What OS do you use? What version of Thunderbird? Are you talking about a pop or imap mail account?

What search method are you using? Quick filter Bar? Global Search ? Menu icon > Find > Search Mesages' ?

OS- windows7 version - 52.6.0 (32-bit) pop mail account

Quick filter search (pfa screenshot)

.......

Can you post info: In Thunderbird

• Help > Troubleshooting Information
• click on 'Copy text to clipboard' button
• In this forum question, right click in a 'Post a Reply' text box and select 'Paste'

After pasting, you can edit/remove all the info on fonts and printers but nothing else. Images below as a guide.

See if the Inbox index file is somehow out of synch with actual Inbox mbox file.

• Right click on 'Inbox' folder and select 'Properties'
• click on 'Repair Folder' button
• click on OK
• select another folder, then reselect 'Inbox'
• try performing Quick Filter Bar search.

Please report back on results.

Application Basics

   Name: Thunderbird
   Version: 52.6.0
   User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.6.0
   Profile Folder: Open Folder

             (Local drive)
   Application Build ID: 20180123185941
   Enabled Plugins: about:plugins
   Build Configuration: about:buildconfig
   Memory Use: about:memory
   Profiles: about:profiles

 Mail and News Accounts
   account1:
     INCOMING: account1, , (none) Local Folders, plain, passwordCleartext

   account2:
     INCOMING: account2, , (imap) stbeehive.oracle.com:993, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: , stbeehive.oracle.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true

 Crash Reports

 Extensions
   Lightning, 5.4.6, true, {e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103}
   Oracle Beehive Extensions for Thunderbird (OracleInternal), 1.0.0.7, true, obel@oracle.com

 Important Modified Preferences

   Name: Value

     accessibility.lastLoadDate: 1518066526
     accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar: 0
     browser.cache.disk.capacity: 358400
     browser.cache.disk.filesystem_reported: 1
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size_cached_value: 358400
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run: false
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max: false
     dom.apps.reset-permissions: true
     extensions.lastAppVersion: 52.6.0
     font.internaluseonly.changed: false
     font.name.monospace.el: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-cyrillic: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-unicode: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-western: Consolas
     font.name.sans-serif.el: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-cyrillic: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-unicode: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-western: Calibri
     font.name.serif.el: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-cyrillic: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-unicode: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-western: Cambria
     font.size.fixed.el: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-cyrillic: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-unicode: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-western: 14
     font.size.variable.el: 17
     font.size.variable.x-cyrillic: 17
     font.size.variable.x-unicode: 17
     font.size.variable.x-western: 17
     mail.openMessageBehavior.version: 1
     mail.winsearch.firstRunDone: true
     mailnews.database.global.datastore.id: 2680cf86-edf1-4bbe-98eb-4e42534c5c6
     mailnews.database.global.indexer.enabled: false
     media.gmp.storage.version.observed: 1
     network.cookie.prefsMigrated: true
     network.predictor.cleaned-up: true
     network.tcp.sendbuffer: 65536
     places.database.lastMaintenance: 1520488395
     places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages: 55189
     plugin.importedState: true
     security.sandbox.content.tempDirSuffix: {01c3f49b-aa96-49ff-92d6-e2a62fe19f3c}

 Graphics

     GPU #1
     Description: Intel(R) HD Graphics 5500
     Vendor ID: 0x8086
     Device ID: 0x1616
     RAM: Unknown
     Drivers: igdumdim64 igd10iumd64 igd10iumd64 igdumdim32 igd10iumd32 igd10iumd32
     Driver Version: 10.18.10.4013
     Driver Date: 11-11-2014

     Features
     Direct2D: false
     DirectWrite: true (6.2.9200.22164)
     WebGL Renderer: Google Inc. -- ANGLE (Intel(R) HD Graphics 5500 Direct3D9Ex vs_3_0 ps_3_0) -- OpenGL ES 2.0 (ANGLE 2.1.0.2a250c8a0e15)

     AzureCanvasBackend: skia
     AzureCanvasAccelerated: 0
     AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: cairo
     AzureContentBackend: skia

 JavaScript

 Incremental GC: 1

 Accessibility

   Activated: 0
   Prevent Accessibility: 0

 Library Versions

     Expected minimum version
     Version in use

     NSPR
     4.13.1
     4.13.1

     NSS
     3.28.6
     3.28.6

     NSS Util
     3.28.6
     3.28.6

     NSS SSL
     3.28.6
     3.28.6

     NSS S/MIME
     3.28.6
     3.28.6

'Repair folder' did not help. Did repair then clicked on sent items, trash etc, then came back to inbox and tried searching. Still same error.

Btw this is IMAP mail account.

mailnews.database.global.indexer.enabled: false Try enabling the global indexer in options. My understanding is it must be enabled for quick search to work.

Options > Advanced > general.

global search index has enabled new search.. quick search is spinning endlessly.

I note from the image that you are using Quick Filter Bar to search on what appears to be the 'Inbox' folder.

I also note you have 22,317 emails in the Inbox folder.

I'm suspecting this may have something to do with the number of emails.

Do you have the same issue on another folder which you know has significantly less emails?

Please do the following: Create some suitably named new folders and move (in batches) a load of appropriate emails into those new folders in order to significantly reduce the number of emails in the Inbox folder and organise emails.

It would really help to rule out Quick Filter Bar search having an issue with large number of emails. Then perform a another search and report back on results.

Do you compact your Inbox and Junk/Spam folders on a regular or daily basis to remove all 'marked as deleted' emails?

I DO have the same issue with any other folder as well, which has just 2 emails.

I have filters created which runs automatically everyday and moves emails to trash and transh deletes mails older than 30 days.