Thunderbird crashes on start

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Mozzmozz
Posts: 3
Joined: February 22nd, 2018, 10:13 am

Thunderbird crashes on start

Post by Mozzmozz »

Hi all,

Since a few days I cannot start T-bird normally. Incidently, it happened the day after Win7 got some security updates. When I try to start, I see the inbox page for a fraction of a second, but then I get the crash message. I CAN start T-bird in safe mode, but only after a few tries. I tried to uninstall and re-install T-bird but it didn't help. I run Win7 and TB 52.6.0

Any suggestions?

/Mozz
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tanstaafl
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Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Thunderbird crashes on start

Post by tanstaafl »

If you have a anti-virus scanner that knows about Thunderbird try temporarily disabling it, to see if the problem was it no longer plays nicely with Thunderbird. Or try a different one.

I'd try running windows update again, updating your graphics software, and looking at the log of what recent security updates you have and doing some research on them. Microsoft sometimes releases security fixes that have bad side effects for some users. Frequently they resolve the problem in the next round of patches. There were some hiccups with the spectre/meltdown security fixes for Intel CPUs in January for example.

If your PC is configured to automatically do system restores you should have the option of rolling back the recent security fixes. But I wouldn't do that without at least researching which fixes might be causing your problems, and trying to eliminate other possible causes first.

You might find https://www.howtogeek.com/272201/all-th ... -for-free/ interesting. I'm not suggesting it as a solution though :)
Mozzmozz
Posts: 3
Joined: February 22nd, 2018, 10:13 am

Re: Thunderbird crashes on start

Post by Mozzmozz »

Thank you tanstaafl.

I did the following
1. Switched off virus program (MS sec. essentials), restarted computer, no change.
2. I checked Windows update and ran the pending updates
3. I checked the graphic card driver, but no update was necessary

Nothing changed, the problem remains.

/Mozz
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tanstaafl
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Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Thunderbird crashes on start

Post by tanstaafl »

Do you get a error message from Thunderbird or the generic Windows popup that the program has stopped running? If the former, what is the text of the error message?

As an experiment, try running Thunderbird from a windows console (run cmd from the windows start box to create one) with a -P command line argument. That runs the profile manager, which is built into Thunderbird. The reason I suggest it is it has far less system dependencies than the full implementation of Thunderbird.

I suggest you also consider running Windows in safe mode and see if that makes a difference. It will use default drivers and disable optional windows services, which minimizes the chances of a problem being caused by a security update. If that works you don't want to use it as a long term solution but it would be a temporary workaround while you try to identify what driver or utility software automatically loaded upon startup might be causing the problem. I like to use autoruns.exe to manage what software gets automatically loaded on startup. If its too techie for you codestuff starter would be a better choice. Both let you check or uncheck a checkbox to enable/disable software rather than having to edit registry keys, edit *.ini files etc.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysint ... s/autoruns
http://codestuff.obninsk.ru/products_starter.html
https://www.howtogeek.com/235101/10-way ... indows-10/
wsmwk
Posts: 2833
Joined: December 7th, 2004, 6:52 am
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Re: Thunderbird crashes on start

Post by wsmwk »

Why not just post the crash ID?
Mozzmozz
Posts: 3
Joined: February 22nd, 2018, 10:13 am

Re: Thunderbird crashes on start

Post by Mozzmozz »

Sorry for not coming back earlier, but I got some serious Windows problems when I tried to run Windows in safe mode. Win7 locked up during start and it was not easy to get back in operation. It was fixed with considerable effort so I continued to run TB in safe mode until March 13th, when suddenly TB started normally again for unknown reasons. TB is still 52.6.0 but Win7 got some updates on that date which apparently solved my problem.
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