Opening preferences in Thunderbird
Hi,
I use Thunderbird with a Mac (running Mojave), and I cannot open my preferences anymore. Nor can I open "About Thunderbird". In fact, nothing seems to work in the Menu "Thunderbird", I am not even able to quit. The shortcut "Command" + Q works to quit, but the short cut "Command" + , (which is supposed to open preferences) does not.
This is fairly recent, I noticed because suddenly I was unable to see images in messages, and thought I had to change something in the security preferences. Needless to say that problem isn't fixed either.
I restarted Thunderbird several times, restarted the computer, nothing changes. If you answer me, please do not be too technical, I am not very good with computers. Thank you in advance,
Zoé C.
All Replies (7)
First things first, find your Thunderbird profile folder and copy it somewhere else as a backup. Do this AFTER you QUIT Thunderbird and making sure it's not still running in the background. If you don't backup your profile, you may lose your emails, accounts and settings! See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data for how to locate your Tbird profile folder.
Next, see https://support.apple.com/en-ke/guide/mac-help/mh35835/10.14/mac/10.14 for how to uninstall Tbird from your Mac. You can then go to thunderbird.net to download and install the current stable release for your Mac.
Unfortunately, it didn't work. I did everything you suggested, Thunderbird opened fine, but the situation is exactly as before. My old profile folder seems to have stayed active without my doing anything. I actually had found a way of opening preferences with the menu on the very right of the window (the one which doesn't look like a menu), so the situation is not totally desperate. But there is definitely a malfunction somewhere: it is not normal that my pull-down menu "Thunderbird" doesn't work. Thank you for your help anyway - now I learned how to uninstall Thunderbird. And where to find my profile. Best, Zoé C.
Is Thunderbird working as expected via the hamburger menu icon (the three horizontal lines) at the top-right section of Thunderbird's main pane? If so, I doubt the problem you're having has to do with Thunderbird itself, but something else in Mac. I'm not familiar with the windowing subsystem in Mac and how the app-specific menu on the menu bar is handled, so I wouldn't know what to else to suggest. Perhaps someone else has an idea. If I may ask, why aren't you running Catalina?
Yes, it does. The only pulldown menu that doesn't work is the one on the left with Thunderbird, all the others do. Firefox's menus work fine. I am always a bit nervous when I upgrade to a new OS, especially now that my Mac is my only computer, I cannot get to the one at work. And in general, I prefer to wait a little before upgrading, so that the bugs get ironed out (I guess I waited too long for this one).
My conjecture is that I accidentally changed the Thunderbird window settings by doing an unintended keyboard shortcut. But I looked everywhere and cannot find what it is. Thank you again. Zoé C.
You skipped two Mac OS upgrades. High Sierra has been around long enough for them bug to get ironed out. Catalina has been around for almost a year now! No matter, it is beyond the scope of this thread and you have your reasons, so that's settled. I'll let you know if I come up with more things to try and fix the issue.
Modified by Stans
High Sierra was before Mojave. Thank you, Zoé C.
You're absolutely right, I stand corrected!