What causes Mozilla Thunderbird to Freeze constantly?

The last 1 month after a re-installation of MS Windows 8 and Mozilla Thunderbird, some productivity have drop and temper going up. One of the reasons is due to Thunderbird 31.4 freezing constantly.

Thunderbird email client, have always been on my Linux and MS Windows PC for years. But somehow, something changed that caused a lot of difficulties for me to work with emails. It is not clear when this started but its about the time I re-installed the computer.

Thunderbird setup:

1. Thunderbird updated to version 31.4.0
2. Email profile uses IMAP with the SMTP server in the same local network. There are few folders apart from the standard INBOX, SENT, which is less than 12 folders. Check for new messages is set to every 10 minutes and at startup.
3. Address book includes sync with Google contacts
4. Calendar includes Lightning sync with Google calendars
5. Local folder is contains standard folders, which is less than 5 folders.
6. The Profile folder is in the onedrive folder

Symptoms;

1. After login, every 1 to 10 minutes Thunderbird freezes rather randomly. This "freeze" last about 30 seconds to 3 minutes and its not predictable.
2. After I stop onedrive sync, problem still persist.
3. Disconnect network and problem still persist.

Findings (to some extend)

Its unfortunate that I could not exactly identify the problem but I found 2 steps taken that have made this "freeze" vanish. In rush to resolve the problem, I did both at the same time.

1. Using the Windows Explorer, access the C:\users\username and right click "appdata" folder, click "Advanced". UNCHECK Allow files in this folder to have contents indexed in addition to file properties, click "OK". Click "Apply" and choose to include subfolders.
2. Open McAfee Internet Security Suite, it the default antivirus on the computer. Click on Real-Time Scanning (status is ON). Click "Real-Time Scanning:", current status is again On. Click "Settings", UNCHECK Email attachments. CHECK Strike a balance between the scan throroughness and my PC's speed (Recommended). Go back to the antivirus main screen, and turn off the "Scheduled Scans:"

If you encounter the same problem, do test and see which works for you.

Howto set Default Account in Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird is a widely used Email client that is fast, friendly and can be extended with many plug-ins available for Linux, OS X and MS Windows platform. Licensed with Mozilla Public License 2.0 it is an open source software (OSS) with an active list of developers. The current version being 31 and more information can be found at Mozilla website.

Many email accounts can be created within this email client and this makes it easy to see all emails from one screen. Emails can be composed by opening the Thunderbird email client or via links that user clicks to activate the email composer. In order improve efficiency, one of the accounts can be assigned as the default email account and this is normally indicated in bold. This allows all new emails to use this account and users do not need to choose the account. I have listed the steps tested for Thunderbird version 24 and 31 where the example shows account2 in bold as the default account and we want to switch the default to account1.

Step 1: Open Thunderbird account's setting.

Start Thunderbird and from its menu bar at the top (default), choose Tools ->Account Settings...
Identify the default account that is used to send out emails. This is in bold, for example "account2"

Step 2: Set the default account

Choose the account to be used as the default. In this case, its "account1". At bottom of the window, click Account Actions. Choose "Set as Default".

Click OK, notice that this email account will go to the top of the list and is in bold font. Ensure all email screens are closed and restart Thunderbird.

User Identities in Thunderbird

Thunderbird have see lots of changes but the basic features for email have been retained. One of this, is being able to choose different ways to compose a message before it is sent out.

Example case 1; I have different signatures for friends, customers, special clients and for the general use. Switching signatures is so easy.

Example case 2; Some sent emails must be save to my SPECIAL folder.

Example case 3: Some emails must contain a CC or BCC to specific persons.

Example case 4: When I replay some quote of previous email is at the top and some at the bottom.

We can get this done is a few simple steps (I list the general steps here);

Step 1: In TB, click Tools ->Account settings...
Select the Email account and set the default email settings for

Your name:
Email Address:
Reply-to Address:
Organization:
Signature Text:

Step 2: Strongly suggest to create a text file and place the signature and name. 
Use the option for
Attach the signature from a file instead (text, HTML, or image)

Step 3: Configure following settings;
Copies and folders
Composition & Addressing
Security

Step 4: Click the Email account (selected in step 1)
Click button Manage Identities...
Click Add...

Enter the alternative email configuration. E.g. The alternative email signature.

Click OK, Close. You can continue to create as many identities as you like.
Click OK

DONE!
Try to send an email, click Write button.

Notice the "From" have a drop down list of all the different styles and configuration that you have created.

