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Thunderbird repeatedly crashes

  • 5 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by sfhowes

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Thunderbird 91.5 running on a fully updated Ubuntu 18.04 linux

4 weeks ago Thunderbird started to crash a lot. Usually within 2-10 minutes of starting. Often the keyboard commands do not work (delete and arrow buttons), and almost always a few seconds after this it crashes.

Reinstall didn't change anything. Delete and fresh install didn't change anything. Creating a new profile did not make any difference. Closing all other programs so only Thunderbird running makes no difference. Crash reports submitted with every crash.

No idea what is going on but for practical purposes Thunderbird has been dead for the last month. Any suggestions at all on how to fix it very welcome as I really don't want to move to another mail client.

Thunderbird 91.5 running on a fully updated Ubuntu 18.04 linux 4 weeks ago Thunderbird started to crash a lot. Usually within 2-10 minutes of starting. Often the keyboard commands do not work (delete and arrow buttons), and almost always a few seconds after this it crashes. Reinstall didn't change anything. Delete and fresh install didn't change anything. Creating a new profile did not make any difference. Closing all other programs so only Thunderbird running makes no difference. Crash reports submitted with every crash. No idea what is going on but for practical purposes Thunderbird has been dead for the last month. Any suggestions at all on how to fix it very welcome as I really don't want to move to another mail client.

All Replies (5)

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Perhaps if you post some crash report ids someone can help. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/mozilla-crash-reporter-tb#w_viewing-crash-reports

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Some of the reports indicate you have the EN-CA and EN-GB language packs installed, which have proved to cause issues with TB 91. Does removing or disabling them make any difference? Note that language packs only affect the interface language; dictionaries are separate and control spell checking.

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New crash report.

I went to edit, preferences and checked the languages which showed US, GB and CA. I selected remove en_CA ok, closed Thunderbird, reopened it and en_CA was still there, tried twice. I removed Thunderbird from the system sudo apt remove thunderbird, tried to open it to confirm it was gone. I installed Thunderbird sudo apt install thunderbird. I opened it checked the languages and there is only US english so that should be good. It crashed again after about 8 minutes.

https://crash-stats.thunderbird.net/report/bp-3fb74937-74bf-4e3c-a6df-3336e1220301

I have checked my system locale shows the system is set up for GB english LANG=en_GB.UTF-8

There are some other variations of english listed in /var/lib/locales/supported.d/en which I suppose could be causing problems but I don't see why as the system is using GB english.

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Your latest crash report indicates the EN-GB language pack is installed. I suggest you remove all language packs, uninstall TB, and install the English version that matches your system locale.