Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Thunderbird crashes and locks computer when receiving messages.

  • 2 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by Geoffgg

Geoffgg
Geoffgg
more options

This is the latest version of Thunderbird installed on a new, clean instal of Window 7. The previous installation on Windows XP has run for years without problems.

When Thunderbird locks up, it locks the whole computer. The mouse won't work and Ctrl-Alt-Del does not work. The only solution is to shut the computer down with the On button.

I've been fighting this for a week and I've been slowly working through the various 'fixes' that I find during a web search. I've disabled indexing and Lightning and I'm currently running Thunderbird in Safe Mode. I can't remember installing any add-ons but we have US English dictionaries running.

Any suggestions? It's driving me nuts and, since it's my wife's computer—well you know the rest. ;-)

This is the latest version of Thunderbird installed on a new, clean instal of Window 7. The previous installation on Windows XP has run for years without problems. When Thunderbird locks up, it locks the whole computer. The mouse won't work and Ctrl-Alt-Del does not work. The only solution is to shut the computer down with the On button. I've been fighting this for a week and I've been slowly working through the various 'fixes' that I find during a web search. I've disabled indexing and Lightning and I'm currently running Thunderbird in Safe Mode. I can't remember installing any add-ons but we have US English dictionaries running. Any suggestions? It's driving me nuts and, since it's my wife's computer—well you know the rest. ;-)

Chosen solution

I had the same problem, but found out the turning off hardware acceleration solves the problem (Thunderbird 38.1.0 on Windows 7 (64), Intel G41)

Uncheck "Use hardware acceleration when available" in Tools - Options - Advanced: General or set true for "gfx.direct2d.disabled" in configuration editor

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (2)

Platrix
Platrix
more options

Chosen Solution

I had the same problem, but found out the turning off hardware acceleration solves the problem (Thunderbird 38.1.0 on Windows 7 (64), Intel G41)

Uncheck "Use hardware acceleration when available" in Tools - Options - Advanced: General or set true for "gfx.direct2d.disabled" in configuration editor

Geoffgg
Geoffgg Question owner
more options

For others who may read this, after posting the question, I opened Thunderbird in Safe Mode to see what happened.

After an hour or so, Thunderbird froze again—same story, could not close it or do anything but turn off the computer.

We've now been running Thunderbird for several hours after using the fix suggested by Platrix.

All seems well. Thanks Platrix. :-)