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On Windows 2000, I've been using Thunderbird for a long time now (since version .8 or .9). I recently upgraded to version 2.0.0.4 and since then it literally has not run for more than five minutes without crashing.
I have deleted and regenerated the .msf files, which accomplished nothing. I don't have any of the issues that people typically complain of - messages don't appear and disappear, profiles don't go missing. Everything looks and acts right until it crashes.
Crashes happen doing absolutely anything, with no pattern that I can.
- IMAP and POP accounts behave the same
Some events that trigger a crash:
- advancing to the next message
- resorting messages
- returning the focus to TB after working with another application.
- trying to move messages to a different mailbox
- deleting messages
Pretty much everything I do in TB has crashed it at one point since the upgrade. Any ideas? Do I need to start fresh with a new profile and then transfer messages.
With Firefox, upgrades from 1.x to 2.x have sometimes been problematic, and the answer is (following the advice in the release notes) to always uninstall the old version before installing the new. Even when doing minor version upgrades, the release notes have always recommended an uninstall-reinstall. In Firefox, the bookmarks and preferences *are* preserved through the uninstall-reinstall process, though I cannot speak for ThunderBird.
Either way, you might consider installing ThunderBird under a different OS account and using a new profile, and see if that fixes it. If it does, then it might be worthwhile to go through the hassle of backing up your messages and preferences and doing a clean reinstall for your main profile.
Looking at your list of actions that trigger crashes, they all seem to be points at which real memory might be swapping with virtual (saved on disk) memory. If your machine doesn't have a lot of RAM installed, the virtual memory swapping might be triggering some problem in Tbird.
Jim
I haven't been running TB that long on this machine (started with 2.0.0.0). The profile, however, is imported from 1.5, which could be the issue. That would be similar to what you're talking about with FF. Basically, the profile data in the /ApplicationData directory is taken over from the previous install.
Though like I say, it was fine at first and it's now with the latest "upgrade" that things have gone bad.
As for RAM, there's 3GB installed. I would think that might be enough to run TB and FF without swapping ;-)
Jim
