Thunderbird Community Forum

Hello Frinds!

Please help me find a solution to a fatal Thunderbird crash that erased the Inbox folder and its subfolder structure. All emails have disappeared, and the cause is unknown. Tried "View" but did not help. Didn't find any local program tools to restore the before-crash-state.

Here are the details:

1. The incident happened due to a random, uncontrolled cursor movement in the bottom left corner of the program window using the "drag and drop" feature. There was no clicking involved. Or maybe it was a coincidence: happened when Thunderbird was upgrading.

2. The current version of Thunderbird Portable is:128.10.0esr on Windows 10 Home.

3. As a result of auto backup creation on the day of the crash, the backup was overwritten by the corrupted original.

4. The size of the main folder has not changed, so I believe the files needed for recovery are still available.

Is it possible that this disaster is the result of a version update? So so far, Thunderbird worked seamlessly.

Looking for help. So far, I have not been able to find a solution, including with the assistance of AI. Thank you in advance.

Best, Max

I'm running TB on Windows 11 on a Dell Desktop machine. It's a pretty basic installation with EE Cyber security, which is I think Norton. I've been using TB for a couple of years but recently it has almost stopped working. I notice from Task Manager that TB is massively leaking memory and consuming much CPU time. I don't think I have any add-ons and I only use TB for email. It's now so bad that I'm even unable to go into TB's Settings or Tools or anything else. I've tried creating an exclusion for TB profiles and TB.exe in the Norton. I've tried starting TB in troubleshoot mode but all to no avail. I have it in IMAP, Port 993, SSL/TLS for incoming mail and Port 465, SSL/TLS, Authentication Required for Outgoing mail. I'm currently often unable to even access mail previously downloaded to the local Mail folders, TB is just hanging with the bar in the lower right corner endlessly running along. Most puzzling of all, is that very occasionally is starts working again and then I dare not switch the machine off! It's become an indeterminate system. Please help, I'm nearly eighty and trying to organize my holiday, which is needs email to make bookings. Thanks in anticipation.

I'm running Sequoia 15.1.1 on an M1 Mac Mini. Never had problems before. TB 128.6 0 esr.

As soon as it opens it crashes.

I have a lot of unopened files in a pop mailbox, going to try and remove them.

It seems to still work on my iPhone. Any ideas?

I M get this working. I'm in a panic. Please help.

Right after typing my email address and pressing "Continue", Thunderbird crashes. I wanted to give it a try after many years of not using it, but then it crashes right at the start.

Here's the crash report:

