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TB 68.2 loads with all fields blank, and Help -> About Thunderbird shows spinning process wheel and says "Applying update..."

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  • Last reply by moss1

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This issue seems to be the same as reported by 'horseybob' with extensive replies from Toad-Hall and Matt. When opening TB 68.2, all fields are blank, and almost none of the menu items yield anything. Address Book comes up, but as blank as the home screen. Help -> Troubleshooting Information does not work. Help -> About brings up the About Mozilla Thunderbird pop-up, which says that 68.2.0 is the current version. Below that, a spinning blue circle shows next to "Applying Update..." TB appears to be stuck in an unfinished update. However, none of the usual tricks work. Restarting TB, Restarting TB in safe mode, uninstalling and re-installing, rebooting: all yield no changes to the 'stuck update'.

This issue seems to be the same as reported by 'horseybob' with extensive replies from Toad-Hall and Matt. When opening TB 68.2, all fields are blank, and almost none of the menu items yield anything. Address Book comes up, but as blank as the home screen. Help -> Troubleshooting Information does not work. Help -> About brings up the About Mozilla Thunderbird pop-up, which says that 68.2.0 is the current version. Below that, a spinning blue circle shows next to "Applying Update..." TB appears to be stuck in an unfinished update. However, none of the usual tricks work. Restarting TB, Restarting TB in safe mode, uninstalling and re-installing, rebooting: all yield no changes to the 'stuck update'.
Attached screenshots

Chosen solution

I gave up and downloaded the 64-bit version, 60.9, from http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/60.9.1/win64/en-US/

So far, so good. It’s been very stable, and is on the 64-bit release channel, so it should not be expected to revert to a 32-bit version.

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All Replies (5)

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Problem solved temporarily - downloaded TB 60.8 and installed. TB came up perfect, then automatically installed 68.2, then worked until after restarting in 68.2.

AAARGH!! - It auto-updated after 68.2 was running and went into the same do-loop. Had to re-install 60.8. Will need to avoid re-starting TB since it has auto-downloaded 68.2 and is awaiting restart. So, 68.2 is still FUBAR.

Modified by JohnBike

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ok. same problem for me. I duplicated the problem issue sorry. And it seems another user did the same and post a 3rd message with the same problem description. It seems there is a big miss in 68.2.1 version.

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Chosen Solution

I gave up and downloaded the 64-bit version, 60.9, from http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/60.9.1/win64/en-US/

So far, so good. It’s been very stable, and is on the 64-bit release channel, so it should not be expected to revert to a 32-bit version.

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Ok, sounds like you can now only run Thunderbird (updated) on 64 bit machines, my native 32 bit Win 10 machine doesen't like 72.0b2 or 68.3.1. My native 64 bit Win 10 machine runs the 32 bit version with the 68.3.1 update installed without issue?

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60.9.1 (64-bit) runs ok (sometimes rather slow) on my Windows 10 (Pr0, 1809 release stream, OS build 17763.864). 68.3.1 gives the blank fields / unresponsive menus for both 32-bit and 64-bit. This is with my existing profile (which is, of course, the one I want, with all my settings, email, etc., in it.) It does seem to display for another profile that it decided to create. The 64-bit version gave the spinning circle "Applying updates", but the 32-bit version of that completed -- but still blank field, no menus.

It's a bit frustrating that Thunderbird keeps getting nudgy for me to update, but the new version doesn't work ...