Thunderbird Community Forum

On Saturday morning 27 June 2026 I tried to login my Orcon email account via Thunderbird (which I have been using for a long time). But my login didn't work, I got a message saying "login to POP3.orcon.net.nz with username habitation failed." On 30th June 2026 I reported the problem to Orcon.

Orcon gave me the following settings for Thunderbird. I have done that and even made a new account: Incoming Server Type: IMAP Mail Server: imap.orcon.net.nz Port: 143 SSL: Off Authentication: On (username and password required)

Outgoing SMTP Server: Mail Server: smtp.orcon.net.nz Port: 25 SSL: Off Authentication: Off

Since then I have spent many hours and going around in circles with Orcon's Technical Support to resolve this, but no luck. They blame Thunderbird. I used Thunderbird Troubleshoot Mode. The message that comes up reads: login to server mail orcon.net.nz with username habitation failed. Please can you check that your server settings above are correct? And if there is a bug? Irma

I cannot send messages from any of my accounts after migrating to Greenby. I have tried to setup their outgoing server as per their instructions but it does not work. They have a AI tool which I keep going round and round in cycles

After several years of working perfectly,For no reason, I am getting this message when trying to connect to Xfinity email server

"  Login to server mail.Comcast.net with username t_m_f@comcast.net failed."

I have set all Comcast server settings to the default. Going directly to Xfinity email works great . So it must be something wrong with Tbird. I also uninstalled & reinstalled Tbird. This is frustrating !!!!!!

I have about a dozen accounts with over 50 folders, most with a matching filter. About 100k messages, taking up about 1G of disk space. All but one account is merged under my Inbox to have fewer duplicate In/Draft/Sent boxes eating up window space. I'm using 152.0.1 (aarch64) Release branch on a Mac OS X 26. All are POP accounts on a DreamHost server.

At some point it started to show the draft message on every email, which means on incoming as well. I've had this phenomenon for years.

Recently filtering has started to not automatically run on some emails forcing me to run the filters manually. I've run the repair folder options which does not seem to make any difference.

Since switching to macOS 26 it also does not allow me to move Thunderbird child windows, they simply show up on the default location. But that's for another ticket.

I can't send emails from my Thunderbird account. I am however receiving them. Using IMAP. All server settings appear to be correct. Error message reads " Sending of the message failed. The message could not be sent because the connection to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.stackmail.com timed out. Try again." What's going wrong?

When I try to send a message I get the following error message: An error occurred while sending mail: Outgoing server(SMTP) error. The server responded: Cannot connect to SMTP server 209.71.208.9 (209.71.208.9.25) connect error10060 How do I fix this?

I've been using TB for many years, and without warning, when it tries to down load my mail from the Proton mail server, it says it can't find the folder "Inbox". I've tried to "repair" that folder a couple times unsuccessfully. I've restarted the TB program a couple times, but nothing changes. The error shows up on the bottom "instruction line". I've gone through all my settings and find nothing amiss. Not sure where to go from here. -- Just noticed that I had about 80 emails in that Inbox folder that are now missing completely. Normally, I move read emails to there respective folders, and leave important ones in the Inbox for followup. One significant note here, is I'm still using Win 7 premium. So far it hasn't been a problem. Thanks a bunch, Gerald

Thunderbird is not responding. Xfinity is working just fine I need help resetting is there any way I can speak with a person? I am totally bogged down caring for my partner with dementia. I am able to go to my settings, etc.

I have 2 hotmail accounts - one gets mail as normal the other stopped on 28 April. Checked and settings are same for both except actual email address name. Till 28 April both worked normally. Haven't tried either starting another account for the problem name or deleting existing as don't want to lose anything. Haven't updated to latest version for same reason. How to fix please?? Cheers and thanks

Why is thunderbird constantly coming up with an authentification failure while trying to connect to outlook.office365.com every time i try to access my hotmail emails? this is becoming painful last week zero access to hotmail then worked for a few days now nothing again.

Hello.I just want to let you know,that somehow the client what i uzsdeing is forget to make undread massages to read when i takea look at them.When i double clivck on them they open a diffferent page and then they get read status.What could cause this?

Yesterday I downloaded 90 emails from my mail server. Only 5 of them were filtered correctly.

Upon reviewing the remaining 85 emails, I observed that many of them "should" have been filtered. So I opened up the Tools - Message Filters and applied the filtering to the INBOX file.

Almost immediately, all 85 emails disappeared. They were not in the Trash folder, nor were they visible in any other folder or mail box that I could see.

It was recommended to apply the "repair" to the INBOX which I tried; However, all that happened was 318 older emails that I have processed a few days before reappeared in the INBOX. Which interestingly would not sort by the date indicated for the email; they would only sort by subject and sender.

It was further recommended to close TB, and delete the INBOX.msf file. Which I did do. In addition, I also restored the INBOX to the previous days file using my daily backup files. That file shows 101,076 kb of info contained in it.