AdapterVendorID: 0x106b AvailablePhysicalMemory: 6554927104 AvailableSwapMemory: 1233125376 BackgroundTaskMode: 0 BuildID: 20251016001905 ContentSandboxCapable: 1 ContentSandboxLevel: 3 CrashTime: 1760704144 DOMFissionEnabled: 1 DOMIPCEnabled: 1 EMCheckCompatibility: true EventLoopNestingLevel: 1 GpuSandboxLevel: 0 GraphicsNumActiveRenderers: 0 GraphicsNumRenderers: 1 HeadlessMode: 0 InstallTime: 1760652930 LastStartupWasCrash: 0 MacAvailableMemorySysctl: 91 MacMemoryPressure: Normal MacMemoryPressureCriticalTime: Unset MacMemoryPressureNormalTime: 1760704136 MacMemoryPressureSysctl: 1 MacMemoryPressureWarningTime: Unset Notes: FP(D10-L1000-W0000000-T01) WR? WR+ GL Context? GL Context+ ProductID: {3550f703-e582-4d05-9a08-453d09bdfdc6} ProductName: Thunderbird PurgeablePhysicalMemory: 465715200 RDDProcessStatus: Running ReleaseChannel: release SafeMode: 0 SecondsSinceLastCrash: 825 StartupCacheValid: 1 StartupCrash: 0 StartupTime: 1760704136 SubmittedFrom: Client TelemetryEnvironment: {"build":{"applicationId":"{3550f703-e582-4d05-9a08-453d09bdfdc6}","applicationName":"Thunderbird","architecture":"aarch64","buildId":"20251016001905","version":"144.0.1","vendor":"Mozilla","displayVersion":"144.0.1","platformVersion":"144.0","xpcomAbi":"aarch64-gcc3","updaterAvailable":true},"partner":{"distributionId":null,"distributionVersion":null,"partnerId":null,"distributor":null,"distributorChannel":null,"partnerNames":[]},"system":{"memoryMB":65536,"virtualMaxMB":null,"cpu":{"extensions":["hasNEON"]},"os":{"name":"Darwin","version":"23.5.0","locale":"en-IL"},"hdd":{"profile":{"model":null,"revision":null,"type":null},"binary":{"model":null,"revision":null,"type":null},"system":{"model":null,"revision":null,"type":null}},"gfx":{"D2DEnabled":null,"DWriteEnabled":null,"ContentBackend":"Skia","Headless":false,"TargetFrameRate":60,"textScaleFactor":1,"adapters":[{"description":null,"vendorID":"0x106b","deviceID":null,"subsysID":null,"RAM":0,"driver":null,"driverVendor":null,"driverVersion":null,"driverDate":null,"GPUActive":true}],"monitors":[{"screenWidth":2560,"screenHeight":1440,"defaultCSSScaleFactor":1,"contentsScaleFactor":1},{"screenWidth":3024,"screenHeight":1964,"defaultCSSScaleFactor":2,"contentsScaleFactor":2}],"features":{"compositor":"webrender","hwCompositing":{"status":"available"},"gpuProcess":{"status":"unused"},"webrender":{"status":"available"},"wrCompositor":{"status":"available"},"openglCompositing":{"status":"available"},"omtp":{"status":"unused"}}},"appleModelId":"Mac14,5","hasWinPackageId":null},"settings":{"blocklistEnabled":true,"e10sEnabled":true,"e10sMultiProcesses":8,"fissionEnabled":true,"locale":"en-US","intl":{"requestedLocales":["en-US"],"availableLocales":["en-US"],"appLocales":["en-US"],"systemLocales":["en-IL","he-IL"],"regionalPrefsLocales":["en-IL","he-IL"],"acceptLanguages":["en-US","en"]},"update":{"channel":"release","enabled":true,"autoDownload":true,"background":true},"userPrefs":{"browser.search.region":"DE","network.http.microsoft-entra-sso.enabled":false,"network.trr.strict_native_fallback":false,"widget.content.gtk-high-contrast.enabled":true},"sandbox":{"effectiveContentProcessLevel":3,"contentWin32kLockdownState":3},"addonCompatibilityCheckEnabled":true,"isDefaultBrowser":null,"defaultSearchEngine":"ddg","defaultSearchEngineData":{"loadPath":"[app]ddg","name":"DuckDuckGo","submissionURL":"https://duckduckgo.com/?q="}},"profile":{"creationDate":20377,"firstUseDate":20377},"addons":{"activeAddons":{},"theme":{"id":"default-theme@mozilla.org","blocklisted":false,"description":"Follow the operating system setting for buttons, menus, and windows.","name":"System theme — auto","userDisabled":false,"appDisabled":false,"version":"1.4.2","scope":4,"foreignInstall":false,"hasBinaryComponents":false,"installDay":20377,"updateDay":20377},"activeGMPlugins":{"dummy-gmp":{"version":"0.1","userDisabled":false,"applyBackgroundUpdates":1}}}} Throttleable: 1 TotalPhysicalMemory: 68719476736 UptimeTS: 7.916666666666666 Vendor: Mozilla Version: 144.0.1 useragent_locale: en-US This report also contains technical information about the state of the application when it crashed.

Aloha, I have been using Thunderbird since decades. Since a few weeks (or even months) by now, it is hanging all the time. Meanwhile it is totally impossible to use it properly. Whenever I klick on something it hangs itself up and I have to wait at least a minute until I can click something else and then it hangs again.

I already tried reinstalling, but that didnt change anything. Of course I also rebooted the computer.

Why is that so and what can be done?

Mahalo, Stefanie

Was on version 115, had this problem. Updated to version 155, same problem. One of the email accounts I set up on Thunderbird is redacted1@lake48.net, registered with 123-Reg. However, this is a forwarding address and has no email server, which is why I am getting the error now.

Messages addressed to redacted1@lake48.net are forwarded to redacted2@lake48.net, which does have a server, My system was to download from there and use a rule to divert the incoming message to my redacted1@lake48.net Inbox. This has worked OK until now. Thunderbird gives me this error right at the start and then does not respond, so I cannot get in to investigate account settings, and cannot access emails in other accounts such as gmail. 123-Reg has today changed its system, assuring me I don't need to change anything. Clearly I do, but I can't get in to change it.

