Thunderbird 2.0 - Known Issues

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Overview

Thunderbird is a widely popular, very functional, multi-platform email client that offers significant value to a large number of users. Basic Thunderbird functionality is on par with what is provided by the other presently supported Email clients. The Thunderbird extension mechanism makes it possible to create an extremely powerful tool that looks nothing at all like baseline Thunderbird. Non-power users should be aware that if they get a Thunderbird setup from a power user friend, that they might be running something unrecognizable as "baseline Thunderbird".

MozillaZine, a news site established by the users of Thunderbird and other Mozilla-based applications, has extensive documentation on Thunderbird frequently encountered issues and how to fix them.

Four Main Issues

There are four issues with Thunderbird that may have serious consequences for ordinary users:

1. If the Anti-virus software is not aware of Thunderbird, it can make your system run slowly or could delete all your mail.
2. A known but rarely occurring bug can cause Thunderbird to lose track of its profile, and make it appear that your setup, and all your email has disappeared.
3. Lack of awareness of a few important bits of Thunderbird operating lore can make it hard to figure out how to do some basic things or can result in poor performance.
4. The MozillaZine site of known issues documents an intimidating number of issues, and the solutions are crafted for power users. Ordinary users, who misapply the solutions can do real damage.

Other Issues

Coexistence With Anti-virus Software

Thunderbird stores an entire folder full of email in one file. This means that if your anti-virus software is configured to delete files containing a virus and you have received an infected attachment, it will delete the whole folder. The deletion may also occur when you update your virus rules.
Some anti-virus software does its work by intercepting file reads. Thunderbird does a lot of file reading before it does its job, and so performance can degrade.
To avoid problems with anti-virus software, either use one that is Thunderbird aware or configure your anti-virus software specifically to:

• ask or quarantine rather than deleting files containing viruses.
• exclude the Thunderbird directories from on-access scans.
• if available, use an email reading proxy to scan incoming mail before Thunderbird sees it.

MozillaZine, provides a list of anti-virus programs compatible with Thunderbird. The MIT recommended and supported anti-virus program is not one of them at this time. McAfee VirusScan, the IS&T recommended anti-virus software, is configured by default to quarantine rather than delete. To ensure the settings are correct, see: Stock Answer 8715
Following those instructions will exclude Thunderbird folders from scans, mark Thunderbird as a trusted program, and set the on-access scan to "On Write" instead of "On Read" to maximize performance.

Lost Profile: Getting "New Account Setup" Instead of Your Mail

If you start Thunderbird and instead of seeing your mail find yourself in the New Account Setup wizard, you have lost your profile. See MozillaZine to recover a profile that has disappeared. MozillaZine also provides instructions on using the Thunderbird profile manager to create a profile with a unique name that prevents this problem. This procedure should be implemented by advanced users only.

Multiple Windows Open Cause Slow Operation

If you open a lot of Thunderbird windows, performance will become slow. Close any non-essential windows.

Compact Folders Often

When Thunderbird deletes email messages, it doesn't fully delete them until you run the Compact Folders program. Go to File > Compact Folders to run the program and avoid performance degradation.

How to Enable Composing of Formatted Messages

You will not see options to add formatting to the messages you compose until you set the preference to compose mail in HTML format.

1. In the Tools menu, select Account settings.
2. Under Composition and addressing, select Compose messages in html format.

Disappearring Messages

Every email client has bugs that results in the occasional situation where messages disappear. The MozillaZine community has produced a detailed document on what to do if email messages disappear

Checking for Updates Requires Change of Permissions

Users need to modify permissions to the Thunderbird folder in order to Check for Updates.
Issue: When using the "Check for Updates..." command, the user will get a "Permission Denied" error.
Solution: Change the permissions of the Thunderbird program installation folder to give the user write access.

User Data for Thunderbird Lives in the Quota-limited User Profile by Default

By default, Thunderbird stores status information and copies of messages in the quota-limited filesystem that holds the roaming profile. This means that it is possible to run out of quota, and after that getting new mail fails, and status updating may fail.
Issue: There are various symptoms of running out of quota:

• User sees "Quota Exceeded" message at logout.
• Mail messages cannot be moved to the local store.
• Message filtering at startup hangs.
  

Solution: Change where Thunderbird stores things to a non quota-limited area by changing the following two settings:
In Account Settings, under Server Settings set "Local Directory" (found at the bottom of the dialog box) to a directory without limited quota.
In Account Settings under Local Folders, set "Local Directory" to a directory without limited quota.