Closed Bug 555549 Opened 16 years ago Closed 14 years ago

Thunderbird frequently hangs on 64 bit version of Windows 7

Categories

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
General
Platform:
x86_64
Windows 7
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
critical

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
VERIFIED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: jimpeterson212, Unassigned)

Details

(Keywords: hang, Whiteboard: [needs test without Antivirus])

Attachments

(1 obsolete file)

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.2) Gecko/20100316 Firefox/3.6.2 Build Identifier: Thunderbird 3.0.3 I just purchased a 64 bit Windows 7 desktop from Dell. I downloaded Thunderbird. It frequently hangs and has to be manually killed. This happens maybe once or twice a day. The symptoms are that when I attempt to retrieve my email it tells me that it is already busy. If I check my email at the Comcast website, it is there, but Thunderbird does not retrieve it. If I close Thunderbird and try to restart it, it tells me it is already running. I have to go into the task manager and kill it there. Then, if I restart it, it starts working again and retrieves my email. Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: Use Thunderbird on 1 64 bit Windows 7 PC for a day. Actual Results: There are no actual steps. It just happens. Expected Results: Thunderbird says it is busy when I attempt to retrieve my email. If I close it and attempt to restart it, it says that it is already running and that I have to either reboot or kill it using the task manager. I have to kill it in the task manager and restart it. After that, it correctly retrieves my email.
Are you using pop or imap ? Have you tried safe mode? (see https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode for more information)
Keywords: hang
I have two email accounts. My account with my internet service provider, Comcast, is a pop account. I have an imap email account at the place I work. Thunderbird can only connect to that when I connect to the company network through the VPN. The problem has not happened for the last couple of days. I am wondering if there was just some problem connecting to the Comcast account. I also use Thunderbird on my Windows XP computer at work and have not had this problem. I will look into safe mode but for now will see if the problem recurs. When it does happen I have been trying to see if there is anything I am doing at the time that provides more information about the cause, but so far I have not seen a pattern. One time I simply left the computer for a while and when I came back Thunderbird seemed to have hung.
Thunderbird seemed to hang again today retrieving email, but I let it run and it eventually did finish. This could be a problem somewhere else, with Comcast, my internet connection, or in Windows 7, which is delaying email retrieval sometimes.
The problem recurred this morning and this time it definitely was not just a case that Thunderbird was slow getting the mail. It was hung for several minutes. I went to the Comcast website and got my mail and it was still hung, so I killed the task. I restarted it in safe mode this time. After I restarted it, it would retrieve email without hanging.
Can you try to get us a stack trace as documented at https://developer.mozilla.org/en/How_to_get_a_stacktrace_with_WinDbg ?
I will give that a try. Thunderbird seems to be a well designed tool but I usually have to kill it 2 or 3 times a day. I had one instance in which I could read email from my work email account, but not my personal account.
Here is another clue. Frequently when the computer comes out of sleep mode, Thunderbird is hung.
I have a debug version of Thunderbird running now under the Windows debugging tools. Here is where I got it: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/nightly/ Then loaded this link: latest-comm-1.9.2/ thunderbird-3.1b2pre.en-US.win32.installer.exe
So far the new version of Thunderbird running under the debugger is working well. I have let the computer come in and out of sleep mode a few times today and Thunderbird has not hung. I notice that when I am not connected to the VPN for the company I work for, the new version has a different notification that it can't connect to my work email account. So, maybe in the new version some work was done on managing the connections. I think that when Thunderbird hangs for me, it is hanging only on accessing my POP account with Comcast, my internet service provider. My account at work is an IMAP account. If it hangs again, I can check that if I connect to work I can access my email there while it is hung accessing my Comcast email. If it looks like the newer version has fixed the problem, I can also try running the newer version not under the debugger.
When I tool my computer out of sleep mode this morning, Thunderbird had hung. I could not retrieve email from either my personal POP account or IMAP account at work.
Whiteboard: [has stacktrace]
I don't see anything particularly useful in those stacks, unfortunately. Certainly nothing mailnews related.
One additional piece of information is that when Thunderbird is in the hung state the task manager reports that it is using about 25% of the CPU time.
I downloaded Thunderbird 3.1.2. It continues to hang in Windows 7.
does it consistently stay up when in safe mode? if not, can you get a pop3:5 log while in safe mode? https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging
The problem has gone from happening once or twice a day to only once or twice a week now.
Jim, we still need a trace. you can leave protocol logging enabled with thunderbird running for extended periods to capture up to the point of the hang.
Whiteboard: [has stacktrace] → [needs protocol log]
If I had to guess, I'd say you have at least two issues. Can you reproduce this with your Antivirus software disabled?
Whiteboard: [needs protocol log] → [needs protocol log]q
Jim ?
Whiteboard: [needs protocol log]q → [needs protocol log]
Attachment #438447 - Attachment is obsolete: true
I stopped monitoring this issue some time ago. Disabling my anti-virus software, even to investigate this problem, is not something I am willing to do. There is a comment above about wanting to get a trace. I responded to the only request I had for sending a trace on 04/12/2010. The comment immediately after that was that it did not show anything that would help resolve the problem. The problem still occurs several times a week. I just live with it. I suspect that this problem could be specific to the fact that I have a 64 bit Windows 7 computer, or the fact that I have two email accounts, my personal POP account and an IMAP account I use for work. Or it could be a combination of the two.
(In reply to comment #19) > I suspect that this problem could be specific to the fact > that I have a 64 bit Windows 7 computer, or the fact that I have two email > accounts, my personal POP account and an IMAP account I use for work. Or it > could be a combination of the two. Generally, I don't think our experience would indicate that any of these are overly likely to cause such issues. And in your description thus far there are no clues that make them more or less likely to be involved. Unfortunately no one has yet put up a set of steps (on wiki or elsewhere) that people can use for general hang issues such as this. But disabling AV is (and has been) at the top of the list of recommendations when we assist people. Additional items to check, are the size of panacea.dat and popstate.dat And if you have an news accounts defined, disable automatic checking of new articles in newsgroups. These, are more, are listed in https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing:Memory_Usage_Problems which is the current document for performance issues. You might also check the upcoming beta or version 3.3
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 14 years ago
Resolution: --- → INCOMPLETE
Whiteboard: [needs protocol log] → [needs test without Antivirus]
...beta OF version 3.3
I had the same type of hangup today on my computer at work. It is Windows 7, but is a 32 bit computer.
I downloaded the 5.0 version of Thunderbird and have not had the problem since. Hopefully as noted it has been corrected.
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
Resolution: INCOMPLETE → WORKSFORME
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