I reopened TB to find once again nothing in the INBOX, and when I tried to re-run the get msgs aspect, the result was the system telling me there were no email messages to collect.

Yet I know the same 90 emails are still sitting in the mail server system.

Why did this happen?

Where did the 85 emails in the INBOX go to?

Why isn't the set of 2200++ email filters not automatically filtering all emails once they are collected, and distributing them to the appropriate email file folder / mail box?

What recommendations are available to help me resolve this situation and prevent it from happening again?

Also, I have a txt and html file of the 8 Jul 2026 filter report. Why can't I upload said files along with this set of information? Why are attachments only restricted to image files?

Thank

The email I thought I’d sent isn’t in my sent folder. I saw it being sent. I also tried restoring the sent items folder, but it didn’t work. What should I do? Is there any risk of it being misused?

> I have 6 email accounts I manage in my Thunderbird. > Normally I do not delay sending emails, so I have not had a reason to use the Unsent Messages Folder. > I recently installed Thunderbird's Mail Merge Add-On to send mass individual emails to classmates for a school reunion. Doing it this way will allow me to track individual bad emails. I have a total of 3621 emails. > I created a new Gmail Account for this purpose. > There is a concern to not send too many emails out at once to avoid getting flagged and suspended by Gmail as a Spam Account. (Limits of 50 to 500 per 24 hr period have been suggested to avoid this), so scheduling bursts of emails over a period of time is necessary. > The Mail Merge Add-On has 3 output choices, Save as Drafts, Send Later, Send Now. (The instructions warn against using Send Now) > I tried the Save as Drafts function and it performed as promised, creating 3621 individual customized emails in my Account's Draft folder. This, however, makes it so you have to send each email individually. > When I tried the Send Later function, it appeared to work, but a Local Folders > Unsent Messages folder never appeared. I searched all my other email accounts and finally found it in the one Old Defunct email account list that I never use anymore. It does appear to have created all 3621 emails. > I tried to Drag & Drop it into the Local Folders stack, but received an error message that a folder of that name already exists there, even though it does not appear in the list of folders. > I tried repairing folders, compressing folders and was not able to move it or even create a new one of that name and copy the contents. > I would like advice on how to proceed to complete moving/copying the Unsent Messages folder to its proper location in the Local Folders stack. Thank you! greg

My computer was hacked a month ago, well... I got phished when I was sent an email that looked like it came from a client, it was a bit premature to receive a file from her but... it was very late, I wasn't at my best, and there it is. I always thought I was savvy. So. I did catch it in time to save my Google account and they didn't succeed in getting at any money, did lose my longtime alt-email address. My computer tech was able to restore most of Thunderbird, except for all my client information (18 years' worth), which I theorize is because the bad file was filtered into my client folders so those 2 main/many subs were deleted (or it could be because those client folders and a couple others missing were near the bottom of the folder tree and the tech guy's backup program failed at that point, he did try again but no luck). Fortunately I still keep a paper schedule so I was able to figure out who to talk to, and the autofill feature of TB was able to give me most of the emails I needed. [I have since learned about and have moved my Profile into my Documents in a separate folder so that my cloud backup picks it up every day (idrive). I really think it should be a LOT LOT easier to find and utilize the information on the Profile because EVERYONE should be backing that up every day, and the best way is to automate it. [My tech guy (re)installed Windows 11 Pro, I had Home by preference, have a tutorial from a trusted source about going back to Home without losing anything, because I do not need or want the architecture of Pro. But not doing that until I get my computer stabilized.]

All that said, to get to the point. When I collect email in TB (I have a gmail account using POP into TB as I do not like syncing and use TB to track), I usually have more than 200 emails at a time before I d/l into TB. Several times each d/l session, I get the following error message (header is cut off, it just contained my email address):

<<Unable to write the email to the mailbox. Make sure the file system allows you write privileges, and you have enough disk space to copy the mailbox.>>

I have write privileges and there is plenty of disk space. I press OK and the d/l continues for a few more emails and then stops. I then press F5 again to start d/l again. Several times a session. There is no information about which folder isn't there or what is missing or causing the error.

It appears to me that the filters are telling TB to filter into a now-nonexistent folder. I did reconstruct my client folders, but plenty of room for error there I imagine (I use QuickFolders and that actually told me which of the visible tabs no longer existed). My old laptop died in the process of all this so no longer have another version of TB as a guide. I have 367 filters (been using TB since Eudora went away), but they are only searchable by name of filter, not by possibly now-missing folders.

1. I assume that this error only means the email isn't filtered, it doesn't mean it has been deleted or anything. yes? Or am I totally wrong about the meaning of this error message, and if so, please help! 2. What can I do to fix the error? With 367 filters, it would be nice if there were some way I could figure out a way to know which filter is failing, if indeed this is a filter problem?

Thank you for any input about this. I have tried and tried to figure this out.

All best wishes, --Victoria