Thunderbird Will Not Load
I am currently using Thunderbird (128.6.0esr) on a Mac with OS Sonoma (14.7.1). I have used Thunderbird for many years with a Gmail account on both Windows and Mac machines, and it has always worked well.
But a couple of days ago when I tried to open Thunderbird it went into some kind of loop. The MacOS spinning beach ball appeared and would not go away no matter what I did or how long I waited. The only way out was to Force Quit Thunderbird. Rebooting the Mac and trying again produced the same results.
I have logged into the Gmail account on the web and had no trouble accessing it. But every time (and I have made many attempts) I try to load Thunderbird the spinning beach ball appears again.
I cannot check any of the various settings that Help articles have suggested checking since Thunderbird will not load at all.
If anyone can suggest how to resolve my problem, I would greatly appreciate it.
All Replies (2)
Do you use the "Mac OS-X Address Book" in Thunderbird Address Book? If you can't determine because of the "freeze" first test would be to start TB in "Troubleshooting Mode" https://mzl.la/3AbU5jz If TB still won't load go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy tab and select "Contacts" in the left pane: uncheck "Thunderbird.app" . Start Thudnerbird
Thanks for your very quick response. Unfortunately I'm still stuck with the spinning beach ball. But let me respond to your suggestions.
1. Use Mac OS-X Address Book? At one point the beach ball stopped spinning (why I do not know) and I was briefly able to access the address book part of TB. It had four "catagories": All Address Books, Personal Address Book, Mac Contacts, and Collected Addresses.
2. Again after about half an hour of beach ball, I was able to start TB in Trouble Shooting Mode. But the beach ball promptly returned.
3. Go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy tab and select "Contacts" in the left pane: uncheck "Thunderbird.app". I did this but there were no entries (TB or otherwise) to uncheck.
I also started my Mac in Safe Mode, but as soon as I tried to load TB the beach ball returned.
I then tried updating the OS to the very latest version of Sonoma (14.7.2) and tried all the steps above again. But no success.
Then just for the heck of it, I loaded Apple Mail, and it connected to my Gmail account with no trouble at all.
I've thought about removing TB entirely and then reinstalling it. But I don't know how to go about that or whether I could somehow save the hundreds of emails I currently have stored in TB.
I've also considered going into Recovery Mode and reloading the OS to see if that would resolve the issue. But I hesitate as I might make matters even worse.
Much as I would hate to give up TB, I am tempted to just move on and use Apple Mail instead--though I don't know how I'd get the emails currently in TB moved to Apple Mail.
By the way, I failed to mention earlier that the Mac in question has an M1 chip not an Intel chip, if that makes any difference.
Thanks again for your prompt response to my initial posting. If you have any other thoughts or suggestions, I would be happy to hear them.
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