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Lolu chungechunge lwabekwa kunqolobane. Uyacelwa ubuze umbuzo omusha uma udinga usizo.

Disaster upgrading to TB 78 on MacOS. Spinner on startup and then told that the app memory was full, and that TB was not responding

  • 19 uphendule
  • 2 zinale nkinga
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  • Igcine ukuphendulwa ngu Yellow0ars

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I have two Mac OS machines. On one it was easy, I clicked to update TB and it switched from 68 to 78 as a completely normal update, nothing special, and without any problem. Perfect.

However, on the other, I did exactly the same but all I get is the spinning baseball. I tried re-installing TB but still get the spinning baseball. I force quit TB and restarted but still get the spinning baseball. I left it spinning for half and hour and then was told that the app memory was full and that TB was not responding. So I currently have no access at all to any emails, stored or otherwise. And cannot access any menus or anything.

Complete disaster: any ideas how to save the day?

I have two Mac OS machines. On one it was easy, I clicked to update TB and it switched from 68 to 78 as a completely normal update, nothing special, and without any problem. Perfect. However, on the other, I did exactly the same but all I get is the spinning baseball. I tried re-installing TB but still get the spinning baseball. I force quit TB and restarted but still get the spinning baseball. I left it spinning for half and hour and then was told that the app memory was full and that TB was not responding. So I currently have no access at all to any emails, stored or otherwise. And cannot access any menus or anything. Complete disaster: any ideas how to save the day?

Okulungisiwe ngu Wayne Mery

All Replies (19)

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what happens if you start thunderbird with these switches ?

 -offline -safe-mode
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Wayne

Thanks - and especially for the speed of coming back.

I can't get into TB to operate any switches. Do you mean simply starting TB with the wifi off and the whole computer in safe mode?

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Just to be clear: when I have TB open, I have no cursor, just the spinning baseball which won't operate anything.

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Let's try just safe mode first Start *Windows'* safe mode with networking enabled - win10 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12376/windows-10-start-your-pc-in-safe-mode Still In Windows safe mode, start thunderbird in safe mode - https://support.mozilla.org/kb/safe-mode-thunderbird

If that fails, start offline by opening a WIndows command window and doing

 thunderbird.exe -offline
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It's a Mac! Same commands?

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Wayne

Safe mode for both the computer and TB made no difference, except for a slightly different colour spinning baseball.

Would an Apple crash report help?

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I have now upgraded to MacOS Catalina 10.15.6 and downloaded and re-installed Thunderbird 78.2.2, but none of this has made any difference.

It's seems to me likely that the upgrade to TB78 fatally corrupted something in the profile.

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We are having the exact same issue here (macOS). We tried launching in safe mode. No change. Launching TB it hangs with wheel, activity monitor shows 100% CPU usage by TB. Waited many hours for it to 'come back' never did.

User needs to access stored mail.

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I just reverted to v.68 by copying a working version from my laptop MB Air to my desktop Mini. Thunderbird 78 would not download new e-mail, and I screwed it up by copying over 68 and trying to run it. Got no replies to my how-to-revert query on this support page, but figured it out. For those interested in reverting until all the bugs in 78 are fixed, just a couple of steps are involved. You must be copying from a working v.68 on another Mac. First, delete the application; I also deleted the dock icon just in case. In user/library, delete the Thunderbird folder (mine had 6 files in it). Your address book is in there. Copy those two items (the Thunderbird v.68 application and Thunderbird folder from the user/library) from the other computer into the same respective locations in your destination computer.

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Thanks to everyone for chipping in while I have been asleep in England.

To dan146: So sorry to hear that you have hit the same fault. In my case, I can see that the stored emails are all safely there, so I suspect they will be in your machine too. It should be possible to recover them somehow. There is hope!

To Eric Godfrey: Relieved that you could revert to TB68. As you can see from my first post, I had no difficulty changing over one of my machines, so have lost my copy of TB68.

To sfhowes: Thanks for that link. I did try rebuilding the global-messages-db.sqlite file yesterday and it made no difference. The fault may be connected with it, however. When it rebuilt it came to 148MB which seems to me to be excessive. I'm not sure I know how to rebuild a profile using profile manager. If you have a link for that, I would be most grateful

I'll try to find a way of rebuilding a working profile using the one I have got on the other Mac, which is absolutely fine.

Okulungisiwe ngu Yellow0ars

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Did you not get my private message? Check spam folder.

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Wayne

Thanks. No, I didn't get your PM. Sadly, I can't check the spam folder as I don't have a cursor, just a spinning wheel. What might I find if I could?

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Yellow0ars said

Wayne Thanks. No, I didn't get your PM.

email me at wsmwk@thunderbird.net

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dan146

Wayne and I have had a discussion and, strangely, we discovered that, when you try to open the Profile Manager, you don't get the Profile Manager at all. But you do get all your emails back, including all the stored emails.

This seems to work OK until you close Thunderbird, when you have to do it all again. Not ideal, but useful until a more permanent solution can be found.

This is with TB78.2.2

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Dan, I tried PMing you.

What Yellow0ars and I determined on his system is starting thunderbird from the terminal was successful. No idea why. So open terminal and try

/Applications/Thunderbird.app/Contents/MacOS/thunderbird or /Applications/Thunderbird.app/Contents/MacOS/thunderbird -P

Let us know what happens

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Sorry haven't got back to you - no progress here. Any progress on your end?

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Wayne

Thanks.

All well this end. We have not shut down the Mac (only slept it) and haven’t closed TB78, which seems to be working fine. So I suppose this indicates that it’s more likely to be a launching rather than a running issue.

I’m wondering how Dan is getting on and whether he’s OK now, at least for the moment?

To confirm, this is TB78 on MacOS Catalina.

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Wayne

Just to confirm the new position:

I updated TB last evening to TB 78.3.1 and found that I still get the spinning beachball when I try to open it. But the solution this time is different:

   1. “Force Quit” Thunderbird if it is open.
   2. Use Terminal to open Profile Manager in the normal way
   3. Select the required profile 
   4. Click “Start Thunderbird”
   5. Thunderbird then starts properly and seems to operate normally.

Not perfect, but a satisfactory work-around until a more permanent remedy can be found.