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Thunderbird 24.6.0 suddenly stops accepting keyboard input in the middle of typing a message

  • 6 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Paskiausią atsakymą parašė Doubly

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On a system running Debian Testing (kernel version 3.13.10-1), at times Thunderbird 24.6.0 suddenly stops accepting keyboard input in the middle of typing a message. Some times, it will not accept keyboard input from the time a new message window opens (both from click Write or Reply).

Regardless of when the problem starts, I can still copy text from another source and paste it into the message, and I can still send the message.

Sometimes, the problem will clear up itself after a few minutes, meaning I can suddenly start typing in the open message window, but sometimes not, and I will have to close the message window and restart Thunderbird or reboot the system.

On a system running Debian Testing (kernel version 3.13.10-1), at times Thunderbird 24.6.0 suddenly stops accepting keyboard input in the middle of typing a message. Some times, it will not accept keyboard input from the time a new message window opens (both from click Write or Reply). Regardless of when the problem starts, I can still copy text from another source and paste it into the message, and I can still send the message. Sometimes, the problem will clear up itself after a few minutes, meaning I can suddenly start typing in the open message window, but sometimes not, and I will have to close the message window and restart Thunderbird or reboot the system.

All Replies (6)

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Check if any other programs is causing a high CPU load when this happens.

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The System Monitor showed a processor load around 30%, and a memory usage around 40%

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Try 'top' in a terminal window.

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Tasks: 290 total, 1 running, 242 sleeping, 47 stopped, 0 zombie %Cpu(s): 1.0 us, 0.3 sy, 0.0 ni, 98.2 id, 0.4 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st KiB Mem: 8101216 total, 6406932 used, 1694284 free, 46440 buffers KiB Swap: 8388604 total, 280476 used, 8108128 free. 2714812 cached Mem

 PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND         
9498 pete      20   0  905252 171068  60844 S   4.3  2.1   0:36.22 chrome          
1207 root      20   0  301372  31896  12592 S   1.0  0.4  40:04.04 Xorg            
7904 pete      20   0  796904  75304  25496 S   1.0  0.9   0:54.16 chrome          
7349 pete      20   0 1215536 345724 116416 S   0.7  4.3   3:29.51 chrome          
7539 pete      20   0  879076 128096  26512 S   0.7  1.6   1:51.35 chrome          
7670 pete      20   0  826900  70488  23812 S   0.7  0.9   0:13.12 chrome          
7793 pete      20   0  872564 135004  68628 S   0.3  1.7   0:13.74 chrome          
7845 pete      20   0  811680  80360  23580 S   0.3  1.0   0:06.61 chrome          
7877 pete      20   0  812032  79888  23668 S   0.3  1.0   0:08.91 chrome          
9666 pete      20   0   23796   1808   1136 R   0.3  0.0   0:00.01 top             

22931 pete 20 0 1094964 186504 22808 S 0.3 2.3 14:28.61 thunderbird

   1 root      20   0  193016   2860   1260 S   0.0  0.0   0:03.67 systemd         
   2 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.02 kthreadd        
   3 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:22.21 ksoftirqd/0     
   5 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kworker/0:0H    
   7 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   1:09.66 rcu_sched       
   8 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 rcu_bh          
   9 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.34 migration/0     
  10 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.58 watchdog/0      
  11 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.58 watchdog/1      
  12 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.01 migration/1     
  13 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:13.05 ksoftirqd/1     
  15 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kworker/1:0H    
  16 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.50 watchdog/2      
  17 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.02 migration/2     
  18 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:04.84 ksoftirqd/2     
  20 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kworker/2:0H    
  21 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.52 watchdog/3      
  22 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.03 migration/3     
  23 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:11.02 ksoftirqd/3     
  25 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kworker/3:0H    
  26 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khelper         
  27 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kdevtmpfs       
  28 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 netns           
  29 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 writeback       
  30 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kintegrityd     
  31 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 bioset          
  32 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd         
  34 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.11 khungtaskd      
  35 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   3:41.37 kswapd0         
  36 root      25   5       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksmd            
  37 root      39  19       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khugepaged      
  38 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 fsnotify_mark   
  39 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 crypto          
  44 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthrotld        
  46 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 deferwq         
  86 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ata_sff         
  88 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_0       
  89 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_1       
  90 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_2
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Is that at the time when Thunderbird is showing the problem?

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Yes - I had an open message window that was not accepting keyboard input when I ran the top command.