Safe mode disables add ons and themes. Figure out what you added to Thunderbird to break it.

I haven't added anything that I know of. I do know there was an update about a week ago. I checked the last day I sent an email, and was the same day as the update. I run my system very plain

just try a reinstall getthunderbird.com

Same result.

Should I have dumped original thunderbird before reloading new?

What exactly is the error message?

Open the error console. (ctrl+Shift+J) clear it. Try and send a mail. What error messages appear? I am expecting things like errors about cyphers.

Note that if you right click errors you can copy them and then paste them into messages on the forum