Thunderbird Community Forum

I'm trying to use the MS Teams function of Owl and joined a meeting to find that I can't see video because "Firefox is missing a plugin". After doing some searching I believe this is the fact that I can't I can't find the plugin page on Thunderbird, like Firefox where you can go to plugins and see the OpenH264 codec.

Is it possible to enable the plugins page on Thunderbird and install/setup the OpenH264 plugin in Thunderbird, is there some hidden option in about:config I can change?

Four months ago, I tried to change a POP3 account to an IMAP account. That didn't work, but when I returned the settings to their POP3 configurations, I stopped being able to get email from that account on Thunderbird. I would see, in the wee progress bar at the bottom, the confirmation that Thunderbird was reaching out to Comcast, which said [username@]comcast.net: Host contacted, sending login information. It would sit in that condition for a few minutes and then send the error message "Login to account "[username@comcast.net" failed. Login to server mail.comcast.net with username [username@comcast.net] failed. That error message offers me the options to enter a new password (which I tried once, but it made no difference at all), to cancel, or to retry. Retry gets exactly the same response, and cancel closes the error message until Thunderbird tries to go fetch mail again.

I had assumed that I'd made a hash of the IMAP/POP3 configurations, and sucked it up, using Comcast's far inferior webmail system. My other two Comcast accounts worked perfectly, connecting to Comcast's mail servers and downloading my emails. Until yesterday. Now, even though I've changed nothing at all, I am suddenly getting the login failed error message for all three of my Comcast accounts. All three accounts are accessible through the webmail.

I would LOVE some advise on how to persuade Thunderbird to resume talking with Comcast.

I am running Thunderbird 128.2.3esr (64-bit) on a MacBook Pro M2 running Sequoia 15.0. When the MacBook goes to sleep with TB open, TB will not restart successfully when the MacBook wakes up. Instead, the spinning multicolored circle appears, and in order to get into TB again I first have to Force Quit it. Once that's done, it reopens normally after the crash report is sent to Apple. This also happened for TB 128 with the previous macOS Sonoma. How can I avoid this?

Thanks for your help.

John E Anderson

Spontaneous appearance of new folders among Local Folders:

Another Thunderbird user, a member of our computer club, has experienced a strange event in his TB folder structure. He regularly saves incoming emails to his Local Folders (from one or other of two IMAP accounts). Recently he has found that new folders have appeared spontaneously among his Local Folders, usually bearing the name of an existing folder with name suffixed with "- 1" then "- 2", as in "<oldname> - 1". One folder seemed to be a copy of an old folder including most of its contents; others have had only one, or no contents.

Host OS is Windows 10. Our member has Version 128 of TB with automatic updating. We have replaced his Profile (by renaming the old Profile) but the problem has returned. At the return one of the new folders has a name of this form: "<Personal name of friend>.msf.compact - backup".

Has anyone else seen this behaviour? What might be the cause? Do we need to uninstall and reinstall Thunderbird to cure this sickness?

(Our computer club is Melbourne PC User Group, Australia.)

This is a continuation of a problem I reported earlier... https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1442170

Updating to version 115.9 did not solve the problem. Today I updated to 115.10.1 and the problem persists. Thunderbird is also recommending that I update to version 116, but I don't even see that listed on the Mozilla web page for the change logs.

Thunderbird 115.10.1, Mac OS 10.13.6, iMac 20-in Early 2008 model.

I can open Thunderbird and check mail in multiple accounts. If I close the Thunderbird window (but leave the app running), CPU usage will eventually jump up to more than 100%. It does not happen right away, but could take 10 minutes or so. Currently it is at 115% processor usage. If I open the Thunderbird window again, the processor usage drops to under 8%, then drops again to below 0.4%.

I was trying to help a friend set up her Gmail account in Thunderbird and after putting in all the settings, a window popped up asking me to allow Thunderbird to access Gmail, but the button to select allow was at the bottom of the window, below the bottom of my screen, and there was no way to scroll all the way down. I also was unable to make the window smaller. So I was unable to set up the account.

I figured this was a problem caused by Google, because I had set up an account with another provider (Sonic) without trouble. But when I tried to work with the address book for that account, I ran into problems with the Thunderbird window being too wide for the screen, and it was very difficult to access buttons there too. I had to move the entire window sideways off the screen, and extend the window even further to find the edit button. I never did find a save button that I assume is on the bottom of that window.

On my own system I still use a very old version of Thunderbird, and never run into such problems, but this newest version that I downloaded a few days ago looks and functions quite different. Also my friend is on a Mac, and my own system is a PC, so perhaps the Mac version functions differently than the one for PC?

I would appreciate any insight to adjust the windows to a workable size on the screen, and to set up my friend's Gmail account.

Thanks so much.

Another lost folder story. I have computer backups going back for 6 months so I can reinstall my lost profile which has the lost folder. My question is how do I extract that folder from my profile from the back up so that when I reinstall my current profile I can add (or whatever) the lost folder?

