Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

TySpicer · 2025-12-18 16:49:36

Another update: I don't know if it matters, but here are some more debug lines. I used my workaround (restarting Thunderbird) to send a message, and it printed this after successfully sending an email:

console.debug: mailnews.smtp: "Message sent successfully."
console.debug: mailnews.smtp: "C: QUIT"
console.debug: mailnews.smtp: "S: 221 2.0.0 Service closing transmission channel\r\n"
console.error: mailnews.smtp: "NetworkError: a Network error occurred"
console.debug: mailnews.smtp: "Socket closed."

seth · 2025-12-19 09:32:21

For clarification, this still happens despite you're now booting w/ "ipv6.disable=1"

cat /proc/cmdline

TySpicer · 2025-12-19 20:58:17

It's been a while, since I looked at this, I'll take a look.

I booted back into Mint, went to `/etc/default/grub`, and found these two lines:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=...
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=...

They both had `ipv6.disable=1` in them. In the wiki article, I saw I could also try `ipv6.disable_ipv6=1`, so I tried that in both lines instead.

I ran `sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg` and `sudo update-grub`, then booted back into Arch.

I ran `cat /proc/cmdline`:

BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda8

Lastly, Thunderbird still seems to be broken, but the workaround still works.

seth · 2025-12-19 22:34:56

BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda8

Means IPv6 isn't disabled - if you don't manage to get control over Mint's grub config, try https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/IPv6#sysctl

TySpicer · 2025-12-20 19:28:11

Well, it seems Mint is broken now. I could get to the login screen, but after typing in my password, I just got a black screen. I could move my mouse around, but nothing else happened. How do I get back into Mint from here?

seth · 2025-12-21 09:00:53

This sounds like your Mind DE (cinnamon?) broke, but I can't really tell why nor is this the place to fix it.
You should™ be able to use switch the VT (ctrl+alt+f3), login there and check the system journal on what went wrong w/ starting your GUI DE (you'll likely see some crashes and/or this might be a problem w/ the cinnamon compositor not rendering anything)

TySpicer · 2025-12-21 17:28:36

I fixed Mint! It was actually pretty simple, I just had to change `ipv6.disable_ipv6=1` back to `ipv6.disable=1`. I was able to do this from the boot menu parameters, then I updated the file itself so it's permanent.

With this discovery, I wonder if making these changes from Mint will have any impact on Arch at all. Maybe I should be looking for files on Arch instead of Mint?

I checked `/etc/sysctl.d/` on Mint, and there's no `40-ipv6.conf` there. There is a `10-ipv6-privacy.conf`, would this be relevant? Should I create `40-ipv6.conf`?

I'll double-check all this on Arch, as well.

TySpicer · 2025-12-21 17:43:24

Welp, I might have actually figured it all out! For some reason, the boot loader name for Arch changed, so I went back into Mint, opened Grub Customizer, and changed the name back to just "Arch". While I was there, I saw a menu that looked a lot like the boot parameters menu I had seen in the boot loader. I added `ipv6.disable=1` to the `linux` line. After booting into Arch, here's the output of `cat /proc/cmdline`:

BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-linux-lts root=/dev/sda8 ipv6.disable=1

Success? I'll have to see if Thunderbird works consistently over the next few days, but I guess I finally disabled IPv6, at least.

Update: As I was about to post this, I did another Thunderbird test, and it failed again. Did I miss something?

seth · 2025-12-21 20:13:01

This contrasts with your earlier findings, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 2#p2265502
Please post your complete system journal for the boot after the failure:

sudo journalctl -b | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

Btw. is *only* thunderbird affected, your browser etc. still work fine?

TySpicer · 2025-12-22 18:58:42

https://0x0.st/Pzod.txt

Yes, everything else is working fine. It's just Thunderbird that fails to send emails, unless I restart it.

seth · 2025-12-22 19:08:33

And *just* restarting thunderbird doesn't help?

