unable to move/close "ghost" email notification window

[Bitbeisser]

For actually a couple of years now I am getting frustrated with a real annoying though seemingly random bug when running Thunderbird for a prolonged period of time.
It first happened occasionally on a Windows 8.1/64 machine but now it shows up, apparently even more frequently, on my relatively new Windows 10/64 machine.
"After a while" (really no better way to describe it at this point) there will be a "ghost" of the email notification window in the lower right corner.
This window is just a white frame/rectangle, can't be moved or closed, and there is no associated process that could be closed. It even stays when closing down Thunderbird. It will be always "on top", you can't move another window on top of it
Clicking on that "ghost" will actually open up Thunderbird when minimized, but with the window otherwise unresponsive, it becomes a nuisance when preventing access to anything that is behind it, either on the desktop or in an application (e.g. web browser) window.

The only ways to get rid of it and return to a normal behavior is to either reboot or log off and back on.

I can't tell if this is a Windows version specific issue, as though I do run occasionally run Thunderbird on a Mac (macOS Sierra) and various Linux hosts, I never have Thunderbird running for a prolonged period of time and never noticed this in all the time on either of those two OS...

Any thoughts, hints, suggestions, FIXES?

thanks,

Ralf

[tanstaafl]

Moved from Thunderbird Bugs to Thunderbird Support as you are asking for help, not describing a workaround for a known, confirmed bug filed in bugzilla.

Are you using an add-on to support minimizing Thunderbird in the system tray, or something similar? They're known to occasionally cause artifacts though I'm used to them mainly causing two copies of Thunderbird to run when they misbehave.

Try exiting Thunderbird and then use task manager to see if thunderbird.exe is still running. Occasionally the process doesn't die when you close Thunderbird, although it closes all visible windows. In that case you can kill the remnant using task manager. Perhaps your problem is something similar.

If that doesn't help it would be interesting to see who process monitor thinks owns that window. You might also be able to use it to close the task that owns it. See https://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/sys ... nitor.aspx .

[Bitbeisser]

Moved from Thunderbird Bugs to Thunderbird Support as you are asking for help, not describing a workaround for a known, confirmed bug filed in bugzilla.

Oh well...

Are you using an add-on to support minimizing Thunderbird in the system tray, or something similar? They're known to occasionally cause artifacts though I'm used to them mainly causing two copies of Thunderbird to run when they misbehave.

No.

Try exiting Thunderbird and then use task manager to see if thunderbird.exe is still running. Occasionally the process doesn't die when you close Thunderbird, although it closes all visible windows. In that case you can kill the remnant using task manager. Perhaps your problem is something similar.

No. As I stated, there is no obvious process associated with that window, even when Thunderbird is closed...

If that doesn't help it would be interesting to see who process monitor thinks owns that window. You might also be able to use it to close the task that owns it. See https://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/sys ... nitor.aspx .

haven't tried ProcMon (yet), as that barely provides an info unless you already know what you're looking for.
I did try an use Process Explorer though, but as already mentioned, there's no trace this way of a process associated with that window once Thunderbird is closed...

Ralf

[Bitbeisser]

Of course, now that I posted about this problem, it just won't show up again. The laptop has now sitting on my desk open and active ever since I came home last Thursday night and it didn't happen a single time since I posted on Monday about this...

Ralf