447052 - Attempting to attach files to email makes Thunderbird not Respond.

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Mike L Evans]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.16) Gecko/20080702 Firefox/2.0.0.16
Build Identifier: Thunderbird version 2.0.0.14 (20080421)

Each time I click on the Attach Icon or use the drop down commands, it causes the Thunderbird program not to respond. I have to press Control/Alt/Delete to turn the program off.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Click "Write"
2.Finish getting email to send
3.Click on "Attach" and then, the Hour Glass Icon comes up, but never ever happens. When I press Control/Alt/Delete the selection box says the program is not Responding. This just started happing today, 7/22/08.
Actual Results:  
The same thing

Expected Results:  
Opened up a box to choose the files to attach to the email.

Comment 1

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

What ad-ons, if any, do you have? Also, can you start in safe mode (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_mode may help, otherwise, go to Start, All programs, Thunderbird, Safe Mode).

Comment 2

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Severity should probably be major, and not confirmed on Vista, in 2.0.0.16, or Shredder. 

Comment 3

[Mike L Evans]

I have no add-ons. Thunderbird is same as it was downloaded and updated.
I opened Thunderbird in Safe-Mode and the same thing happened when I clicked on the "Attach" icon. This has never happened before. I did not downloaded anything since the last time I attached a file two days ago.

Comment 4

[Steve Simms]

A couple of thoughts:

- Do you have any network-mapped drives or USB drives that may not be available?

- Do you know what directory you last used to attach a file?  Is that directory on a CD, USB stick, network drive, etc?

My guess would be that it's looking for and not finding something like that.  How long are you waiting before force-quitting the program?  If you try waiting several minutes (say, five or more) do you eventually get the attachment window?

Comment 5

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Possibly mail.compose.attach.dir points to an inaccessible path. Does going into config editor and resetting it help?

Comment 6

[Roxanne]

I have the identical Attach hangup.  Fix:  I have a 300 gig drive on my other router connected other PC of a 2 PC home network.  When it goes down, ie (red lights on the external USB box, I have to power it down and then up again. Then it is connected to the 2 PC and ATTACH works fine.  Yes it is a shared device to both systems.  
It really bugs my wife when this happens and she scream's and yells at me.  All I have to do is power cycle the USB connected 300 gig drive and it's green light turns on and all is well.  

Hardware! hardware! hardwar!/   Software! software! soft war.

bob brubaker  Admin of a 2 PC home system

Comment 7

[Charles Werner]

I have the same bug on my WinXP SP3 system. Hitting the email attach button
cause Thunderbird to hang. There are no network or USB drives connected to the system. It should be listed as a major bug. There is no draft of the email saved
and it is especially annoying since hitting the button means you loose all of what you wrote.

Comment 8

[Charles Werner]

I was able to fix the hang

my mail.compose.attach.dir  in prefs.js in the profile was set to a location on a computer that was not on-line. I changed the value using the Thunderbird config editor  (Tools -> Options->Advanced -> General to:

mail.compose.attach.dir can be set to C:\Documents and Settings\cw\My Documents

use your user name (mine is cw) in the above setting

And that resolved the hang. :)

Comment 9

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

Reporter you have see the comment #8?

Reporter can you reply to comment #5?

Comment 10

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

Closing Incomplete for lack of answers.

Feel free to reopen if you can provide more information.