What should I do to resolve this? I have no other access to my emails.

Since i updated to 144 Thunderbird works well once started for a few minutes and then starts eating memory and in a few minutes it uses all system memory (64GB) and when virtual memory is exhausted it crashes

Now using 145 beta with same problem.

Using google calendar and only one plugin (Clippings for Thunderbird), tried to disable plugins, calendar, hardware acceleration, tried to compact folders, clear cache, clear msf with no success

Just upgraded to a new system with Windows 11. Avast Security. Installed Thunderbird 128.5.2esr same as on old system. Migrated old emails using MozBackup. Worked great for a day. New emails, archived a bunch of emails to a local folder...

Next day after about 3-5 minutes Thunderbird shows the Hourglass and is not responding. Eventually will go to a greyed out window. I have to kill it with task manager. I noticed that in Activity Manager three calendars were syncing for a long time. Disabled all calendars.

Task manager shows CPU usage but 0 Network and 0 Disk activity. 3 sub processes but only one has CPU. Resource Manager shows CPU and 72 threads. Resource Manager - Analyze Wait Chain - reports "waiting to finish network I/O."

I've tried Troubleshooting Mode. Still froze during Troubleshooting Mode. I've tried moving a large local folder out of the mail folder entirely. I've tried clearing the startup cache. I've tried clearing the system temp folder.

I have a lot of accounts, saved emails and message filters. So I really don't want to start over again with an empty Thunderbird and reset up accounts.

Whilst using TB the screen went white with dozens of little tabs along the top of the screeen with what look like page icons, as the app became 'not responding'. Re-loading didn't help - same screen. Re-starting didn't help. I uninstalled and re-installed TB but it is stil the same. Opening in Windows (11) safe mode produced virtually the same result except for a few seconds I was able to open the hamburger menu and select trouble shooting. Opened in trouble shooting mode showed several alerts of 'failed to connect with servers' (outlook.office365.com imap.gmail.com and Yahoo). Then it shut down as before 'not responding'. When open, TB is using some 80% of available memory., and I can only close it by using Task Manager. I'm a complete dunce at this stuff so, if anyone knows a way out of this hole, please use simple English! Thanks, Jeff

After months of constant Thunderbird crashes and hundreds of crash reports, and as many attempts at trying to resolve the issue but without any resolution, I am now getting the following message when Thunderbird crashes:

Thunderbird had a problem and crashed. Unfortunately the crash reporter is unable to submit a report for this crash.

Details: Expected value at line 1 column 1

I have version 128.5.2esr installed, but the issues started well before this version you can see the information in the crash reports if you want to look at them. I have tried Troubleshooting Mode, and can confirm the issue persists. I have also noticed that the one IMAP account I have attempts to redownload all messages from the mail server - it never completes because Thunderbird always crashes first. Aside from the obvious request for troubleshooting suggestions on the primary crash issue, I have three additional questions:

1. Is there a way for me to isolate that IMAP account, in another profile or such, to see if that account or server is contributing to the issue?

2. How is the crash report interpreted - i.e. where do I look to see the actual cause of the crash? In the "Details" tab the CRASH REASON and CRASH ADDRESS are not very informative to the average user.

3. What is the best way to provide a list of crash reports - I've had nearly 30 over the past few days, and - literally - hundreds since the issue began in October (which did not appear to coincide with anything in particular - e.g. new hardware or software, or TB update. Is is acceptable to post a list in the body of this thread, or as a txt document, or .... ?

BTW, running this on a Windows 10 22H2 machine, i9-14900KS, 32Gb DDR5, previously nVidia Quadro P5000 now Intel Arc A770 Graphics. Yes, have tried rebuilding POP3 folders, and yes I have a backup of my profile, which is about 35Gb in size.

TIA

"Nothing happens here" after the Microsoft OS install Thunderbird stopped working. I had no menu bar but it did download messages. I reinstalled Thunderbird and it installed Outlook then Thunderbird. I have a menu bar but none of the tasks is accessible. It downloads messages but I cannot open, delete or move them. I need to go to task manger to close the app. When I go there, there are multiple tasks for Thunderbird. Tried a shift start but I could not even see the inbox after deselecting addons. Just the menu bar and the rest is a blank page.

Tried a screen shot but this does not work.