ThunderBird 2.0 Add-ons

Thunderbird 2.0 reached EOL Aug 2009 but Thunderbird 3.0 still does not have all the stuff and attractions for an upgrade, so here I am still using Thunderbird 2.0. What is Thunderbird?

Its an Email client, Calendering, Task and Contact Management. Allows access to Email accounts via POP or IMAP. It also supports GMail accounts, Unix mailbox and Newsgroup account access. A really great application to work with.

Some of the must have add-ons for my Thunderbird 2:

1. Contacts Sidebar 0.7 - Allows me to forward VCards and access via F4 the addresses, copy and paste info of the VCard into email.
2. Lightning 0.9 - The calendar and task Manager
3. FG Printers 0.4.4 - Format printing if the calendars
4. VCS Support 0.6.3.1 - Allows me to import/export VCS calendars
5. Automatic Export 0.3.0 - Allows automatic backup of the calendars

Other optional add-on:

1. Provider for Google Calendar
2. Bidi Mail UI
3. PGP
4. Thunderbrowse

There is a great forum at MozillaZine for updates and help.

Installing Kubuntu 9.10

Just did a fresh install for Kubuntu 9.10 based on my previous install. Here is a list of steps I took to get my most common applications working.

Post installation recommendations
Start the Kubuntu software(package) installer by Kmenu ->Application ->Systems ->KpackageKit

Choose following packages:

1. openjdk-6-jre-hotspot
2. mozilla-thunderbird-2.0.0.23
3. lightning-extension
4. flashplugin-installer

Install Firefox web browser
Choose Kmenu ->Internet ->Firefox Web Browser Installer

To allow Java applications to run in the web browser, open a terminal and install the openjdk plugin;

$ sudo apt-get install icedtea6-plugin

To get the wireless working, run at terminal this command and reboot. My wireless router for WPA, TKIP did not connect until following steps were taken. Open a terminal and type

$ sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager restart

Install the other stuff for common applications to be used. At the terminal run

$ sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

For multimedia, fonts and assorted codecs support

This will add JRE, mp3, mpeg, odbc, unrar and other useful support.

$ sudo apt-get install kubuntu-restricted-extras

This allows the disk to be encrypted and manage passwords. Additional encryption can be downloaded from http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads or mediafire.

$ sudo apt-get install gdecrypt password-gorilla

Allow secure SSH connection to and from SSH servers.

$ sudo apt-get install ssh sshfs ksshaskpass kdessh

Install the VLC video player to watch CD and DVD movies.

$ sudo apt-get install vlc videolan-doc mozilla-plugin-vlc vlc-plugin-sdl libvcdinfo0

Install basic Thunderbird add-ons to enhance its usage. From a web browser enter the URL https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird

Download and install the following;

1. Automatic Export
2. Bidi Mail UI (not needed if installed as earlier)
3. FG Printers
4. Lightning (not needed if installed as earlier)
5. Provider for Google Calendar (not needed if installed as earlier)
6. Thunderbrowse

To improve web browsing, these are my download addons from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox

1. FoxTabs
2. Speed Dials
3. Zotero
4. Server spy
5. Video download helper
6. Firebug
   

Backup Thunderbird2

Just after installing the Kubuntu Jaunty 9.04 Linux, its time to restore some of my stuff. Firstly, I need communications and this is via my Thunderbird.

Backup:
I found it necessary to disable some of the extensions to allow the new Thunderbird to run properly.
Copy the Thunderbird directory profile (usually it goes with some crazy name followed by your profile name to the backup device. Example

cp ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/izwvasdx.default /media/backupdisk

Restore:
Step 1:
Copy the directory profile back to the new system

Step 2:
In the terminal create an email profile that uses the old directory, type

thunderbird -profilemanager


Ref: Mozilla

[Jaunty]Installing Thunderbird 2 on Kubuntu Linux 9.04

Just after installing Kubuntu Linux 9.04 and all seems well, the email client is the next stop.

Install Thunderbird 2.0 from a terminal

$ sudo apt-get install thunderbird thunderbird-dispmua mozilla-thunderbird-bidiui lightning-extension enigmail

The installation included the following packages:
calendar-google-provider calendar-timezones

Thunderbird mail storage.

