Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

File link: Long Loading Copying That Never Ends

more options

I’m a new Thunderbird user. I’m using a Dell PC with Windows 10. Just tried sending a 7mb mp3 file to a recipient via FileLink. I set up a FileLink connection to a Send instance in the USA. Every attempt to send the file to a recipient resulted in endless loading and copying the message to my drafts folder and my sent folder, but the Send button on the message never darkened and allowed me to send the message. Also I get an error message from Thunderbird telling me it can’t copy the message to my drafts and sent folders. After two plus hours of waiting, I had to cancel the messages. Tried restarting Thunderbird.

I tried using Dropbox instead but Dropbox always pauses my uploads no matter what I do and which browser I use. I ended up sending the mp3 file as a regular attachment. That eventually worked but again the message couldn’t be saved to my sent folder, and again Thunderbird insisted on saving a draft copy while the very long file attachment loading process went on for over a half hour. My question is: why does it take so long for Thunderbird to load an attachment to a message, and why doesn’t FileLink work? I tried to send a 1.6mb photo in jpg format to myself, and even that took a half hour, and I wasn’t sure the process worked until I received my message with the photo. Do I need to disable my Norton software to use Thunderbird? Disable my browser extensions? Or do I just need to find a different email client?

I’m a new Thunderbird user. I’m using a Dell PC with Windows 10. Just tried sending a 7mb mp3 file to a recipient via FileLink. I set up a FileLink connection to a Send instance in the USA. Every attempt to send the file to a recipient resulted in endless loading and copying the message to my drafts folder and my sent folder, but the Send button on the message never darkened and allowed me to send the message. Also I get an error message from Thunderbird telling me it can’t copy the message to my drafts and sent folders. After two plus hours of waiting, I had to cancel the messages. Tried restarting Thunderbird. I tried using Dropbox instead but Dropbox always pauses my uploads no matter what I do and which browser I use. I ended up sending the mp3 file as a regular attachment. That eventually worked but again the message couldn’t be saved to my sent folder, and again Thunderbird insisted on saving a draft copy while the very long file attachment loading process went on for over a half hour. My question is: why does it take so long for Thunderbird to load an attachment to a message, and why doesn’t FileLink work? I tried to send a 1.6mb photo in jpg format to myself, and even that took a half hour, and I wasn’t sure the process worked until I received my message with the photo. Do I need to disable my Norton software to use Thunderbird? Disable my browser extensions? Or do I just need to find a different email client?

All Replies (1)

more options

I just discovered that turning on my VPN before opening Thunderbird completely solves the lagging attachment loading issue. Attachment and FileLink links are added to an email within just seconds. Apparently my email service provider is throttling the data flow to and from my account. I’ll contact them to ask if there’s anything they can do to alleviate this issue.