Thunderbird 115 "not responding" multiple times, daily on Windows 8.1 Pro - July, 2024
Hi, I'm using Thunderbird 115.4.1 and Windows 8.1 Pro. Ever since the Supernova update, TB crashes pretty much daily (up to 3x a day). I turned off auto-updates as soon as I found out how to, since everything was so confusing and didn't work the way I was used to. Now I'm afraid to do any more updates since I don't want a whole bunch of other things to get screwed up. I have learned to kind of work around the problem areas, though it's frustrating. But I don't want to spend another 10-15 hours trying to fix new problems. Any suggestions? I can't seem to find any information about people who have had this crashing problem and then had it resolved through an update. Thanks
Novain'i Wayne Mery t@
All Replies (14)
When you say "crash" do you mean "not responding", as in your previous report at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1429345 ?
Hello there We have read the question We try to help
Your letter shows that your system has become unresponsive.
May I ask you a few questions?
About the use of anti-virus. Are you currently using AVG?
Does your system also have or message messages about this situation or do you send you messages with error codes and pop ups?if so, do you send them to us or send us a crash report.
Greetings firefoxvolunteer.
Hello there
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing:Memory_Usage_Problems
Greetings Firefox volunteer
Wayne, Yes, I mean "Thunderbird is not responding" and then I have to just force it to close, since nothing else works. It never asks me to send a crash report. It's happened twice so far today. Occasionally I have a day where it doesn't happen. Thanks
Googlethunderbird,
Yes, I am using AVG. The popup message I gets says something like "Thunderbird has become unresponsive. You can: Close the program, or Wait to see if it responds". I never wait, since in the past nothing ever changed, and I could be waiting for a long time. I think one time only I got a message that said I could file a crash report. But only once. I think the usual popup says something about a crash report, but then everything just closes and there is no way to do that. Thanks
Googlethunderbird, I briefly looked at the web page about memory usage problems. I'll start with trying Thunderbird in Troubleshooting mode. I made a few changes today after re-reading my original question from October, 2023. I hadn't done all the suggestions. Today I: -removed the AVG signature at the end of my emails -disabled "View/Display attachments inline" -unchecked the option to "scan outbound emails" -reduced the amount required to compact folders from 200 MB to 100 MB -checked the box to ask me before compacting
I read several of the web pages suggested by Toad-Hall on 11/3/23.
I did start to put the Thunderbird folder as an exception in AVG. It gave me a big red warning, saying that this exception is too broad. I thought that was surprising, but it made me a bit nervous, so I didn't go through with it yet. Thanks.
Update from 7/16/24: I did read about Troubleshooting mode for Thunderbird and I started it that way on 7/10. Things seemed good for a while, and then it became unresponsive again and I had to force it to close. So no progress so far. I don't know if the problem is AVG. I thought after making those changes that it might improve things, but it hasn't. It seems like maybe I have to choose between protecting my computer from viruses and having Thunderbird work without crashing. Any suggestions? Thanks
Thunderbird has come a long way since V115.4 With most of the patches related to hangs being in the new release 128 but it does not support the out of support windows 8
So I recommend you update to the last of the 115. versions. Something list 115.12.2 and see if your experience is any better. https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/115.12.2/
115.4.1 is much too old. 115.13.0 is available.
If you are using unified folders, try doing without that.
As others have said, AVG might be part of the problem. You stepped through https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing:Memory_Usage_Problems ?
Hi Matt,
I clicked on your link for the various Thunderbird releases, but I don't see an obvious way to download one of those versions. I tried right-clicking but no options came up. If I click on any version, I just get another page with the names of the files & folders.
This may seem obvious to some, but I don't see how to do it. Could you clarify?
Thanks, DD
Each link is basically a folder inside a folder like in a file manager as you left-click.
Here is the 64-bit Thunderbird Setup 115.13.0.exe en-US https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/115.13.0/win64/en-US/
If you prefer another language like en-CA or en-GB or another then see https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/115.13.0/win64/
Hi James,
Thanks a lot. I now realize that the big list of folders was all for different languages! I didn't get that. So I downloaded the .exe file for 115.13.0. I can use either that or the .msi, right?
And, before I screw things up, should I have Thunderbird running, or not? I started to install it without Thunderbird running, and then stopped the process, since I don't want a new profile to be created. That could lead to problems. Can you clarify?
Thanks, DD
Shut down Thunderbird. Don't uninstall
Run the .exe to install. It should us the same profile. If it doesn't, then we sort that out.
Hi Wayne,
Okay, thanks for the clarification. I've done that, so I'll use it for a few days to see if the problem keeps happening. If it does, I'll look more deeply into the anti-virus issue. Thanks a lot, DD