I have a weird and puzzling problem with thunderbird on my main
computer, running Fedora 26 (waiting for resolution before updating).
If I so much as touch an attachment to a received email, the machine
freezes. That is, the kernel refuses to start any more new processes,
however, it continues to run the existing ones. I can switch to a
different Xfce4 workspace, or simply move the mouse to activate a window
that overlaps the thunderbird window. However, the thunderbird window
is dead and won't refresh itself. Only a reboot fixes it.
Today I received an email with an OO spreadsheet attached. I was able
to click to save it successfully, but then the machine was frozen.
My numerous gkrellm graphs continued to blink, but in another terminal
I could not even ls, or cd to another directory, and typing reboot had
no effect. I was able to kill the X server with CTL-BS and achieve
a black screen with a jumbled mess of systemd gook. On a different
console (ALT-F2) I got a login prompt, then a passwd prompt, but that's
as far as login got. I had to resort to the ultimate weapon: SysReq +
REISUB, of which only the first three, REI, were sufficient, so sending
the SIGKILL signal to all processes unstuck the machine.
This problem affects ONLY my main machine; with all the others in
the house, thunderbird handles attachments perfectly. FWIW, mutt
handles the attachment without complaint. This problem has persisted
over many kernel updates; it may have been present even in Fedora 25.
I strongly suspect I have some odd plugin or addon on this machine
only. But before I start a massive witchhunt, I want to ask the
experts here:
Has anyone experienced a similar breakdown?
--
David A. De Graaf DATIX, Inc. Hendersonville, NC
dad(a)datix.us
www.datix.us