Make sure that you read all of the comments above. It is impossible to tell exactly what the problem is based upon the indications received from Thunderbird. It can be any one of a dozen different issues.

If you are receiving the request for the password, then Thunderbird is connecting with the mail server. It sounds like something on your PC is preventing the messages from downloading. I have seen problems with Norton, but given the number of viruses out there, I would not recommend that you disable Norton (if you use it). From what I have seen, Norton sometimes tends to cause Thunderbird to hang after it does an automatic virus definition update. If you think that may be the problem, you need to reboot the PC and then try to download your e-mails again. That always works for me. It is possible that Norton and possibly other anti-virus programs need to be restarted after downloading virus definitions in order for them to properly protect your PC from malicious viruses.

You may have to keep trying different things until something works. Each time you change a configuration in Thunderbird, you need to shut it down, restart it, and then test it again

Thunderbird has worked really well for nearly a year… then it would, every now and then, not download my emails, usually when that happened I would simply hit the get mail button again and it would be fine. Then it began to take a lengthy amount of time to get the emails (we’re talking like one email at least 5 minutes) then suddenly it no longer would download anything at all.

What typically happens is this: get mail button, password everything fine. Then it will appear to begin to download the emails… but it won’t actually do it… it will just run and run and run until finally an alert pops up that says ‘timed out’ but by the time that happens you’ve already guessed that you weren’t going to be getting the mail.

I can send messages no problem.

I guess what I really need to know is whether this is a thunderbird problem, an internet problem, an email server problem, or a computer problem… or some really fanciful and horrifying combination.

Thanks
Kelly

Unfortunately, you did not give us any useful information about the problem.

Read through all of the comments.

Try rebooting your PC. I have found that Norton AntiVirus sometimes blocks e-mails after it automatically does a virus definition update.

Check with your ISP to see if they are experiencing problems. If rebooting the PC does not work, this is most likely the issue.

Try this page: Thunderbird Outgoing E-Mail problems

I have never seen the type of messages that you describe. It sounds like the e-mail addresses for your recipients are using an invalid format. Check to make sure that the addresses you are sending message to are correct.

Next, check the SMTP configuration.

Yes the message body was in Message Source. I still couldn’t see the message after changing the settings in View>Message Body.

The e-mails were from two different people, both using G-mail.

Thanks again

Vestal

Are you sure that the message is missing and not just “not displaying” because of an issue with the text message versus HTML message settings? Take a closer look at one of the messages and use View > Message Source to view the message code. Scroll through the code to see if the body text is included in the code. If it is, try changing the View > Message Body As setting to see if the message body appears.

Is the problem related to e-mails coming primarily from one source? If it is, there could be some non-standard HTML code in the messages.

The text is in the message while it is on my server, but when it is transfered to Thunderbird the text doesn’t make it.

Any thoughts?

Thanks for your suggestions. I’m already using 3.0 and I’m sure that Thunderbird *can* connect to the server; the other accounts using the same server, DO retrieve the emails; when I mistype my user/pass, I DO get error messages. Also, the credentials work when I log in to the provider’s webmail.

I’ve double checked- and later on recreated- the accounts and kept all default settings, but alas no improvement. There is no message at all where I normally see the ‘retrieving mail x from y’ (right bottom), on the left I see stuff like ‘connecting to’ and that disappears (left bottom)

It’s a really strange problem, thanks for your input on trying to solve this issue. I’m leaving Thunderbird behind and I’m going to look out for another program. Oh, where’s Outlook Express when you need it

Thanks again!
Henk