On 11 Aug 2022 TB updated to version 102.12 and it is a completely useless. It is unresponsive as soon at it starts. How do I roll it back?

In a sensible world you do not ever roll back.

So how about we try and fix it. You say it is unresponsive. For how long?

Mat, that is a better solution than my rant.

When downloading, it goes to "not responding". Then after restarting TB it will eventually download a couple then stop responding again. Repeat.

Also, once everything is finally downloaded and I select what to send to trash, it is also very slow. As if it is reading the messages before putting them into the trash.

This is always one of the hardest things because there is no click here to fix it. However there are some things to check.

First if you have an anti virus program, make sure it is not set to check Thunderbird profile folder (create an exception) nothing kills performance like an anti virus locking huge files (often in the gigabyte range with Thunderbird. Depending on how much mail you keep) While it reads the contents looking for a virus that was not there 3 seconds ago.

Antivirus over the years has been at the root of most issues with speed, file access and internet connectivity. They also cope poorly with ungraded versions. Especially in the initial periods while they wait for an OK from their home that the new version is legitimate and sometimes that can take days. Sometime blocking Thunderbird entirely.

If you have anti virus mail scanning enabled, try turning that off as well. Unfortunately it can be so slow folk have reported timeout error sending mail. It also offers almost nothing in making you more secure. Outgoing mail clearly has no virus, or you should already be aware you have on on your system from the same product that is not looking yet again for saomething. Incoming mail is a text file. It executes nothing and really represent no risk at all as it arrives, or for that matter while stored in Thunderbird. It is only when folk try things like opening attachments that issues can arise.

There is an option in Thunderbird settings to allow anti virus scanning, and enabling that causes all new mail to be placed in the temp folder before Thunderbird does anything with it. Any anti virus worth having will scan the new file and quarantine it if there is an issue without any sort of "email scanning" by the anti virus.

Hold the shift key while starting Thunderbird and see if the issue is the same when you startup in troubleshoot mode. This Thunderbird mode really pares things down to the minimum and can offer insight as to whether the issue is internal to Thunderbird or external.

You can always restart your operating system without any of it's startup programs and see if that affects things. I really think what you are describing sounds like the stop start misbehaving antivirus products cause.

Sorry for the delayed response Matt, it was late and I did not see it till this afternoon.

I checked all of the things you said:

1. My antivirus, Norton, does not have an "email" only check, it appears to be global.

2. The antivirus option in TB is "not" checked.

3. I tried the "hold shift key while restarting" TB and had it set for bare bones start up. No change.

I started having these problems with version 91, but it was hit and miss. Then you changed it to version 102 and things got extremely worse. Now it automatically goes into "not responding" mode upon start up.

If I just leave it alone, it eventually downloads a message or two. But it takes an extremely long time to do so.

Oh, I forgot to mention, that once TB upgraded from version 91 to 102, I kept getting pop messages stating that there was a newer version of TB for download, i.e., 102.

Current status 4 days later:

My TB upgraded from 9x to 102.1.2 and it just kept getting worse - to the point that it is now unusable.

For starters, once the program upgraded from 9x to 102x, I kept getting pop up notices that an upgrade to 102 was available.

And for each upgrade, the "not responding" got worse and worse. Now, with 102.1.2 it is unresponsive the moment it is opened.

If I leave TB open and leave it alone, it eventually will download 100 messages in about an two hours - it download one, then go to not responding for a period, repeat.

Once they are downloaded, and I want to check a message, i.e., to read it, it will go to "not responding".

And to add insult to injury, when I highlight a string of messages to delete, it will delete one, stop responding, repeat, at a slightly faster pace than that of downloading.

This release is a mess......