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Stopped download emails

  • 3 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 10 views
  • Last reply by david

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Hi,

I've been happily using Thunderbird for years - I love this product.

However, on Jan 11 it suddenly stopped downloading messages. I made no changes to the settings. However, I did leave the country - I travelled from the US to Chile. Since I've been here I haven't been able to download any messages - when I start Thunderbird no messages get downloaded, and when I click on "Get Messages" nothing happens - I see a horizontal blue bar in the bottom right corner, but I don't get any emails.

It seems I also can't send an email. When I try I get this message:

Sending of the message failed. The message could not be sent because the connection to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtphm.sympatico.ca timed out. Try again.

What the heck? Anyone got any suggestions? You get a lot of likely looking matches when you google "thunderbird stopped downloading email", and I tried a couple of things (got onto the server and deleted messages starting at the date where downloading stopped working, deleted global-messages-db.sqlite) but neither fixed the problem.

Thanks!

Hi, I've been happily using Thunderbird for years - I love this product. However, on Jan 11 it suddenly stopped downloading messages. I made no changes to the settings. However, I did leave the country - I travelled from the US to Chile. Since I've been here I haven't been able to download any messages - when I start Thunderbird no messages get downloaded, and when I click on "Get Messages" nothing happens - I see a horizontal blue bar in the bottom right corner, but I don't get any emails. It seems I also can't send an email. When I try I get this message: Sending of the message failed. The message could not be sent because the connection to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtphm.sympatico.ca timed out. Try again. What the heck? Anyone got any suggestions? You get a lot of likely looking matches when you google "thunderbird stopped downloading email", and I tried a couple of things (got onto the server and deleted messages starting at the date where downloading stopped working, deleted global-messages-db.sqlite) but neither fixed the problem. Thanks!

All Replies (3)

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I am no network guru, but it may be a network issue, since your post indicates that the problem only began when you went to Chile. You might try setting mailnews.tcptimeout to a higher number. I think the default is 100 and you might try 300. Config editor is at settings>general . But, that's just my guess.

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Hi David,

Thanks for the suggestion. You're right - there must be a clue in the fact that it was working fine before I went to Chile, and now doesn't work. However, I've tried it on at least a dozen different networks and it just won't download my emails.

I did try your suggestion, but I'm afraid it didn't work. I tried 300, then 1000, but no luck.

However, I appreciate you taking the time to suggest a solution.

Phil

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Well, networks aren't a strength of mine, but if you were able to ping the server, you might find that it is a long trip. Here is a free ping tool that may prove informative so you could see the path from where you are to your incoming server. https://www.manageengine.com/free-ping-tool/free-ping-tool-index.html I wish you well in this pursuit.