thunderbird and X cannot communicate securely

[karenanne]

error: "thunderbird and X cannot communicate securely because they have no common encryption algorithms."

I started getting this error message for various sites (x = www.usps.com etc) a few weeks ago. I can read email if I dismiss the error panels, but it is a nuisance, Anyone know how to prevent these errors from showing up?

I have old versions of everything, since I have $$$ peripherals that only run on an old system.

Thanks,

[karenanne]

I grubbed around and found these directions for this problem in firefox
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1120453
and a note to do it in thunderbird using tbird's config editor, but there is no security.tls.insecure_fallback_hosts in the tbird config and I don't see a way to add it if that is something that can be done.

[tanstaafl]

What version of Thunderbird are you using? security.tls.insecure_fallback_hosts is listed by the config editor in my copy of 60.4.0. It defaults to a empty string. If you weren't running XP I'd suggest upgrading to the latest version and edit that string to usps.com (just the domain name, not the full URL). I suspect you're using 52.9.1 (or earlier)

Does this problem only occur when you use mailto: (a type of HTML link that activates the default mail client on the computer for sending an e-mail)?

See http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... hilit=usps

One potential workaround would be to configure your default email account in Thunderbird to use a SMTP server that uses a insecure connection (not ssl/tls or starttls). The big downside is that you'd send your username/password in clear text. It might also be hard to find a free email provider that doesn't require a secure connection.

I suggest you skim https://fossbytes.com/best-lightweight-linux-distros/ and see if you might consider switching to a version of Linux that is explicitly designed to work on old hardware. It should run much faster and would let you use the latest version of Firefox and Thunderbird. Many support booting from a CD so that you can experiment with them first (though its much slower running from the CD). The main reason I stick with Windows 10 is I have a lot of games from Steam.

[karenanne]

No, it's not just mailto.

That old thread is also mine.

It does seem to be images that cause this problem. Like USPS and FedEx messages show but I get a complaint for the images in each. I see this in my gmail email. I haven't seen it in my ISP cox's email but I rarely get any cox email so maybe it would be there also.

Cox demanded that people change their server settings and ports to specific things last year or it won't permit connections, so I think I can't mess with those. I am clueless but I guess thunderbird is going through cox to get to gmail?

i don't fundamentally understand what the problem is here. Are the image sources using some encryption method thunderbird does not have and the config work around does what about that?

I would rather hit return a few times than rip out my operating system.

[tanstaafl]

It sounds like you have two separate problems.

1) You can't send via mailto: to fedex and usps
2) Remote images aren't shown in many cases

What version of Thunderbird are you using?
Do you have problems sending messages if you are not using mailto:?
What is the full error message when you have problems seeing the remote images?
Does this problem occur with all remote images?

[karenanne]

There is no problem with mail to or sending messages in general. The problem only occurs in some incoming mail. my guess is some images are stored on servers with incompatible security. More info later.