TB Unresponsive - Reinstall? - Save My filters and settings?

[ClassicMovieFan]

HI.

Searched database for quite a while. Couldn't find what to do.

(Have loaded TB in Safe Mode, no add-ons.)

My TB is unresponsive. It opens, can pull down top menus. Cannot actually DO anything. Click on Troubleshooting from Help Pull Down, nothing happens. Clicking on anything, message, item(s) on any pull down menu, Shift-Ctrl-F to open search box -- nothing. Cannot minimize or close by click in upper right. To close, must choose close from taskbar tab or using Task Manager.

Eventually get a Windows "Unresponsive Script" Box -- Choices of Don't Ask Again, stop script or continue.

Message: A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete.

Script: chrome://messenger/content/folderDisplay.js:203

I have no problem doing uninstall and reinstall. However, I want to save my personal filters and other settings. Available instructions on how to save personal preferences specifies choosing from drop down menu, etc. Settings in AppData by User. Tried to find using Windows Explorer, can't figure it out.

Tried using Yahoo Mail to delete messages which might be causing the script issue. Cannot sort by sender, so I can delete strange emails with weird strings. I searched as best I could for problem files by date and deleted a lot. Didn't help.

I am not a sophisticated user. I can follow directions if the directions are clear and specific. Been using TB and Firefox for ??? years -- long, long time, starting at versions 3 or 4 point something.

I sincerely appreciate any suggestions and the time it takes to help me. I will provide additional information. Just ask. Thanks in advance for the help.

Jeanne

[DanRaisch]

Uninstalling and reinstalling the application itself has absolutely no impact on your Profile, which is where saved data such as account settings, message files, etc is stored and where most problems originate. That said, you can try that process to see if it helps in this case:

Clear the browser cache and the Windows Temp directory.
Download a new copy of the full installer from http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/all
Delete the directory C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird (or C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird for 32bit Windows)
Run the installer.

Note that your saved messages, address books, settings, passwords, etc (if any) are by default stored in a different directory from the program files and will not be removed by deleting the directory identified above.

This thread http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 5#p5239885 has a more detailed version of the above instructions if needed.

[ClassicMovieFan]

Thank you.

I think I may have found the problem (?) -- every month or so I get spam email that is from a very "long string of characters" with the subject another "long string of characters". There are over 200 characters in From and Send. I don't know what is in the email because I never open these garbage messages. I just delete them. I assume they contain virus or worm or something bad.

In a somewhat similar situation a while back there was a message that had a huge in-line attachment, and it caused TB to keep timing out and wouldn't load any emails after the offending one. I went into browser (Firefox) logged directly into Yahoo Mail (which I hate using) and was able to delete the offending message. Everything worked after that.

I tried to do the same this time around, but I can't locate the two latest garbage messages (by date) within Yahoo in the FF browser. Maybe by using Yahoo in a browser it figures out bad content and doesn't deliver it to the inbox? I tried to see what is in the SPAM folder in browser, but I can't find a way to look at it. Trash, yes, Spam, no.

The reason I was thinking of deleting and reinstalling TB is because it stopped working. As I said, I don't want to lose my settings -- again -- and have to start all over. So it seems I can install without losing those settings. I just wish I knew where they are stored so I can back them up.
That being said, I will follow your links and see what might work.

Again, thanks.

[DanRaisch]

Maybe by using Yahoo in a browser it figures out bad content and doesn't deliver it to the inbox?

No, that's extremely unlikely.

I tried to see what is in the SPAM folder in browser, but I can't find a way to look at it. Trash, yes, Spam, no.

Does Yahoo's web mail use the name Spam for it's folder or does it call it Bulk or Junk or some other term that indicates much the same thing?

See this link for information on backing up your profile data -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backu ... he_profile

[wsmwk]

Thank you.

I think I may have found the problem (?) --

A. every month or so I get spam email that is from a very "long string of characters" with the subject another "long string of characters". There are over 200 characters in From and Send. I don't know what is in the email because I never open these garbage messages. I just delete them. I assume they contain virus or worm or something bad.

B. In a somewhat similar situation a while back there was a message that had a huge in-line attachment, and it caused TB to keep timing out and wouldn't load any emails after the offending one. I went into browser (Firefox) logged directly into Yahoo Mail (which I hate using) and was able to delete the offending message. Everything worked after that.

A. is a class of known issues - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=619493 is an example
B. could be a known bug, or not - depends on the type of contents so we'd need to see an example (and I'm wondering how you know it was an INLINE attachment)