Persistent problem with Thunderbird not responding
For months I was experiencing the problem of "Thunderbird not responding" occasionally. It was a short duration issue (a few seconds to a minute). I reinstalled Thunderbird several times without success. I read almost every comment available online about this problem and I tried many ideas and recommendations I found without success. Most recently the problem became so serious that it was not a nuisance any longer. It was nearly impossble to work waiting for minutes to open an email or to continue typing while preparing a message and being interrupted by the problem I am describing. I ran Thunderbird in safe mode and determined that none of the add-ons is causing the problem. I turned the firewall OFF and determined that firewall was not causing the problem. I then decided to run Thunderbird in Offline mode and found that the program works normally. Then while in Offline mode I decided to download more messages and the program asked me if I wanted to switch to the Online mode. I said yes. New emails were downloaded and without going back to the Offline mode I was able to work normally without any occurrence of the "Thunderbird not responding" problem. I have been using this workaround for several days now. I download a number of eamails. I try working in Online mode and I cannot do it. I switch to Offline and work fine. I switch back to Online mode and I don't see the problem any longer for the whole day. Do you have any idea as to the origin of my proble? I am running Thunderbird 115.10.2 64 bit on Windows 11. I had the problem originally using Lenovo T490s and more recenlt Lenovo X1 Yoga
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Thanks crist1 for the suggestion. By excluding Thunderbird from Windows Defender I assume some risk of getting viruses through email. Is this correct?
প্রেক্ষাপটে এই উত্তরটি পড়ুন। 👍 1All Replies (10)
What is your anti-virus software?
My antivirus software is the MS Windows Defender which is built-in to Windows 11. Please pay attention to the scenario I described. Staring Thunderbird, downloads all emails from Google, trying to open any email, TB not responding. Turning TB to Offline mode and everything works fine. Going back to Online mode and TB continues to function normally for the duration of my session, typically all day.
Try to start Windows 10 in safe mode with networking enabled.
Still in Windows safe mode, start Thunderbird in safe mode. Does the problem go away?
Windows safe mode disables anti-virus software. This is a troubleshooting step, not a solution.
Thanks a lot Christ1. Instead of going through the lengthy process of running Windows and Thunderbird in safe mode I disabled Windows Defender and this solves my problem. Obviously I cannot permanently disable the antivirus app. What do you suggest I do. I still don't understand why going to Offline mode and then back to Online mode in Thunderbird appears to be solving the problem as I described earlier. In this scenario I checked Windows Defender and it is ON
I cannot permanently disable the antivirus app. What do you suggest I do.
Create an exclusion in your anti-virus software for the Thunderbird profile folder, so that the anti-virus real-time scanner will not scan it. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data#w_how-to-find-your-profile
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Thanks crist1 for the suggestion. By excluding Thunderbird from Windows Defender I assume some risk of getting viruses through email. Is this correct?
Even with creating an exclusion for the Thunderbird profile you ARE still protected from viruses by Defender's other protection features. You do not need to worry, as the real-time scanner is still turned on it will scan all the files and attachments and will alert you if there is any infection.
I am experiencing constant NOT RESPONDING in Thunderbird and have found this thread. Can someone please explain "Simply" how to create an exclusion. I have gone to START, SETTINGS, PRIVACY AND SECURITY, VIRUS AND THREAT PROTECTION, EXCLUSIONS, ADD OR REMOVE EXCLUSIONS, ADD AN EXCLUSION, and then I am lost, what must I select? file, Folder, Filetype or Process and what do I enter to make Thunderbird an exclusion.
Thanks Paul Foster
You want to specify the Thunderbird profile directory. Instructions are on https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing:Antivirus_Related_Performance_Issues - search for defender
I am not a tech person and find the 'fixes' to this problem over my head and significantly time consuming but still getting nowhere. When will an update fix this issue that so many of us have? I donate to you every year and really like TB but this 'not responding' issue has gotten worse and worse with time, so there must be something in either TB or windows that has changed or keeps changing to make this issue persistent and worsening. I too run windows 10 with windows defender as my anti-virus. Please just figure out how to put all this in an update that we can install. We shouldn't have to jump through hoops to make this program work correctly. It's been very time consuming and I'll start looking for a new email platform next week unless I hear of something simple I can do or that you can work on this for an update to TB. Thanx.