Check to see if your firewall is blocking Thunderbird. This sometimes happens with upgrades.

Thanks for the reply, but I've checked all firewalls and all allow thunderbird through. Not sure what to do at this point, cheers.

There is no version 36.1, the current release is 31.6.0 (or do you use a beta?).

Can you be more specific what "can not download any of my emails" means? Does it give you any error message, immediately or after trying for some time?

sorry, I misstyped...it is ver 31.6. It just sits there trying to download, or so it says. and then just stops. No emails or anything has been updated or downloaded. Did not have this problem with original install. All firewalls are open to Thunderbird, and no other system changes have been done by me. No sure what is causing this to just idle out. Thanks for any help.

From Start Menu open Computer or "My Computer". Paste %ProgramFiles(x86)% into address field. In the folder list find Thunderbird. Delete the folder. Then download Tbird from https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ and install. Still see problem?

If it still fails

Start *Windows'* safe mode with networking enabled - win8 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/windows-startup-settings-safe-mode - win7 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/start-computer-safe-mode#start-computer-safe-mode=windows-7 - XP http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/boot_failsafe.mspx

Still In Windows safe mode, start thunderbird in safe mode - http://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/safe-mode

Does problem go away? Please post to let us know