Dec 21 11:34:50 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766338490.0646] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTING
Dec 21 11:34:50 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766338490.6162] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_SITE
Dec 21 11:34:50 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766338490.9981] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL
Dec 21 16:06:05 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766354765.5875] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISABLED (ASLEEP)
Dec 21 17:12:25 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766358745.5420] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED
Dec 21 17:12:28 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766358748.8868] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTING
Dec 21 17:12:29 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766358749.2768] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_SITE
Dec 21 17:12:29 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766358749.6219] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL
Dec 21 17:13:02 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766358782.5787] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISABLED (ASLEEP)
Dec 21 17:21:44 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766359304.7724] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED
Dec 21 17:21:48 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766359308.1051] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTING
Dec 21 17:21:48 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766359308.5711] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_SITE
Dec 21 17:21:48 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766359308.9083] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL
Dec 21 17:22:33 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766359353.4721] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISABLED (ASLEEP)
Dec 21 18:08:27 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766362107.1593] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED
Dec 21 18:08:30 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766362110.5085] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTING
Dec 21 18:08:30 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766362110.9113] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_SITE
Dec 21 18:08:31 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766362111.2484] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL
Dec 21 18:09:05 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766362145.9123] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISABLED (ASLEEP)
Dec 21 18:28:04 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766363284.2590] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED
Dec 21 18:28:07 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766363287.7224] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTING
Dec 21 18:28:08 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766363288.1262] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_SITE
Dec 21 18:28:08 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766363288.4545] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL
Dec 21 18:33:49 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766363629.6745] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISABLED (ASLEEP)
Dec 21 18:37:34 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766363854.9678] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED
Dec 21 18:37:38 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766363858.3562] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTING
Dec 21 18:37:38 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766363858.6712] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_SITE
Dec 21 18:37:38 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766363858.9985] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL
Dec 21 18:40:22 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766364022.9825] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISABLED (ASLEEP)
Dec 21 21:03:38 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766372618.4510] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED
Dec 21 21:03:42 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766372622.1680] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTING
Dec 21 21:03:42 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766372622.5755] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_SITE
Dec 21 21:03:42 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766372622.9450] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL
Dec 21 22:16:46 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766377006.4409] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISABLED (ASLEEP)
Dec 21 22:25:00 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766377500.4001] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED
Dec 21 22:25:03 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766377503.7878] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTING
Dec 21 22:25:04 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766377504.2377] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_SITE
Dec 21 22:25:04 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766377504.5717] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL
Dec 21 22:26:09 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766377569.5071] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISABLED (ASLEEP)
Dec 22 08:23:19 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766413399.3757] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED
Dec 22 08:23:22 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766413402.2784] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTING
Dec 22 08:23:22 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766413402.6682] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_SITE
Dec 22 08:23:23 arch NetworkManager[594]: <info>  [1766413403.0176] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL

the same NM process ran for almost a day and reconnected a could of times (related to system sleeps)
At which point did thunderbird fail?

Also, it seems this is only for my school (.edu) emails. My personal email (@gmail.com) works fine.

What's most likely the case is that your school account severs the connection, is it imap? Imap idle? Try to raise the beacon frequency.

I doubt this is a network issue at all.

TySpicer · 2025-12-22 19:23:48

seth wrote:

And *just* restarting thunderbird doesn't help?

Restarting Thunderbird fixes the issue, usually for only one message.

seth wrote:

At which point did thunderbird fail?

I should have been more clear about the journal. I did another test and wrote down some approximate times. Here's a new journal: http://0x0.st/PzHX.txt

And here are the relevant times:

13:16:16 - Attempted and failed to send an email
13:16:33 - Restarted Thunderbird
13:16:49 - Successfully sent an email

seth wrote:

is it imap? Imap idle?

Where can I find these?

seth wrote:

Try to raise the beacon frequency.

Where can I change this?

seth · 2025-12-23 11:21:34

Where can I find these?

Predominantly your email account settings, whether the server supports imap idle and thunderbird tells you that idk, but you can query it w/ openssl.

(echo "? CAPABILITY"; sleep 3) | openssl s_client -crlf -connect imap.gmail.com:993 |& grep CAPABILITY

The sleep in there will keep the connection open so the server has a chance to respond and this queries gmail, you'll have to replace server and in doubt also the port.

Where can I change this?

The mail settings, I presume.
Idk whether thunderbird allows you to configure this but apparently it was at one point called push emails, https://superuser.com/questions/1066596 … ifications

Beemo · 2026-01-04 00:55:01

If it's a network problem, you could also try a packet dump (Wireshark / tcpdump) when it happens and try to spot the problem.

Last edited by Beemo (2026-01-04 00:55:28)

styx00 · Yesterday 20:49:47

I have the exact same problem and it's driving me nuts. When I open Thunderbird the first email is sent right away. If I try to send another email after a few minutes it just hangs. This happens when I try to send email from Hotmail to Gmail and / or from O365 to Hotmail/gmail. I haven't tried other mail providers.

I also tried disabling ipv6 via network manager but no dice.

The only workaround I found is to change the value of mailnews.tcptimeout from 60 to 300. This increase the timeout value and the email is eventually sent, but it takes some time so it's not ideal.

Arch Linux

#51 2025-12-18 16:49:36

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#52 2025-12-19 09:32:21

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#53 2025-12-19 20:58:17

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#54 2025-12-19 22:34:56

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#55 2025-12-20 19:28:11

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#56 2025-12-21 09:00:53

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#57 2025-12-21 17:28:36

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#58 2025-12-21 17:43:24

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#59 2025-12-21 20:13:01

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#60 2025-12-22 18:58:42

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#61 2025-12-22 19:08:33

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#62 2025-12-22 19:23:48

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#63 2025-12-23 11:21:34

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#64 2026-01-04 00:55:01

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

#65 Yesterday 20:49:47

Re: Thunderbird - I have to restart networkmanager every time

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