Thunderbird won't open

[cobra521]

I use the Thunderbird mail client, version 78.9.0, running on Big Sur 11.2.3. Today it refused to open for the very first time I can remember. The icon in the dock had the dot beneath it, and Force Quit had it in its list, but nothing appeared on the screen at all.

I tried Force Quit several times without improving the situation; the dot beneath the icon did go away after a Force Quit and reappeared after a click on the icon, but still no Thunderbird would appear on the screen.

So I downloaded and installed the program straight from Thunderbird's home page. Still no luck - same (mis)behavior.

Finally I rebooted. Thunderbird finally came up on the screen and is now working as it always has.

Anyone else have this problem? Or am I just special

Tom

 

[mikzn]

working fine here - Big Sur 11.3 / Thunderbird 78.9.0

 

[fisherking]

if it worked on reboot, you experienced a glitch (and hopefully, that won't happen again). i've seen it happen (here, with affinity photo)... also fixed by a reboot. so you should be fine...

 

[ApfelKuchen]

You're special.

Restarting has been a fix for computer problems as long as there have been computers - a temporary problem resolved by restarting the system and software. An examination of logs might help pinpoint the cause, but the work of pinpointing that cause is not likely to be worthwhile since so many of these are one-time incidents. That kind of troubleshooting only becomes worthwhile when the same issue keeps returning.

Pick an app, any app, and at some point it's going to become non-responsive for someone. The cause could be specific to that app, or it could be due to the broader condition of the computer - a temporary out-of-memory condition, for example.

Bottom line, a one-time event is likely to be so random in cause that asking others "are you having the very same problem" is nearly pointless. When the same problem repeats itself... then you have a reason to ask whether others have had the identical issue.