Thunderbird 128 freezes completely on launch even after reinstall
I was using Thunderbird for Windows 10 normally for many months. Recently, whenever I launch the app it immediately freezes, and I have to force quit the application. Reinstalling the app does not fix the issue. I haven't tried deleting my profiles yet, but I would like to avoid that if possible.
Chosen solution
It turned out that my issue was 57k mailnews.tags.* entries in prefs.js. I had the option "Automatically create tags from feed category names" turned on in my news feed and it had accumulated a lot of tags over time, saving a config preference for each. After editing prefs.js directly and removing all mailnews.tags.* lines, there are no freezes when opening folders or deleting items.
And to clarify, this worked fine before version 128, so I'd consider it a regression (though some may consider it https://xkcd.com/1172/), but one easily worked around. :)
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Start Windows in safe mode with networking enabled - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12376/windows-10-start-your-pc-in-safe-mode
Still In Windows safe mode, start Thunderbird in Troubleshoot Mode - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-mode-thunderbird
Does problem go away?
Hi Wayne, thanks for the help. Starting in Troubleshoot mode while in Windows safe mode improved the problem, however I am still experiencing sporadic and long freezes when I do actions in the app such as open mail.
Modified by gallium
I also experienced extreme performance degradation after upgrading to 128. Deleting a mail or feed item in a folder with 3-10 items freezes Thunderbird for 2 seconds. Deleting a feed item in an RSS folder with 900 items freezes Thunderbird for 30 seconds. Similar size-dependent delay when opening folders. Thunderbird troubleshoot mode seems to reduce the delay by 0-70% (which still means >10s delay for big folders!), but I'm getting very high variance so can't say for sure before more investigation.
@gallium: By chance, does your Thunderbird open a very big mail folder immediately when starting?
honvmpri said
@gallium: By chance, does your Thunderbird open a very big mail folder immediately when starting?
The folder Thunderbird opens into has about 3000 messages, which seems not unreasonable to me. Other mail apps I use open into folders of 4000 messages.
Wayne Mery said
see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing:Memory_Usage_Problems
I will try these options if the app becomes unusable again, thank you.
Chosen Solution
It turned out that my issue was 57k mailnews.tags.* entries in prefs.js. I had the option "Automatically create tags from feed category names" turned on in my news feed and it had accumulated a lot of tags over time, saving a config preference for each. After editing prefs.js directly and removing all mailnews.tags.* lines, there are no freezes when opening folders or deleting items.
And to clarify, this worked fine before version 128, so I'd consider it a regression (though some may consider it https://xkcd.com/1172/), but one easily worked around. :)
Modified by honvmpri
@Wayne: Yes, I am and was using Cards View. I tested that the freezes occurred with and without the Message Pane, but didn't test if Table View had any effect.
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