Why is Thunderbird Mail erratic after upgrading to 21.10?

After sorting out account configuration issues very recently with Thunderbird, and having it work perfectly with 21.04, the program now is erratic when sending mail. I am unable to quit Thunderbird with either the top left menu Quit command or the keyboard chord command. Sometimes after invoking the Quit command from the Menu, nothing will happen for several seconds and then the computer will just do a restart (as if it were reading my mind). If the computer does not restart after giving a quit command, I have to manually select restart from Settings, in order for the mail program to be no longer active.

I do not mind restarting the computer when the mail program refuses to quit. I do not mind when the computer just automatically restarts after a ineffective Quit command. I do think that neither of these things is a normal way of operating Thunderbird, which has worked well for me, before 21.10.

If this is something that will be addressed by whoever it is that does these things, then I am content to just restart when the mail program locks up. Otherwise, I may need a fix.

Solution 1:

I've had a similar problem with 2 different computers running 21.10 (one an older laptop, the other a virtual machine on a more modern laptop). The problem seems to be related to the Wayland system that is now the default X server. If you switch to Xorg (possible in the settings symbol on the login screen), you may find that the problem disappears. I also had a lot of trouble that was not related to Thunderbird with Wayland on 21.04. I don't think Wayland is ready for prime time, at least with Ubuntu.

Solution 2:

i have been using Wayland mode on ubuntu 21.10 (kde-plasma-dekstop) for about two weeks now. I am not using Thunderbird from apt repository but downloaded it directly from Thunderbird web site (v91.2) and unzipped to a folder. Afterwards created the links to profile folder and it works fine. There are some other minor issues with Wayland mode but not with Thunderbird.

Solution 3:

I had the problem with the icon having another red dot for every email that I sent (even after they had gone and were closed), the right-click menu locking up and T/bird not starting by clicking the icon.

I can confirm that all these problems disappeared by logging in using Xorg, so I'm staying with that.