Thunderbird under the hood I can find some interesting files. I could identify a few of them;

On a Kubuntu 8.10 system the Thunderbird profile and email box is stored in $HOME/.mozilla-thunderbird/someprofile.default

For example:
$HOME/.mozilla-thunderbird/izvwsxcs.default/

The default profile can be set in the file $HOME/.mozilla-thunderbird/profiles.ini

Here is an example:
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=6wpi8gaz.default

[Profile1]
Name=Nicholas
IsRelative=1
Path=izvwsxcs.default
Default=1

In example above, my profile is izvwsxcs.default. In that folder, you can find that the emails are stored in the email box oscc.org.my
$HOME/.mozilla-thunderbird/izvwsxcs.default/ImapMail/mail.oscc.org.my

Emails are stored into two files (in above folder).
The email contents: A file with no extension
The email header: A mail summary file (.msf) extension

Kubuntu 8.10 Desktop at first glance.

The KMenu
Favourites must have the System Settings menu to configure the Dashboard & Kubuntu until it is just right for daily work.


Desktop
There are Plasmoid widgets by default that I will leave on the desktop for the moment. This means that what I see is called the Dashboard and the Desktop is now a small window that can be moved around. Its neat, cause I can press Ctrl+F12 (or press the Show Dashboard Applet in the bottom panel) to dim all applications and view only the widgets and Desktop. No need to minimised all the application Windows.

By Default applications are launch with a single click, unlike the default Gnome desktop. I've been on Gnome for about 1.5 years now and its taking some getting use to reduce the number of clicks.

Workspace
Default Kubuntu had only 2 workspace and no keyboard shortcut to switch between many workspaces. I can only return to 1st workspace with Ctrl+F1.

1. Right click Pager applet (in the bottom panel) and choose "Configure Desktop", increase to 4 workspace.
2. Click Kmenu ->System Settings ->Keyboard & Mouse ->Keyboard shortcuts. In the "Action" box scroll down to "Switch one desktop to the Right", and click the Global field. Click on the "None" button and enter Ctrl+Alt+Right Arrow. Do the same for the Left direction command. Test the shortcut and click "Apply".

Screen
The screen is sharp and nice, which is why I have always choosen KDE when Looks matters.

Problems are occuring when I plugin the Likom monitor and the projector. It is flickering on those external displays as though its switches the refresh rates. The monitor configuration tool didnt seem to work as it should when I plug-in the external displays.

FIX the projector flickering: Select KMenu
1. System Settings ->Advanced ->Service Manager
2. Turn off "Detecting RANDR (monitor) changes"

Application Windows
Firefox and Thunderbird scrollbars can be improved by Choosing
Kmenu ->System Settings ->Appearance ->Gtk Styles & Fonts
Then Click "Install Scrollbar Fix..." and restart both Firefox and Thunderbird.

Screen Capture
There isnt any program link to the "PrtSc" or Print Screen button. So here are steps taken to apply the screen capture button. Seems KDE 4.1 is broken in this area of keyboard configuration. Killed the khotkeys deamon but its still reading other hotkeys, I am still looking for daemon thats accepting the hotkeys. Things I will try...

1. Update the ksnapshot (mine upgraded to 0.8.1) and other systems updates.
2. Apply the shortcut keys to the Ksnapshot program.
Choose Kmenu ->System Settings. Choose the Advanced tab ->Input Actions


System Processes
To view or terminate system processes, press Ctrl+Esc. I can send kill signals to terminate processes. This also lets me see the amount of RAM being used.

Lightning can now edit Task

Just updated Lightning for Thunderbird to version 0.9pre build 2008070918 on Ubuntu 7.10.

Before this, the task can't be edited even if I choose the modify button. Now just double click and i can edit the task. That is what OSS is about, building stuff.

In the calendar, when I double click on a date to create a new event,
the date was always set to today. Now, it sets to the date I double clicked.

Things are looking good!

--

Thunderbird on CentOS 5.1

Everyone is using Thunderbird on MS Windows, Ubuntu Linux and Fedora Core Linux. So, why shouldnt Centos 5.1 be able to install?

1. Download Thunderbird 2 from Mozilla (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/) or other mirros like (http://mirror.oscc.org.my/mozilla/thunderbird/). I downloaded thunderbird-2.0.0.14.tar.gz to the directory /tmp.

2. Extract the files

3. Open a terminal and login as root to thee directory /opt
su -
cd /opt

4. Copy the extracted forlders to /opt
cp -rf /tmp/thunderbird /opt

5. Install the older library of libstdc++.so.5 (5.1 comes with version libstdc++.so.6)
yum install compat-libstdc++-33.i386

6. Test the Thunderbird as a normal user
/opt/thunderbird/thunderbird

7. Copy the icons to the user wide pixmap
cp thunderbird/icons/mozicon*.xpm /usr/share/pixmaps/

8. When Thunderbird starts, it complains about the mode for /var/spool/mail, as it cannot write to this folder. As root do the following
chmod 01777 /var/spool/mail

Add the application launcher in the panel/menu using the mozicon icon. Only things left is to install other plugins. My first plugins are always the Calendar (lightning) and birthday.

