the next email in the list ? Q: does she use the 'Mail Bar' via 'Go' > 'Next' > 'Message' ?
Well, the issue appears to have been sorted out, somehow. No idea what it was, but it seems gone. Thanks for trying to help, though.
Toad-Hall are you there?
I'm seeing a similar alert in Thunderbird. What the hell, there is no reason for this message. That's why unread email headers are in bold. Also strange, a different email folder was open at the time (not the inbox the alert refers to). I have several addresses / inboxes - and none have ever produced this message.
If it's a phishing scam or something, the Yes and No buttons could send info to a hacker / scammer. So I closed the alert window by clicking the red X button, top right corner.
Also strange, the PC (Win8) got hung during startup, I had to force quit and start again. Could be a virus?
My issue is posted on this forum at: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1125676#answer-883596 Thanks for any thoughts....
