Text in body of email not showing, unless TB started in Troubleshoot Mode
Many of my emails are now only showing the images (when allowed) but not showing the main text. I have cut the blank area from the text box and pasted it in a Word Pad doc to see that the text is actually there in the email but just cannot be seen by having the email displayed in Original HTML; it can be seen in Simple HTML or Plain Text. I disabled all add ons and set the theme to default to no avail. I have also tried disabling Hardware Acceleration without luck.
When I start TB in Troubleshoot Mode with or without the left side disable/reset options ticked, the emails can be seen correctly.
All Replies (12)
In normal mode, disable hardware acceleration in Settings/General, then restart TB in normal mode. Is the display correct?
No. No change.
As you can see from the kb link, safe mode mainly disables add-ons, hardware acceleration, themes, and applies the default layout ('reset toolbars & controls'). If you work through those options, you should be able to uncover the source of the problem.
As I said, without checking the disable and reset options and just continuing to start in Troubleshooting Mode is sufficient to get the emails to display correctly. In any case, I uninstalled my add-ons and went to the default theme but still no luck.
Modified by Peter Delany
At the safe mode prompt, 'reset toolbars & controls', 'make changes & restart'.
Ah yes sorry: I think I was doing it wrong by checking the disable and reset boxes but then clicking on Continue in Troubleshoot Mode rather than Make Changes and Restart. Nonetheless, I got it right now but this has not fixed the problem: only Continuing to Troubleshoot Mode gets the emails to display properly.
Just to clarify:
disabling hardware acceleration in normal mode has no effect
there are no add-ons, or disabling them has no effect
using the default theme has no effect
resetting toolbars and controls has no effect
you have no userChrome.css in the chrome subfolder of the profile
Perhaps test with a new profile with one account: Help/Troubleshooting Info, about:profiles. The current profile is unaffected.
Thanks very much for your help. You are right about all that except the ccs file. I cant seem to find it anywhere on my PC let alone in the Thunderbird profile folders. I have already tried setting up a new profile but that didnt work either. I have even tried Betterbird but there is the same problem with the same emails.
A userChrome file has to be applied manually by the user, so you would know if there is one.
If this happens only with some messages, and only with Original HTML, I would look at the message source (Ctrl+U) for anything unique in the composition or user agent.
I used to know basic dhtml but that was a long time ago, and I wouldn't know what to look for in this case. For what it's worth, the text which is not visible in one of the offending emails is coded as color: #202020, but appears to show as white on a white background, and hence disappears. That's all I can see.
Maybe consider adjusting the Colors settings in Settings/General/Language & Appearance (see picture).
Look at the message source and see if there is any html code that looks like it was created in a word processor or some non-email app.
I adjusted the colours but sadly that didnt work. I should have perhaps said so b4 but the text IS visible when the email is viewed with Simple HTML.