I can't close TB. It is frozen in the midst of trying to compact files. This is the error message:

"Compact folders (Not responding) Thunderbird needs to do regular file maintenance to improve the performance of your mail folders. This will recover 685 MB of disk space without changing your messages. To let Thunderbird do this automatically in the future without asking, check the box below before choosing ‘Compact now’."

My husband and I had the same problem with our laptops not loading emails, saying it doesn't have sufficient file space. I fixed his by deleting a lot of files and then compacting the remainder. BUT - this isn't working for mine. In the process of trying to compact files, it froze and I can't figure out a way to close it and try again.

Any help appreciated! Thanks.

I've been having issues with Thunderbird randomly hanging over the last few weeks. It's always been slow to upload all my gmail messages, so I let it get done with that before I start reading. However, now it randomly decides to hang forever. It generally happens when I delete or move an email to another folder. It doesn't complete the function. I can click on other emails, but it doesn't open them. The UI just sits there with the blue progress bar shimmering away, forever. None of the window control work (File, X, etc.). I have to use the Task Manager to end the Thunderbird task. When I start it up again, the message will be moved or deleted, and I can view more messages until it decides to hang again. This happens about four times per day.

I have an MSI GS75 Stealth 9SF laptop, running intel Core i7, Windows 11 (up to date), and the most current version of Thunderbird.

I didn't see anyone else commenting on Thunderbird hanging frequently, so I'm wondering if it's just me.

MAC OS Tahoe 26.0 Public Beta 6 Since upgrading to this latest beta, with Open NewMassage in a new message window, does not open the window. It seems to create it in the back ground, and Thunderbird icon on the task bar shows the additional windows, but they are un selectable. Choosing open message in newt does work.

This seems to be occurring after beta 6 , it was working under beta 5

Thunderbird had never crashed before, but lately, after the last 2 Windows 10 updates within the last 2 weeks, it crashes. It's at 128.5.2esr, the next-to-last update.

It always crashes when I choose "About" and it starts downloading the update. It appears that it doesn't get the 1st byte before crashing. It will still say 0 bytes when it crashes.

It also crashes if I leave it running and the screen goes through the screen saver mode and turns black. Twice it crashed while I was using it.

I thought it might have something to do with the fact that I had 4,000 emails in my Inbox (is there a limit?), so I deleted many and moved many to folders. I now have just under 1,000 in my Inbox.

I also tried restarting in Troubleshoot Mode and updating, but it still crashed at 0 bytes downloaded.

Is there a way to manually download the update and apply it? I can't find it on the website.

The next thing I know to do is reinstall. Is there anything I can try before doing that? Would you suggest uninstall first or reinstall over what's here?

I have used TB since Windows XP days, so very familiar with it. Currently using 140.2.0esr on Windows 10.

Two or three days ago TB updated to 140.x and since then, it has been crashing every time I compose a message. Within two minutes at most, the program hangs, the GUI becomes unresponsive, and Process Explorer reports that TB is using 16.79% of the CPU. It stays that way indefinitely.

After a lot of observation (and saving drafts, and restarting TB over and over and over) I have narrowed this down to typing the apostrophe character. Typing a word like "shouldn't" will hang TB, sometimes on the ' character, and sometimes a second or two later which allows a few more letters to be typed. The problem persists with Troubleshooting Mode enabled.

I have changed nothing in TB. At least, nothing I am aware of. Same keyboard as last week.

Yes, I realize that this sounds crazy.

Does anyone have an inkling about what's happening here? Thanks.

I've tried Troubleshooting Mode but it only recommends "Clear Startup Cache" and when I click it to reboot the program Thunderbird stills fails to load the Inbox file and Troubleshooting Mode again recommends the same "Clear Startup Cache" as a remedy. Not sure what to do to get Inbox file loaded in program. BTW the program does download new emails to the Inbox file but program is unable to load the file. During Thunderbird program restart the message at the bottom left of Thunderbird window is "Summarizing files for Inbox" which after 20 minutes program crashes ans asks for a reboot. Any corrective action recommendations is appreciated.

Thanks, Mike

I believe this started with this upgrade to the client. I routinely was able to select a piece of text in an email and click the Insert Link... button, fill in the data, and click OK to embed a link.

Now I select a piece of text, press the Insert Link button, and Thunderbird hangs, requiring Task Manager to kill the program.

Embedded links already in i.e. templates work fine, but cannot be edited or upgraded.

Anybody else seeing this, or am I (typically) just being stupid about something?

Thanks John