goto the troubleshooting entry on the help menu. Click the show folder button

In the explorer windows that opens you will see files of type MAB. what is listed and what size are they?

abook.mab, 3659 KB, history.mab, 169kb. I tried: Restart with add-ons disabled--no joy XP safe mode, TB add-ons disabled--no joy. Downloded TB24.7 from archives--*Poof* problem solved.

I have been using Mozilla since about 1996. The TB31 update has caused me to spend the most time troubleshooting since then. There were several other 'glitches" that I had chased down, such as default printer and other issues earlier this week.

I'm not a programmer (last programming I did was Fortan IV on an IBM 360), but I'm an experienced computer user. I also run TB31 on my windows 8.1 ultrabook without problems.

My gut feeling on this particular issue is the system requirements. The problems occurred on a desktop, XPpro-SP3, 1.2gb single-core processor, 2Gb RAM. Although this is within the published system requirements, I think there may be some issues there.

Also, I timed the delay in the address search- 35 to 40 seconds (not 1-2 min.; just felt that way). Happened anytime I had to add an address; write, reply, fwd.

I have the same problem after upgrading to TB31. I use Windows 7. It's a royal pain and I hope someone comes up with a fix.

tektite, There is certainly an issue with address books which the developers are still looking for a cause for. I cured my issues by deleting address books which had hundreds of duplicates in them that were managed by the google contacts add-on and they were under 20kb, the size of your address book would indicate thousands and thousands of contac6tsw (Or pictures of them) , could you please test this. Export your Personal and collected address books as CSV files. open the CSV files in a spreadsheet and look through the lists for duplicates. If my hunch is correct they will not be hard to find if they are there.

What did you see?

Matt, Yes, there are a lot of addresses, collected by TB/Mozilla since 1997. There are some duplicates, but not a lot. Can I pare down the list; yes, but how do I know which to keep? TB24.7 zips through in about 1-2 seconds on addressing.

5,650 addresses, 273 duplicates.

Can we do a little testing on you tektite

if so there is a daily build of Thunderbird I would like you to download and run and you can advise if it fixes the problem.

It will install beside Thunderbird (As daily with a white icon like an egg with a crack in it.) and use your existing profile. It may mess up your add-ons by disabling some, but I think it will fix your issue, and you can always re enable add-ons latter.

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-central/thunderbird-34.0a1.en-US.win32.installer.exe

Matt, Done & running. It seems to search fine. But TB31 worked OK at first, too. I'll keep trying for today. Will I be able to just delete this when I am done?

Matt, I've used the Daily for yesterday and today, without problems. I don't think this has been corrected in TB31, only this Daily? What was the correction for the issue?

The actual bug fix is here. I don't understand half that stuff, but your welcome. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=984875

Discussion about the actual impact is here https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1048316

Awesomeness. Many tanks. (%>>>%)----- *

I'm thrilled to see this! But I've never installed a "bug fix." How do I install this? (insert all necessary caveats about backing up profile)

Kirk, this is what is called a daily build.. it is standard Thunderbird with a standard installer.. The difference is it installed as Daily not Thunderbird. THat maks uninstalling it when your done simple and it leaves your existing installation alone so all that could be destroyed is the profile folder that they share (and that is really a remote but possible outcome with basically untested updates)

Backup is discussed here. http://thunderbirdtweaks.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/backups.html and here http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Backing_Up_and_Restoring and here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb#w_backing-up-a-profile

I am not going there again.  One of those links should do it for you.

What specifically do I click on to download the daily build with the bug fix? I didn't see a download button or link.

have a look at this reply https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1013192#answer-613653

How do I select "daily" as my current version of Thunderbird and not have the usual version start? Or is that how it installs, such that clicking on the Thunderbird icon runs this particular version?

I got it installed just fine, BTW.

This problem is not solved.

@curmudgeon942 Fixed in the tb31.1 build. Got troubles after that release then this is not the place to discuss it. Start your own thread.

Closing this thread, so further posts can be correctly located and the OP not be spammed with your issue.