Thunderbird Hangs Sending Reply Emails

[bex1210]

I foolishly allowed Thunderbird to update itself to v45.2 on my Windows 7 PC (I say foolishly because the old version I was using was working just fine).

While I have no problem sending new emails out, Thunderbird randomly hangs when I hit the send button when replying to an email. It will just sit there until the connection times out. It looks like Thunderbird can't figure out how to read the email. Because if I cut all the text out so the email is empty, paste it into an ascii file, then copy that text and paste it back into the empty email I can send it out just fine. WTF???

Any suggestions other than uninstalling and going back to my old version?

Thanks.

I hope this thread is still active. I have Thunderbird 60.0, running on Windows 7 Pro (64 bit) SP1. I only use IMAP (not POP3) for my Email (outbound).

I have the exact same problem that artsnova did: Thunderbird randomly hangs when I hit the send button, etc. There does not seem to be any reason for which replies cause the problem.

Look at the image I attached. https://imgur.com/a/86icbQu Screenshot #1 is the popup message I get. The blue bar just moves back and forth. One time I let it run for 10 minutes. What I was doing is shown in #2. I would do a Save, and then manually move the message to where it should have been placed.

But then by luck, I stumbled on a workaround. Instead of pressing Save (image #2) I press (image 3) Retry TWICE (at least 0.5 seconds between presses). This always works.

A person on another forum sent me a link on how to record all IMAP commands when I am replying to Emails, to see where the problem might be. I have just set it up, so have no data at this point.

Any comments or suggestions would be most appreciated.


Harry

[DanRaisch]

I split your post from its original location because that thread died 2 years ago and concerned both a different version of Thunderbird and a different email protocol.

I only use IMAP (not POP3) for my Email (outbound).

Well, not really. IMAP and POP are both inbound servers while for both IMAP and POP accounts the outbound server type is SMTP.

Who is your email provider?
What is the target folder for saving sent messages? Find out using menu path Tools->Account Settings->Copies & Folders.
What security software is running on that system?

Instead of pressing Save (image #2) I press (image 3) Retry

Image 2 and 3 were not present in your post.

[bex1210]

I split your post from its original location because that thread died 2 years ago and concerned both a different version of Thunderbird and a different email protocol.

Thanks. I was hesitant to start a new thread since that one had not been closed.

I only use IMAP (not POP3) for my Email (outbound).

Well, not really. IMAP and POP are both inbound servers while for both IMAP and POP accounts the outbound server type is SMTP.

My inbound servers are IMAP, and my outbound is SMTP, as you said.

Who is your email provider?
What is the target folder for saving sent messages? Find out using menu path Tools->Account Settings->Copies & Folders.
What security software is running on that system?

MY ISP is AT&T and I use their outbound server (smtp.mail.att.net) as the default for all of my accounts. I have three Email providers. My primary one is Compuserve/AOL (Server imap.aol.com.) My secondary ones are hardly ever used, but they are: Buckeye (Server imap.buckeye-express.com) and AT&T (imap.mail.att.net). The problem I have experienced has all been on Compuserve/AOL, because I have not replied to any Emails that I received on my other accounts.

Copies & Folders: For Compuserve, "Place a copy in:" is checked. A bullet is placed next to "'"Sent" folders on:' and my Compuserve account is the option chosen. There is also a check beside 'Place replies in the folder of the message being replied to'. All of my other accounts are set up similarly, with the "Sent" folder being the folder for each respective account.

Microsoft Security Essentials is my security software. I have NOT excluded Thunderbird.

Instead of pressing Save (image #2) I press (image 3) Retry

Image 2 and 3 were not present in your post.

Again, my error, There is only one image, which contains screenshots #1, #2 & #3.

Hope this clarifies things.

Harry

[tanstaafl]

When you send a message from a IMAP account the SMTP protocol is used to to send the message but the IMAP protocol is used to upload your copy of the send message to whatever Sent folder you use. They're independent tasks if the initial call to the SMTP server didn't immediately fail (due to login error etc.). That means its possible to send a message successfully yet fail when uploading your save copy, or vice versa.

Does Compuserve/AOL have other, less well known IMAP servers than imap.aol.com?

One workaround (if your email provider supports it) is to configure the SMTP server via webmail commands to save a copy of the sent message for you. If you do that you disable Thunderbird from saving a copy (to avoid duplicates). Typically the webmail command is personality specific (have to specify the From: email address). I don't know if AOL supports this. I do this with my Fastmail account. Gmail also supports something similar, except its not optional.