Hello Experts,

I am a long-time user and fan of Thunderbird (various platforms).

I am currently using Thunderbird v 128.2.3esr (64-bit) on a 2018 Mac Mini (specs below). I do not use the Calendar or Chat features of TB. TB is configured to use the "macOS Address Book" (i.e. Mac's "Contacts") - and this is a critical feature for me.

I recently upgraded from MacOS v12.7.6 (Monterey) to MacOS v14.7 (Sonoma).

Now there is a significant delay of at least 10 seconds (sometimes accompanied with the dreaded spinning beach ball) upon starting TB. The sequence is like this:

1) Start TB 2) Primary Password Required dialogue box appears instantly 3) After entering the password and hitting return to sign in TB "Home" window appears but is blank 4) After a 10 second delay (sometimes with the beach ball appearing) the TB window completely opens, populated in the normal manner. 5) TB then seems to operate normally.

I have read article "https://support.mozilla.org/bm/questions/1421395". I can confirm that if I "disable Thunderbird's access to Mac Contacts in Mac Settings" then there is no delay noted in step 4 above. So it seems the delay does result from having TB access the macOS Address Book.

BUT it is a critically important feature for TB to utilize the macOS Address Book (Contacts).

I sync Mac Contacts across devices via iCloud, so TB will have access to the current collection of addresses, and I need only use one application to maintain my contacts.

I can live with the startup delay, disappointing though it is, because I find TB to be the best email application.

I do not know if the same issue occurs with the recently released macOS 15.x (Sequoia) - and I'm not ready or willing to upgrade to that version for a multitude of reasons.

It would be nice if the wonderful developers would investigate and resolve this delay issue.

Comments, tricks, and pointers most welcome.

Thanks.

PS: Does anyone know if this issue persists with macOS 15.x (Sequoia)?

Mac Mini specs: 3.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7 Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB 32 GB 2667 MHz DDR4

Gmail is making everyone change from Password Authentication to OAuth2 Authentication. It worked on one of my Window 10 laptops, but not the other. I have matched every single setting that I can find, but the new computer will not connect to Gmail - I get a 400 error.

I noticed that even though I selected SSL/TLS under "Servers and Settings", in the "Outgoing Server SMTP" menu, it lists STARTTLS for the Connection Security - using port 587, on the computer with the error. On the computer that works both places list SSL/TLS - using port 465.

Is that the problem? If so how do I fix it?

If not, what can I do? I have uninstalled and reinstalled Thunderbird on the second computer three times now.

I also spent hours with the Google Workspace AI - checking every possibility that was mentioned and nothing helped.

Please help me. Thank you!

I use multiple VPNs for various reasons. Windows 10, TB v128.2.3esr. When I open TB and leave it opened all day, I change VPNs depending on whether I am working or viewing global sports. When I change VPNs TB doesn't seem to care when collecting my email from our corporate server. However, the calendar alerts me of an appointment but won't allow me to dismiss it nor wait for X time in the future. Any ideas why this is the case? It seem the entire technology industry hates VPNs and many web sites try to block VPN access (I had to cancel my Consumer Reports subscription (40 years) since I could no longer log in using a VPN (a 9 month recent phenomenon)).

Reply to Wayne Mery --

RE: gmail is configured in Thunderbird as pop account? Or imap?

Did you create subfolders in your Inbox?

How many messages in Inbox?

My response:

Your request for answer to your questions did not give me an email that accepts message so I am trying this method again.

My Gmail is configured as IMAP. The university Gmail account is under the university's email system. It is forwarded to my Mozilla Thunderbird account on my computer via the specific drive for the library (which we call the M drive). So the emails are in two places. I do not maintain a back file of emails of more than 12 months on the original Gmail account which currently has 25,000 emails on it. (I do a wholesale slaughter every few months.)

My folders/subfolders are under "Local Folders" which appears to NOT be under my Inbox.

I have currently about 5,300 emails in my Inbox. I have no clue how many emails I have under the NUMEROUS folders/subfolders. My emails only go back to Jan. 2020 since my computer died and the software and all the emails were on the hard drive of the computer.

It is difficult to do my maintenance since deleting an email can cause the system to crash. This past weekend I trashed numerous folders that were duplicates, and then duplicates of those duplicates of the original folder. I approximate over 100,000 emails were removed from all of the duplication.

Today I tried to remove OLD folders that I don't need anymore which now reside under the TRASH folder under the LOCAL FOLDER. When they are deleted, they show up under the TRASH folder under the INBOX. When I delete them from there, they will disappear. But every time I delete folders, it crashes, so I have to reboot. In other words, it is slow going.

VICKI TATE

-- Vicki L Tate Head, Documents/Serials University Libraries vtate@southalabama.edu Depository 0007B P: (251) 460-7024 ______

University of South Alabama Marx Library 222 5901 USA Drive North Mobile, AL 36688

www.southalabama.edu/departments/library/docs.html