I have a bug in Thunderbird that I have reported to Mozzila Mozilla and they asked that I download and install the version from Thunderbird.net so I get a crash report.
The bug occurred in both Thunderbird 128.7.0esr and 136.0esr after I upgraded manjaro. It causes Thunderbird to crash when displaying an email. However the email does not cause my other installation to crash, or Mozzila Mozilla’s version.
I provided gdb output since there was no crash dump.
What is the best way to install the thunderbird-136.0.1.tar.xz and then revert back to the manjaro version once I have reproduced the bug?
you can install downgrade
sudo pacman -S downgrade
sudo downgrade thundebird
Hi @RonaldDuncan,
It would seem that version is in the AUR:
$ pamac search thunderbird 136
thunderbird-bin 136.0.1-1 AUR
Standalone Mail/News reader - binary version
So I’d say the best way is to install that which will automatically remove the other one:
pamac build thunderbird-bin
(I just tested, and it seems it’ll do the trick.)
To revert back, simply install the one from the repository again:
pamac install thunderbird
But Note:
Both seem to be the same version:
$ pamac search thunderbird-bin -a
thunderbird-bin 136.0.1-1 AUR
Standalone Mail/News reader - binary version
$ pamac search thunderbird -r
[...]
thunderbird 136.0-1 [Installed] extra
Standalone mail and news reader from mozilla.org
You could always do it manually, but I don’t exactly know how. I’ll take me figuring it out first.
Edit:
As others have mentioned, make a backup of you config directory first:
cp ~/.thunderbird ~/.thunderbird.backup
The repo versions are 2025-03-19T12:47:00Z
$ mbn info thunderbird -q | grep -e Version -e Branch
Branch : archlinux
Version : 136.0-1
Branch : unstable
Version : 136.0-1
Branch : testing
Version : 136.0-1
Branch : stable
Version : 136.0-1
Download the version you want to use and extract the archive somewhere convenient in your home.
Navigate into the folder and run the thundbird script (you may want to make a copy of the .thunderbird folder)
cp .thunderbird .thunderbird.backup
They specifically wanted him to use the version downloaded directly from their website.
This can be easily done by downloading it and unpacking in a dedicated directory in $HOME - and then starting it from there.
No need to uninstall the repo version even.
I’d advise to make a backup copy of the whole ~/.thunderbird directory before doing that - going up a version is usually not a problem, but sometimes one can not easily go back to using an older version.
I have been bitten by this when I wanted to use my Arch profile in a Debian install which has a lower version.
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True true. I figured it should’ve been as close to a real-word scenario with a real profile.
The real profile will be used.
That’s why I advised to have a backup of that profile - to go back to when needed.
I’m not familiar enough with thunderbird to know this - I only use it for Cal- and CardDav, so thanks!
It’s one way to “go around” the available repo versions - for Firefox and others as well.
pro: the automatic in-app updates will work, because it’s not installed system wide
con: updates separately from system updates - possibly integration issues
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Thanks Everyone,
Typically I just installed from thunderbird.net, and checked in current version and email is no longer crashing thunderbird using the version that was repeatedly crashing.
My ~/.thunderbird directory is 121 gig so did not copy.
Should have backed up my profile at least so it seems to have lost settings.
BUT the newly installed thunderbird, with no account crashed when I opened email from disk!!
So some success, and need to try and fix my profile to get my email back.
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