-

Installing Calendar Server on CentOS - part 2

Previous issue was that I could not get through the firewall to access http://svn.twistedmatrix.com. With the firewall settled, I can now continue this series of notes.

In the ~/dcs directory issue the command and download Twisted

svn co svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Twisted/trunk Twisted

What is Twisted?
Examples of programs which were written using the Twisted framework are twisted.web (a web server), twisted.mail (a mail server, supporting both SMTP and POP3, as well as relaying), twisted.words (a chat application supporting integration between a variety of IM protocols, like IRC, AOL Instant Messenger's TOC and Perspective Broker, a remote-object protocol native to Twisted), im (an instant messenger which connects to twisted.words) and faucet (a GUI client for the twisted.reality interactive-fiction framework). Twisted can be useful for any network or GUI application written in Python.



Continue with the Calendar Server scripts

cd CalendarServer/
./run

Test this with a web browser pointing to the server with port 8008.
Example URL location http://10.20.20.205:8008/calendars/

See
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-2433/6n4nlfjk2?a=view
http://fedoranews.org/mediawiki/index.php/Building_a_Simple_Calendar_Server_with_Fedora_and_WebDAV

Installing Calendar Server on CentOS - part I

I am interested to have a server to host my calendar using caldav over http on CentOS 5.1 Linux. The advantage is that this calendar can be shared, if I reformat my PC, the calendar will continue to survive. Copying an ics does not allow me to edit it from the server.

Based on the link http://www.mail-archive.com/calendarserver-users@lists.macosforge.org/msg00195/LinuxBuildAndRun-DarwinCalendarServer
Here are my steps:

1. Connect to the CentOS server as user nicholas
ssh nicholas@10.20.20.205

2. create the working folder ~/dcs
mkdir dcs
cd dcs

3. Ensure subversion is installed. Get the svn for Calendar Server

svn checkout http://svn.macosforge.org/repository/calendarserver/CalendarServer/trunk CalendarServer

4. Install python-kerberos and python-devel
su -c "yum install python-kerberos python-devel"

5. Setup the disk to use extended filesystem
su -c "vi /etc/fstab"

Edit the options to include user_xattr in the filesystem that will hold the calendar.
/dev/hdb1      /mnt/data           ext3    user,rw,user_xattr 0 2

6. Add a directory to put dcs data :
su -c "mkdir /mnt/data/dcs-data"
su -c "chown nicholas:nicholas /mnt/data/dcs-data/"


In DCS source directory, copy and edit the developement config file:
cd ~/dcs
cp ./conf/caldavd-test.plist ./conf/caldavd-dev.plist
vi ./conf/caldavd-dev.plist

Look for the string element specifying where to put data :
twistedcaldav/test/data/
And change it to point to a directory of your XATTR mounting point :

/mnt/data/dcs-data/


7. Run the CalendarServer scripts. This will download and place the required scripts at same level as dcs directory.
cd CalendarServer
./run -s

8. Trouble was encountered to download several subversion packages. Therefore I have to download and extract them manually.
cd ../xattr
wget http://svn.eby-sarna.com/ez_setup.tar.gz
tar xzvf ez_setup.tar.gz

I am stuck at the following...so will wait till i can find out why I cant download the Twisted.
svn co svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Twisted/trunk Twisted

Thunderbird Troubleshooting

IMAP maximum cached connection error
The Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 email client on Ubuntu 7.10 took some getting use to. Today something had to happen. The IMAP server returned an error on my Thunderbird (email client) with the following Alert popup.


Something must have changed at the mail server over the weekend. Using the Web client, things were all fine, so this may be a Thunderbird and IMAP setting problem. At the client side, do the following to clear it. Originally I had the value 5 for the number of cached connections.

Step 1: Open Thunderbird. Choose Edit ->Account Settings
Step 2: Identify which account having the IMAP Alert problem and choose Server Settings and click on Advanced.
Step 3: In Maximum number of connections to cache from 5 to four. If this value does not work, keep reducing by one.
Step 4: Click OK. A second time OK to accept the changes.
Step 5: Restart Thunderbird to ensure things are reset. However, it still did work without restarting.

