What error message do you get?

I don't get any message when trying to read mail. It just doesn't do anything. When sending mail it tells me that it timed out in connecting to the server. I can always access gmail using webmail.

Please post your Troubleshooting Information. At the top right of the Thunderbird window, click the menu button , then select Help > Troubleshooting Information. Press the "Copy text to clipboard button" and paste the information into your reply.

Application Basics Name Thunderbird Version 68.2.2 Build ID 20191105113228 Update Channel release User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.2.2 OS Windows_NT 10.0 Launcher Process Enabled Multiprocess Windows 0/0 Disabled Remote Processes 0 Enterprise Policies Inactive Google Location Service Key Missing Google Safebrowsing Key Missing Mozilla Location Service Key Missing Safe Mode false Mail and News Accounts ID Incoming server Outgoing servers Name Connection security Authentication method Name Connection security Authentication method Default? account1 (imap) imap.gmail.com:993 SSL OAuth2 smtp.gmail.com:465 SSL OAuth2 true account2 (none) Local Folders plain passwordCleartext Crash Reports for the Last 3 Days Report ID Submitted Remote Processes Type Count Extensions Name Version Enabled ID Amazon.com 1.1 true amazondotcom@search.mozilla.org Bing 1.0 true bing@search.mozilla.org DuckDuckGo 1.0 true ddg@search.mozilla.org Google 1.0 true google@search.mozilla.org Lightning 68.2.2 true {e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103} Twitter 1.0 true twitter@search.mozilla.org Wikipedia (en) 1.0 true wikipedia@search.mozilla.org Security Software Type Name Antivirus Avast Antivirus Antispyware Firewall Windows Firewall Graphics Features Compositing Basic Asynchronous Pan/Zoom none WebGL 1 Driver WSI Info EGL_VENDOR: Google Inc. 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(adapter LUID: 000000000000c3b3) EGL_VERSION: 1.4 (ANGLE 2.1.0.8a050090f926) EGL_EXTENSIONS: EGL_EXT_create_context_robustness EGL_ANGLE_d3d_share_handle_client_buffer EGL_ANGLE_d3d_texture_client_buffer EGL_ANGLE_surface_d3d_texture_2d_share_handle EGL_ANGLE_query_surface_pointer EGL_ANGLE_window_fixed_size EGL_ANGLE_keyed_mutex EGL_ANGLE_surface_orientation EGL_ANGLE_direct_composition EGL_NV_post_sub_buffer EGL_KHR_create_context EGL_EXT_device_query EGL_KHR_image EGL_KHR_image_base EGL_KHR_gl_texture_2D_image EGL_KHR_gl_texture_cubemap_image EGL_KHR_gl_renderbuffer_image EGL_KHR_get_all_proc_addresses EGL_KHR_stream EGL_KHR_stream_consumer_gltexture EGL_NV_stream_consumer_gltexture_yuv EGL_ANGLE_flexible_surface_compatibility EGL_ANGLE_stream_producer_d3d_texture EGL_ANGLE_create_context_webgl_compatibility EGL_CHROMIUM_create_context_bind_generates_resource EGL_CHROMIUM_sync_control EGL_EXT_pixel_format_float EGL_KHR_surfaceless_context EGL_ANGLE_display_texture_share_group EGL_ANGLE_create_context_client_arrays EGL_ANGLE_program_cache_control EGL_ANGLE_robust_resource_initialization EGL_ANGLE_create_context_extensions_enabled EGL_ANDROID_blob_cache EGL_ANDROID_recordable EGL_EXTENSIONS(nullptr): EGL_EXT_client_extensions EGL_EXT_platform_base EGL_EXT_platform_device EGL_ANGLE_platform_angle EGL_ANGLE_platform_angle_d3d EGL_ANGLE_device_creation EGL_ANGLE_device_creation_d3d11 EGL_ANGLE_experimental_present_path EGL_KHR_client_get_all_proc_addresses EGL_KHR_debug EGL_ANGLE_explicit_context WebGL 2 Driver Renderer Google Inc. -- ANGLE (Intel(R) HD Graphics 620 Direct3D11 vs_5_0 ps_5_0) WebGL 2 Driver Version OpenGL ES 3.0 (ANGLE 2.1.0.8a050090f926) WebGL 2 Driver Extensions GL_ANGLE_client_arrays GL_ANGLE_copy_texture_3d GL_ANGLE_depth_texture GL_ANGLE_explicit_context GL_ANGLE_explicit_context_gles1 GL_ANGLE_framebuffer_blit GL_ANGLE_framebuffer_multisample GL_ANGLE_instanced_arrays GL_ANGLE_lossy_etc_decode GL_ANGLE_memory_size GL_ANGLE_multi_draw GL_ANGLE_multiview_multisample GL_ANGLE_pack_reverse_row_order GL_ANGLE_program_cache_control GL_ANGLE_provoking_vertex GL_ANGLE_request_extension GL_ANGLE_robust_client_memory GL_ANGLE_texture_compression_dxt3 GL_ANGLE_texture_compression_dxt5 GL_ANGLE_texture_multisample GL_ANGLE_texture_usage GL_ANGLE_translated_shader_source GL_CHROMIUM_bind_generates_resource GL_CHROMIUM_bind_uniform_location GL_CHROMIUM_color_buffer_float_rgb GL_CHROMIUM_color_buffer_float_rgba GL_CHROMIUM_copy_compressed_texture GL_CHROMIUM_copy_texture GL_CHROMIUM_sync_query GL_EXT_blend_func_extended GL_EXT_blend_minmax GL_EXT_color_buffer_float GL_EXT_color_buffer_half_float GL_EXT_debug_marker GL_EXT_discard_framebuffer GL_EXT_disjoint_timer_query GL_EXT_draw_buffers GL_EXT_float_blend GL_EXT_frag_depth GL_EXT_instanced_arrays GL_EXT_map_buffer_range GL_EXT_occlusion_query_boolean GL_EXT_read_format_bgra GL_EXT_robustness GL_EXT_sRGB GL_EXT_shader_texture_lod GL_EXT_texture_compression_bptc GL_EXT_texture_compression_dxt1 GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc_srgb GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic GL_EXT_texture_format_BGRA8888 GL_EXT_texture_norm16 GL_EXT_texture_rg GL_EXT_texture_storage GL_EXT_unpack_subimage GL_KHR_debug GL_KHR_parallel_shader_compile GL_KHR_robust_buffer_access_behavior GL_NV_EGL_stream_consumer_external GL_NV_fence GL_NV_pack_subimage GL_NV_pixel_buffer_object GL_OES_EGL_image GL_OES_EGL_image_external GL_OES_EGL_image_external_essl3 GL_OES_compressed_ETC1_RGB8_texture GL_OES_depth32 GL_OES_element_index_uint GL_OES_get_program_binary GL_OES_mapbuffer GL_OES_packed_depth_stencil GL_OES_rgb8_rgba8

