1976624 - Unable to create new message, either by pressing "new message" or by CTRL+N

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1956258

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Michail Pappas]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:140.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/140.0

Steps to reproduce:

Tried to create a new email by pressing CTRL+N or by pressing on the "+New message" button

Actual results:

Nothing

Expected results:

The new message window should appear to compose the message

• Tried starting TB up in the troubleshooting mode, same result
• Issue started after updating from 128ESR to 140.
• Issue affects a number of systems in our 1000+ client organization (as more are rolled into 140 I expect things will get worse). We are locking versions for the moment, but we are still left with a number of problematic installations.

Comment 1

[Michail Pappas]

Additional information: uninstalling and re-installing 140ESR did not solve the issue.
Locale is Greek, platform is Win 10 22H2 64-bit, application is 64-bit.

Comment 2

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Do you get anything of relevance in the Error Console (Ctrl+Shift+J)?

If not, can you try an en-US build, to see if it might be something locale specific?

Comment 3

[Michail Pappas]

My apologies, we tried to stop a fixing storm from happening and we have already disabled updates via GPO, plus downgraded to 128ESR...

If we a receive a user report for the issue, I'll post this required information asap.

I understand that this does not help you atm, this report might serve to "attract" others having the same issue.

Comment 4

[Corey Bryant]

I just tested a new install from https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/140.0esr/linux-x86_64/el/
New Message and Ctrl+N worked for me

Comment 5

[Michail Pappas]

My bad, failed to specify that the issue appears approximately in one out of 5 tb 140 installations.

Strange is that all clients have exactly the same config (OS, hardware, AV etc).

Comment 6

[sfhowes]

I've seen reports of this: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1521801 with user finding issue with Unified view. Resetting virtual folders might help.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

sfhowes, thanks for that reference. I find one more at https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/comments/1lwkw7e/new_messages_cant_be_created_140_update/

Comment 8

[Vlad Lucaci, Thunderbird QA (:vlucaci)]

Hello,

I tried to reproduce this issue on Windows 10(22h2) and Windows 11 (24h2) while updating from 128.12.0esr to 140.0esr and 140.0.1esr(via esr-localtest) and with Unified folders view. I also tried using the el(greek) - localisation build and still , everything works fine.

Seeing as how all clients have exactly the same config (OS , HW, AV) maybe there is some ERM (Enterprise Risk Management) software that could create this issue?

Would it be possible to run a bisection on an affected OS using the mozregression_GUI tool?

Useful information and steps on how to do so can be found here.

Comment 9

[Michail Pappas]

Hi Vlad,

we do not have any (reported to us) outstanding issues arm since we've frozen our tb installations to update up to 128.*.

Plus, as of today I'll be away from work for a couple of weeks, so I won't be able to provide any data with the tool mentioned.

However we definitely do not use any ERM. Some 6 months ago we did use the tb admx templates for AD-wide tb configuration; we have not updated them after 140 started rolling out.

I've left references to this report in the reddit and Mozilla threads mentioned above, hopefully someone might respond in the meantime.

Comment 10

[J Bugs]

I am having this exact problem also.
Have used thunderbird for 15+ years.

I have no idea what is important in debugging this-
Personal computer - no corp settings or management or anything like the above person.
Just regular windows AV.
Emails back to 99 from Eudora conversion.
4 accounts that all filter into one set of about 40 local folders.
About 23 gigs of mail and 1 gig of rss/blog feeds.

I have reinstalled - no change
Removed my pretty extensive custom interface changes - no change (well big change in how it looked... no change in that the new message still does nothing)
I tried a number of setting changes having to do with email composing ect - Nothing worked. I could see all those changes if I replied to an email and the actual composing code seems to be find. It just just clicking on that button (or selecting new message from menu) that does not do anything.

I do have a work around - Anytime you need a new message just pick any message and reply to it. Remove the To: Subject: Context (etc.) and you have a blank email that works.

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Please ... Do you get anything of relevance in the Error Console (Ctrl+Shift+J)?

Comment 12

[Hartmut Welpmann [:welpy-cw]]

This is possibly bug 1956258. Unfortunately the user is not getting informed that no default account is set in this case, see https://searchfox.org/comm-central/rev/2450c2b1cd6b720563a5668d7eed401f3f59b998/mailnews/compose/src/nsMsgComposeService.cpp#288-295.

Comment 13

[Hartmut Welpmann [:welpy-cw]]

In other words, please make sure any account is set as default (shown with a yellow star) in Account Settings.

Comment 14

[J Bugs]

That's it! I came back here to post the solution and someone else already got nailed it! Thanks Hartmut!

Credit to chatgpt - it found it for me after having me run some commands from the dev consol.

❌ Problem: MailServices.accounts.defaultAccount is null
This means Thunderbird has no default mail account configured — and as a result:

The compose engine has no sender identity to use

All calls to OpenComposeWindow(...) or goOpenNewMessage() will silently fail

Even buttons like <button command="cmd_newMessage" /> or native Write buttons won’t work properly

This is exactly why your “Write” button and all manual JS compose attempts are failing — there’s no identity to send from, and Thunderbird doesn’t show an error dialog.

✅ Solution: Set one of your mail account as default
🔧 Steps...

Comment 15

[Corey Bryant]

Thanks Hartmut and J Bugs! Can we mark this as a dup of bug 1956258 and prioritize a fix?

Comment 16

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I've posted the solution in reddit - others have updated the SUMO posts