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When I click on E-Mail, can't open its attachments.

  • 11 cavab
  • 5 have this problem
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  • Last reply by margarets

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When I receive E-Mails with attachments, I can't open the attachments. This happens regardless of the size of the attachment, whether it is a document, a photo, or something else. We have tried re-installing Mozilla Thunderbird, but we still have the same problem. What we get is a blank screen saying "Mozilla not responding". Please help! I need my attachments! Thanks.

When I receive E-Mails with attachments, I can't open the attachments. This happens regardless of the size of the attachment, whether it is a document, a photo, or something else. We have tried re-installing Mozilla Thunderbird, but we still have the same problem. What we get is a blank screen saying "Mozilla not responding". Please help! I need my attachments! Thanks.

All Replies (11)

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What anti virus are you using>?

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I'm using Norton.

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Try temporarily disabling Norton. If no other way, the following will disable it. My guess is it is messing up when the file is created in the temp folder.

If safe mode for the operating system fixes the issue, there's other software in your computer that's causing problems. Possibilities include but not limited to: AV scanning, virus/malware, background downloads such as program updates.
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margarets said

When I receive E-Mails with attachments, I can't open the attachments. This happens regardless of the size of the attachment, whether it is a document, a photo, or something else. We have tried re-installing Mozilla Thunderbird, but we still have the same problem. What we get is a blank screen saying "Mozilla not responding". Please help! I need my attachments! Thanks.

I tried restarting in safe mode w/networking, as suggested, but it did not work. Same problem. Whenever I click on any attachment, it locks up and stops responding.

I opened up the Resource Monitor and did not see any unusual activity. So I (restarted Thunderbird) and went into Properties->Options. As soon as I click on the Attachments Tab, the program locks up. I repeated this to confirm because I remember being able to look at this page previously.

This is a Windows 7 Lenova. Maybe a year old. I can download attachments with the web mail (browser).

Any other suggestions to try or look for?

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on the help menu select troubleshooting information. click show folder for the profile.

Close Thunderbird

Delete mimetypes.rdf

Restart Thunderbird.

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Hi Matt,

First, thank you so much for your time. I am afraid this didn't work either. I installed Malwarebytes and ran a scan in safemode. It detected and deleted a bunch of adware - Mindspark and Price.. something or other. That didn't improve the email problem either. Here is the "Application Hang Signature" that I get when I try to close the program.

Problem signature:

 Problem Event Name:	AppHangB1
 Application Name:	thunderbird.exe
 Application Version:	31.6.0.5567
 Application Timestamp:	55199803
 Hang Signature:	487f
 Hang Type:	4
 OS Version:	6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
 Locale ID:	1033
 Additional Hang Signature 1:	487f14dc079b45cd30cad5acf93af950
 Additional Hang Signature 2:	44c2
 Additional Hang Signature 3:	44c2202ba20bbd96a22cea2d0007e227
 Additional Hang Signature 4:	4ab1
 Additional Hang Signature 5:	4ab1b841281f2aebd35557154fb8129f
 Additional Hang Signature 6:	93f8
 Additional Hang Signature 7:	93f823fc95832f5c2fe61906b9179cdf
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BTW: I am Walt, Marg's husband, formerly a Windows API Programmer for McAfee (and also a Thunderbird user). We are very appreciative of your time and expertise. I am happy to look at this on a more technical level, if you have the time.

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Lets go back to basics.

Reinstall the program, just in case we have a DLL version that has been clobbered.

Check the disk for physical and logical errors.

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margarets said

When I receive E-Mails with attachments, I can't open the attachments. This happens regardless of the size of the attachment, whether it is a document, a photo, or something else. We have tried re-installing Mozilla Thunderbird, but we still have the same problem. What we get is a blank screen saying "Mozilla not responding". Please help! I need my attachments! Thanks.

Hi Matt

I did a reinstall once (a while back in this thread) but it didn't help. I will try it again - OR I was thinking of doing a complete Uninstall first, BUT I don't want to lose all the emails. (or contact info).

I should do a complete export first, just as a backup. Then do another reinstall on top of the existing installation. I have also kept boot logging on (but haven't looked at it yet).

- Walt & Marg

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margarets said

When I receive E-Mails with attachments, I can't open the attachments. This happens regardless of the size of the attachment, whether it is a document, a photo, or something else. We have tried re-installing Mozilla Thunderbird, but we still have the same problem. What we get is a blank screen saying "Mozilla not responding". Please help! I need my attachments! Thanks.

Additional efforts:

I tried disabling all plugins. There weren't many and they weren't from unknowns - Intel, Google, Norton, Adobe, etc. But I saw no difference... maybe

I wonder if the size of the attachment has could be a problem, so I tried to pick something I thought would be small (a logo from a Staples receipt). I did see a spinning 'hourglass' and 'Loading Document' in the status area, lower left. I waited, and waited.... a long time . I checked the resource monitor to see if anything was maxing out or dying. I can't tell...

I was not able to reproduce the "Loading Document' msg, but sometimes I get an hourglass, and sometimes I don't.

When you download an attachment, I assume it has to pull it down from the server and go through the virus scanner. I may try disabling the AV because I know where these attachments are from. I think I tried it before, but I'll try again.

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More test Results:

I disabled Norton Email Scanning and tried to download what I think it a 50kB Word Doc. Same problem. I get the Hourglass (no 'Loading Document' message) and the resource monitor shows Thunderbird is dead. No network or disk activity and no changes in memory footprint.