Thunderbird 68 and 78 hang while loading following upgrade from version 52. Loads immediately in safe mode. (win10)
Hello,
I am experiencing difficulties upgrading from Thunderbird 52 to version 68 (win64) or 78 (win64).
Following installation, the profile manager opens immediately; however, versions 68 and 78 both hang for 25 to 30 seconds while Thunderbird is loading (i.e., blue circle by mouse pointer) and appear to function normally afterwards. Thunderbird 52 opens immediately and runs without issues.
Relative to the upgrade, I removed all extensions, themes, dictionaries, etc., from Thunderbird 52 before upgrading. I did try upgrading and uninstalling Thunderbird 52 before installing Thunderbird 68 or 78. I also tried disabling the check for new messages on startup without any luck
Thunderbird 68 and 78 load immediately in safe mode. I did not disable extensions in safe mode because no extensions are installed.
Help resolving the hang-up problem will be greatly appreciated. I have wanted to upgrade for a while.
Thank you.
Okulungisiwe ngu Wayne Mery
All Replies (7)
First, try setting all mail accounts to not check for new message as startup. And, do you have any RSS feeds?
Thank you for the suggestion.
I disabled the check for new messages on startup without any luck and I do not have any RSS feeds.
If TB works in safe mode, and you have no add-ons, the likely source of the problem is hardware acceleration or a broken layout. Disable hardware acceleration in Options/General/Indexing while in normal mode. If this option can't be disable in normal mode, close TB, open the profile folder, open the prefs.js file in a text editor, and add this line:
user_pref("gfx.direct2d.disabled", true);
Then, restart TB in normal mode and see if it hangs. If it still hangs, start in safe mode, check 'Reset toolbars & controls', 'Make changes and restart'.
Thank you for your help.
I disable hardware acceleration in normal mode and confirmed the change in prefs.js and restarted without any improvement in startup time. I then Reset the toolbars & controls and restarted, also without any improvement in startup time.
Finally, I uninstalled Thunderbird and deleted the C:\Users\...AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird directory, restarted the computer, installed 78.12.0 and created a new/clean profile. The clean installation also took about 30 seconds to load. I then implemented the above two changes without any improvement in startup time.
Again, If I restart the clean install of 78.12.0 in safe mode, Thunderbird loads almost immediately. I am not selecting "disable extensions" because no extensions are installed.
I initially suspected the exceedingly slow startup time was related to the upgrade of my existing accounts and profiles; however, the problem appears related to 78.12.0 and/or how 78.12.0 runs on my computer.
I jumped back to 52.9.1 and it continues to load almost immediately.
Any additional ideas will be greatly appreciated.
What's the antivirus? Try running Windows in safe mode to bypass startup apps that might be incompatible.
Hello,
I am running Norton Security and Malwarebytes Pro.
I restarted in safe mode and Thunderbird 78.13.0 took about 24 seconds to load, so a few seconds quicker but no notable change. I did not compare 78.12.0 and 78.13.0.
I previously tried 78.12.0 with a diagnostic startup; with no appreciable improvements.
I am not certain if this information is helpful, but I copied one of my two existing profiles to the PortableApps version of Thunderbird 78.13.0 (i.e., profile directory), which is running from an SSD and it loads in about 3 seconds.
Thank you for the help and recommendations.
See this topic about Malwarebytes Penetration Testing:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1343839#answer-1428268