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Thunderbird stops responding

Thunderbird App crash
Lin replied
Cartaphilus08
Cartaphilus08

I have been using Thunderbird for years with no problems. However recently, Thunderbird very often simply stops responding. Sometimes it just hangs up and sometimes the program bar at the top displays "Mozilla Thunderbird (Not Responding)". If I try to wait for it to respond, it literally hangs for several minutes before it begins to respond again, and often, it simply never starts responding again. It has simply gotten to the point where Thunderbird is practically unusable. All my other application software continues to work with no problems. It's just Thumderbird.

The version number in this submission may not be correct. I can't provide the real version number because of the hangups.

Any suggestions?

I have been using Thunderbird for years with no problems. However recently, Thunderbird very often simply stops responding. Sometimes it just hangs up and sometimes the program bar at the top displays "Mozilla Thunderbird (Not Responding)". If I try to wait for it to respond, it literally hangs for several minutes before it begins to respond again, and often, it simply never starts responding again. It has simply gotten to the point where Thunderbird is practically unusable. All my other application software continues to work with no problems. It's just Thumderbird. The version number in this submission may not be correct. I can't provide the real version number because of the hangups. Any suggestions?

All Replies (1)

Lin
Lin
  • Top 10 Contributor

What is your operating system? What is your Anti-virus, if any?

An easy test to make is to restart Thunderbird in Troubleshoot Mode (see Help | Troubleshoot Mode). This will temporarily disable all add-ons, in case one of them is misbehaving. Does that help?

The most common cause of this type of problem is the Anti-Virus grabbing hold of the mail folder files and not letting go. Assuming Windows, you can restart the computer in Safe Mode with Networking. This will temporarily disable the AV. If you run Thunderbird now, does it work normally? If so, the AV is your culprit and you need to exclude your Thunderbird Profile from scanning.

Another thing to try is to disable hardware acceleration, which can conflict with some display drivers. To do that, go to <Settings | General>, scroll to the bottom and uncheck the " Use hardware acceleration when available" box.

I have also seen slowdowns, though rarely complete freezes like you describe, when the message indexing has become corrupt. To fix this, go to <Help | Troubleshooting Information>, scroll down to Profile Folder and click Open Folder. NOW EXIT THUNDERBIRD! You will find a very large file called "global-messages-db.sqlite" - you can safely delete this file and it will be rebuilt when you next start Thunderbird. Be aware that the file can take several hours to rebuild, but you can use Thunderbird while that is happening.

Does that help?

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