disable email scanning in avast and see if you still have an issue. It might be nodding off to sleep after an hour and you are seeing the symptom of that in your error message.

For some reason Thunderbird has been working without interruption all day. If it crops up again I will try to turn off the Avast email scan and see if that is a cure. But I never have an issue reading gmail on the web. If there was any consistency in when Thunderbird will quit on me I think this would be easier to solve. Thanks, irv

If I had 1 cent for every time I had heard folk erronously align web mail with actual mail I would be a very rich man now.

Web mail is a web page. It might just as well be the front page to wikipedia, it just happens to display a web page with your emails in it.

Thunderbird is a mail client. It uses different protocols, ports and ideologies to web mail. The share nothing in common at all really, except your password. And even that is not consistently the same, only usually.

Avast does not scan web mail and is not involved in sending mail at all. Your statement that web mail is not an issue only further convinces me the issue is avast.

Today Thunderbird was not reading or sending mail. I then did disable the Avast scan of email and Thunderbird then worked. I turned the scans back on and it is still working - for now. Thanks for your help.

I strongly suggest you question the actual need for email scanning. Avast has certified your system free of any malware it can detect. So why is it looking for malware in your outgoing mail?

I think this quote describes what is going on. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

As for incoming scanning, as Thunderbird does not execute scripts in the body of mails, getting malware is very difficult from opening a mail.

Getting malware from an attachment is a different issue and quite possible, but before an attachment can be opened it has to be decoded (From MIME) and a copy placed in the systems temp folder for Thunderbird or the opening application to use. When that file is created it will be scanned by your anti virus product, or so they claim. So while there are some minor risk with incoming mail. you should not get infected by mail opening.

This leaves things like remote images displayed in email. Thunderbird by default blocks these, so again scanning is not contributing much.

So then we see these powerhouses of security start dabbling in scam detection and spam filters. Hardly malware, but a vain attempt by folks offering the product to look like they are relevant and useful.

If traffic in these support forums is anything to go by, a very significant proportion of mail issues are actually caused by the anti virus products that are supposed to be protecting you.