Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

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

Thunderbird 24.6.0 suddenly stops accepting keyboard input in the middle of typing a message

  • 6 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Doubly

more options

On a system running Debian Testing (kernel version 3.13.10-1), at times Thunderbird 24.6.0 suddenly stops accepting keyboard input in the middle of typing a message. Some times, it will not accept keyboard input from the time a new message window opens (both from click Write or Reply).

Regardless of when the problem starts, I can still copy text from another source and paste it into the message, and I can still send the message.

Sometimes, the problem will clear up itself after a few minutes, meaning I can suddenly start typing in the open message window, but sometimes not, and I will have to close the message window and restart Thunderbird or reboot the system.

On a system running Debian Testing (kernel version 3.13.10-1), at times Thunderbird 24.6.0 suddenly stops accepting keyboard input in the middle of typing a message. Some times, it will not accept keyboard input from the time a new message window opens (both from click Write or Reply). Regardless of when the problem starts, I can still copy text from another source and paste it into the message, and I can still send the message. Sometimes, the problem will clear up itself after a few minutes, meaning I can suddenly start typing in the open message window, but sometimes not, and I will have to close the message window and restart Thunderbird or reboot the system.

All Replies (6)

more options

Check if any other programs is causing a high CPU load when this happens.

more options

The System Monitor showed a processor load around 30%, and a memory usage around 40%

more options

Try 'top' in a terminal window.

more options

Tasks: 290 total, 1 running, 242 sleeping, 47 stopped, 0 zombie %Cpu(s): 1.0 us, 0.3 sy, 0.0 ni, 98.2 id, 0.4 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st KiB Mem: 8101216 total, 6406932 used, 1694284 free, 46440 buffers KiB Swap: 8388604 total, 280476 used, 8108128 free. 2714812 cached Mem

 PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND         
9498 pete      20   0  905252 171068  60844 S   4.3  2.1   0:36.22 chrome          
1207 root      20   0  301372  31896  12592 S   1.0  0.4  40:04.04 Xorg            
7904 pete      20   0  796904  75304  25496 S   1.0  0.9   0:54.16 chrome          
7349 pete      20   0 1215536 345724 116416 S   0.7  4.3   3:29.51 chrome          
7539 pete      20   0  879076 128096  26512 S   0.7  1.6   1:51.35 chrome          
7670 pete      20   0  826900  70488  23812 S   0.7  0.9   0:13.12 chrome          
7793 pete      20   0  872564 135004  68628 S   0.3  1.7   0:13.74 chrome          
7845 pete      20   0  811680  80360  23580 S   0.3  1.0   0:06.61 chrome          
7877 pete      20   0  812032  79888  23668 S   0.3  1.0   0:08.91 chrome          
9666 pete      20   0   23796   1808   1136 R   0.3  0.0   0:00.01 top             

22931 pete 20 0 1094964 186504 22808 S 0.3 2.3 14:28.61 thunderbird

   1 root      20   0  193016   2860   1260 S   0.0  0.0   0:03.67 systemd         
   2 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.02 kthreadd        
   3 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:22.21 ksoftirqd/0     
   5 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kworker/0:0H    
   7 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   1:09.66 rcu_sched       
   8 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 rcu_bh          
   9 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.34 migration/0     
  10 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.58 watchdog/0      
  11 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.58 watchdog/1      
  12 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.01 migration/1     
  13 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:13.05 ksoftirqd/1     
  15 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kworker/1:0H    
  16 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.50 watchdog/2      
  17 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.02 migration/2     
  18 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:04.84 ksoftirqd/2     
  20 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kworker/2:0H    
  21 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.52 watchdog/3      
  22 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.03 migration/3     
  23 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:11.02 ksoftirqd/3     
  25 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kworker/3:0H    
  26 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khelper         
  27 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kdevtmpfs       
  28 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 netns           
  29 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 writeback       
  30 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kintegrityd     
  31 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 bioset          
  32 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd         
  34 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.11 khungtaskd      
  35 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   3:41.37 kswapd0         
  36 root      25   5       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksmd            
  37 root      39  19       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khugepaged      
  38 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 fsnotify_mark   
  39 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 crypto          
  44 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthrotld        
  46 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 deferwq         
  86 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ata_sff         
  88 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_0       
  89 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_1       
  90 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_2
more options

Is that at the time when Thunderbird is showing the problem?

more options

Yes - I had an open message window that was not accepting keyboard input when I ran the top command.