Thunderbird freezes while downloading emails
Hi, My Thunderbird freezes everytime it checks for new mails. I am running a 16 Macbook Pro. This error appeared in v.102.4.0, it was fixed in v.102.4.1 but it came back in v.102.4.2. Thanks in advance for your help. Best, Ignacio.
All Replies (12)
For what it's worth, I don't see anyting in 102.4.1 nor 102.4.2 that would cause the problem you describe, but you can check those bugs lists. And also post an update here after you try 102.5.0.
By error, do you mean you see an error dialog? Or do you mean it simply freezes? Is it permanent and you must kill Thunderbird? Does Help > troubleshoot mode help?
Hi Wayne, Thanks for your reply.
V.102.5.0 is not available for me yet. I'll try again later.
Regarding the error, I do not see an error dialog. Thunderbird simply stalls for the duration of the process of checking and downloading new messages, which takes about a minute. I cannot use Thunderbird when that happens. I don't have to kill Thunderbird, It comes back to normal after that minute. I haven't tried troubleshoot mode...
I'll update when I get v.102.5.0 Thanks again.
Hi, I'm updating as requested, now with TB 102.5.0 installed, the problem seems to continue.
I think I read before that this problem could be linked to folders containing more than X number of mails. Do you think this could be the issue ?
Thanks again. Best, Ignacio.
Do you compact on a regular basis ?
Maybe the folders are larger than they need to be. Compact these folders first as they tend to get a lot deleted items.
- right click on 'Drafts' and select 'Compact'
- right click on 'Junk/Spam' and select 'Compact'
Do you have a lot of emails in the 'Inbox' ?
- As a precaution against any loss - just in case a file might be corrupted - move all emails out of Inbox into suitable folders for storage.
- Then right click on 'Inbox' and select 'Compact'
Do you have any filters putting new mail into designated folders ? Do you 'Archive' old emails eg: anything from previous years ?
If you have some very large folders: suggest either use the 'Archive' option to move old mail out of folder into the 'Archives' folder OR creating some sub folders for those older emails.
- Then right click on the name of that large folder and select 'Compact'
Toad-Hall said
Do you compact on a regular basis ? Maybe the folders are larger than they need to be. Compact these folders first as they tend to get a lot deleted items.Do you have a lot of emails in the 'Inbox' ?
- right click on 'Drafts' and select 'Compact'
- right click on 'Junk/Spam' and select 'Compact'
Do you have any filters putting new mail into designated folders ? Do you 'Archive' old emails eg: anything from previous years ? If you have some very large folders: suggest either use the 'Archive' option to move old mail out of folder into the 'Archives' folder OR creating some sub folders for those older emails.
- As a precaution against any loss - just in case a file might be corrupted - move all emails out of Inbox into suitable folders for storage.
- Then right click on 'Inbox' and select 'Compact'
- Then right click on the name of that large folder and select 'Compact'
So is the suggested solution to this freezing (which I'm also experiencing) to simply have fewer emails in my inbox? That doesn't feel super reasonable - I've had the same email address for many years and other email clients I use seem to handle the inbox fine. And I assume simply offloading all the emails to an Archive folder will cause loading the Archive folder to be pretty unresponsive as well? Is there any other solution to this, or does Thunderbird just have issues with big inboxes?
jokullmusic said
So is the suggested solution to this freezing (which I'm also experiencing) to simply have fewer emails in my inbox?
Good advice generally requires data. To advise you we'd want to know how many messages are in your inbox, and something about your hardware and OS.
jokullmusic said
That doesn't feel super reasonable - I've had the same email address for many years and other email clients I use seem to handle the inbox fine. And I assume simply offloading all the emails to an Archive folder will cause loading the Archive folder to be pretty unresponsive as well?
That would be an incorrect assumption.
Modified
Wayne Mery said
jokullmusic said
So is the suggested solution to this freezing (which I'm also experiencing) to simply have fewer emails in my inbox?Good advice generally requires data. To advise you we'd want to know how many messages are in your inbox, and something about your hardware and OS.
jokullmusic said
That doesn't feel super reasonable - I've had the same email address for many years and other email clients I use seem to handle the inbox fine. And I assume simply offloading all the emails to an Archive folder will cause loading the Archive folder to be pretty unresponsive as well?That would be an incorrect assumption.
It's around 70,000 in my combined inbox.
After moving the bulk of these emails to an archive folder, that archive folder wouldn't freeze every time I, say, sort it, search in it, add a new email to it, etc.? That's what happens in the inbox currently.
The comment I made about 'compacting'. When you move or delete an email, it is moved to the relevant folder. However, the original email is still in the original folder, it is now marked as deleted and hidden, but it is still taking up space, so your folders may be larger than they need to be. Compacting merely removes all those old moved/deleted emails and tidies up the file thus reducing it's size.
I'm not sure if you have compacting auto working in the background or if it is something you do manually.
The other main reason for freezing on downloading new mail is if some other program is interfering during the download process and that is likely to be the anti-virus checking emails as they get downloaded. You could stop the anti-virus checking incoming mail or maybe the Anti-virus is checking any files that get opened. A good way of testing to see if the AV is causing the issue is to exit all programs and then restart the computer using 'Safe Mode with Networking', then start Thunderbird as normal. This will disable the AV properly and allow to perform the test. If you connect to network using wireless then you may need to connect computer to router using an ethernet cable.
Hi ! Thanks for your reply. Here are my answers to your questions:
Do you compact on a regular basis ? Yes... all the time!
Maybe the folders are larger than they need to be. Compact these folders first as they tend to get a lot deleted items.
right click on 'Drafts' and select 'Compact' right click on 'Junk/Spam' and select 'Compact'
Do you have a lot of emails in the 'Inbox' ? I have several email accounts, and some of them carry a large amount of mails. The largest one right now has just under 20.000, there are others with 15.000 or 7.000.
As a precaution against any loss - just in case a file might be corrupted - move all emails out of Inbox into suitable folders for storage. Then right click on 'Inbox' and select 'Compact'
Do you have any filters putting new mail into designated folders ? Yes. Do you 'Archive' old emails eg: anything from previous years ? Yes, I have several archived folders for each previous year.
If you have some very large folders: suggest either use the 'Archive' option to move old mail out of folder into the 'Archives' folder OR creating some sub folders for those older emails.
Then right click on the name of that large folder and select 'Compact'
So aparently, all the suggested actions were already being taken. In fact, I was using Thunderbird that way without any problem, until some recent update. In the following weeks the problem got worse, and it took up to 3 mins for the "thinking wheel" to stop and I could use Thunderbird again for another few minutes, until it froze again... impossible to work of course.
What I am doing now is working in Troubleshoot mode, which seems to solve the problem 99% of the time.
Thanks again for taking the time to see this.
re :What I am doing now is working in Troubleshoot mode, which seems to solve the problem 99% of the time.
That implies you may have some add-ons which may be causing a problem, so the only way to know which one's are causing the issue is to start as normal and start to disable one addon at a time and test.
However, there could be another reason which is an easy test, so do this first.
- Menu icon > Settings > General
- Scroll to the bottom
- uncheck this checkbox so it is not selected 'Use hardware acceleration when available'
Then restart as normal
Can you also make sure your graphics driver is using the most up to date version.
Recently, I've come across several people who have got all the Windows OS updates, but they have neglected to check on the Graphics Driver.
Modified
I don't have any Add-ons.
I unchecked the hardware acceleration box now.
The problem persists.
> What I am doing now is working in Troubleshoot mode, which seems to solve the problem 99% of the time.
Still solving it for you?
Do you have a Mac address book?
Would you be willing to try the beta version?