The "This body part will be downloaded on demand." message.
When the body of an email says "This body part will be downloaded on demand." and the attachments seem corrupted you cant access the Email.

Possibility 1: You are in offline mode and the downloads have been restricted.
Ensure the View -> Display Attachments Inline is checked.

Possibility 2: The message headers go messed up.
Rebuild the specific folder index table. Rebuilding the .msf file for that folder. Right click on the folder, select properties, general information and then press the "Rebuild Index" button. If that doesn't recover all of the messages its probably due to your folder being corrupted.

See Mozillazine
--

Evolution vs Thunderbird vs Outlook

Intrduction to emails

Mail User Agent (MUA) is also known as an Email client. MUA is used to request email
from a Mail Transfer Agent (MTA). The request can be made in 2 forms:

1. Post Office Protocol (POP3): Messages on the server cannot be flagged (as seen or
   forwarded) and messages are removed by default from the server to the MUA.


2. Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP): Messages on the server can be flagged and
   directories are used to managed emails on the server.

MUA must meet formating of email header ( To, CC, BCC, Reply-To) and footer as
described in RFC2822.

For firewall settings, MUA access a standard MTA via port 25 (SMTP). Currently
Transport Layer Security (TLS) is being used in many MTA for connection and transfer
security. Other ports of importance (plain/encrypted):
POP3 (110/995)

IMAP4 (143/993)

HTTP (80/443)

Anyone can read the contents or body of an email moving across MTA and MUA. Therefore
encryption of the Email content is used to protect the sensitive data. This can be in
two forms:S/MIME: requires a trusted body to recognise the userOpenPGP: users can recognise each other (no third party needed)

(T) PluginsLightning: Calendar tool support for WebDav and iCalendarEnigmail: adds OpenPGP message encryption and authentication to your email client. It features automatic encryption, decryption and integrated key management functionality. Enigmail requires GnuPG (www.gnupg.org) or Gpg4win for the cryptographic functions. Note: GnuPG and Gpg4win is not part of the installation.

(O) Viruses

(E) Support ServersMS Exchange, POP3, IMAP, Lotus

(E) clientGmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail

(E) License: LGPL

(T) License: MPL, MPL/GNU GPL/GNU LGPL

(O) License: part of MS Office

(T) Calendar: iCalendar, WebDav

(O) Calendar: iCalendar, WebDav

(E) Calendar: iCalendar, WebDav

Platforms

Linux (E),(T)

MS Windows (T),(O)

Links:

(E) http://mail.gnome.org/archives/evolution-list/

(T) http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/rumblingedge/archives/2007/03/tb_2.html

(T) http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/releases/

Email Signatures and address book in Thunderbird 2

After having some issues with Evolution 2.12.1 on Gnome, I decided to have Thunderbird replace the Evolution Email client. After installing Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 from the mozilla.com website I needed to transfer the Addressbook from Evolution and add my Email signature. So here are the steps I took.

What is Thunderbird?

• Handles junk mail using Bayesian filtering and detects scams
  
• Handle Emails with views, tags, filters, search and virtual folders help
• Provide reader for RSS feeds like streams of email with filters, search and labeling

A. Importing Addressbook from Evolution
No, there is no direct import for Thunderbird. Thunderbird support import of addressbook in the form of LDIF, csv and tabs. Evolution could only export addresses with the tool evolution-addressbook-export but this continued to give unexplainable errors that seem rather familiar in previous versions. For the record, here is how the command is used

evolution-addressbook-export --format=csv > ~/Desktop/contacts.evolution.csv

1. So, what I did in the end was to export the Evolution address with the menu
   File ->Save Address Book as VCard
   Select the Desktop and saved as contactlist.vcf
   
2. Use a converter to convert VCard to LDIF. For this example I accessed the site http://labs.brotherli.ch/vcfconvert and uploaded the VCard file. No big deal as there was nothing sensitive. However there were some converters that could be installed on the PC for more peace of mind about sensitivity of the data. I saved the file back as contactlist.ldif
   
   The idea is to convert VCF to LDIF
   
   
3. In Thunderbird, open the addressbook and choose the menu
   Tools ->Import
   Select the contaclist.ldif file

B. Adding a signature for outgoing Emails.
You can add a VCard or a text/HTML file as a signature.

1. Adding text signature. Create a textfile with your signature and store it on your harddrive. For example save as signature.nicholas.txt
   
2. In Thunderbird choose
   Edit ->Account Settings
3. Choose a profile and checked
   Attach this signature
4. Click the Choose button and select the signature file signature.nicholas.txt
5. Click OK