If you can't do that you could configure the IMAP account to store your copy of the sent message in a folder in "Local Folders". The downside is those messages are no longer accessible from other devices or webmail.

[bex1210]

tanstaafl:

When you send a message from a IMAP account the SMTP protocol is used to to send the message but the IMAP protocol is used to upload your copy of the send message to whatever Sent folder you use. They're independent tasks if the initial call to the SMTP server didn't immediately fail (due to login error etc.). That means its possible to send a message successfully yet fail when uploading your save copy, or vice versa.

A great clarification. Thank you.

Does Compuserve/AOL have other, less well known IMAP servers than imap.aol.com?

Not that I can find. I checked not only the AOL webpage but did a fairly extensive internet search.

One workaround (if your email provider supports it) is to configure the SMTP server via webmail commands to save a copy of the sent message for you. If you do that you disable Thunderbird from saving a copy (to avoid duplicates). Typically the webmail command is personality specific (have to specify the From: email address). I don't know if AOL supports this. I do this with my Fastmail account. Gmail also supports something similar, except its not optional.

I did a brief check of AOL and could not find this, but that does NOT mean it might not be there.

If you can't do that you could configure the IMAP account to store your copy of the sent message in a folder in "Local Folders". The downside is those messages are no longer accessible from other devices or webmail.

If you look at screenshot #2 on the image I posted, I can directly Save to my Local Folder using Thunderbird. Then I can copy/past back to my Inbox. But if, as shown on screenshot #3, I click on Retry twice, then the message is saved in my Inbox just like a normal message would be. If I can't find a fix to the specific problem, then this seems to be the easiest workaround.

Your comments make me think of another possibility. As noted in my response to DanRaisch, my ISP is AT&T and I use their outbound server (smtp.mail.att.net) as the default for all of my accounts. But I could use my Compuserve outbound server (smtp.aol.com) for just my Compuserve account. Would that be of any benefit?

Harry

[tanstaafl]

Worth trying the AOL SMTP server with the accounts you normally use, though I think AOL might impose some restrictions you'd run into.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_AOL_and_AIM_mail is way out of date. However, it mentions:

"As of February 2, 2010 AOL no longer supports email clients using a Sent folder, though webmail will continue to use that folder. Instead you have to create a folder named after your email address and then configure Tools -> Account Settings -> Copies & Folders -> "when sending messages automatically" to use that folder. If you don't do this the only way to save a copy of the sent message is to use a different email provider's SMTP server."

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1235869 implies that restriction is gone.

[bex1210]

tanstaaff:

Worth trying the AOL SMTP server with the accounts you normally use, though I think AOL might impose some restrictions you'd run into.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_AOL_and_AIM_mail is way out of date. However, it mentions:

"As of February 2, 2010 AOL no longer supports email clients using a Sent folder, though webmail will continue to use that folder. Instead you have to create a folder named after your email address and then configure Tools -> Account Settings -> Copies & Folders -> "when sending messages automatically" to use that folder. If you don't do this the only way to save a copy of the sent message is to use a different email provider's SMTP server."

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1235869 implies that restriction is gone.

Not sure how AOL was configured in 2010, but the limits regarding how much is stored is no longer in effect. See my attachment https://imgur.com/a/rjXPs0g. I have 299 messages stored in my CompuserveMail Inbox, which is the same number as in my Compuserve inbox when using Thunderbird. Compuserve/AOL Mail is just a slightly rebranded Yahoo Mail.

And incidentally, AT&T, which is my ISP, also uses Yahoo Mail, with just at AT&T logo attached to it.

There does appear to be an issue with what Yahoo calls 'Send-Only addresses', which is what I have now for my Compuserve & Buckeye Email addresses listed in my AT&T account. They always have seemed to work, but it is possible that they may be causing my problem. What is confusing, as I have explained, the problem is intermittent. For example, today I replied to 5 or 6 messages in my Compuserve Inbox in Thunderbird, and they all worked fine.

Harry

[tanstaafl]

The description of send only addresses in https://help.yahoo.com/kb/mail-for-desk ... 26524.html sounds very much like Thunderbirds ability to specify another accounts From: address when sending a message. That changes a single header. The main risk of changing that is the possibility it might trigger some anti-spam mechanism, but they typically ignore that header as it is meant to be spoofable (just like a PBX can be configured to display the dept's phone number rather than the caller's phone number).