Fix Thunderbird Junk Filter Not Working Anymore
Here is a fix for a problem that I encountered recently on a Windows XP test system running the latest version of the email client Mozilla Thunderbird.
The Junk Mail filter in Thunderbird stopped working suddenly. Mail was not marked as junk anymore and the manual Junk controls (mark mail as Junk or Run Junk Mail Controls On Folder) did not have any effect as well.
This was bad news as the system received hundreds of emails per day with a good percentage of it being spam. There had to be an explanation for this; And there was. Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 had been installed previously on the test system. The security program made use of an anti-spam module which checked all incoming emails for spam. It integrated itself nicely into Mozilla Thunderbird at that time.
After uninstalling Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 the junk mail controls stopped working in Thunderbird. It was an almost sure bet that this was related to Kaspersky being removed from the system.
To verify this assumption the software was installed again. It turned out that the mail filter in Thunderbird started working again after the installation completed (even before a restart) which confirmed that the problem was related to Kaspersky.
The next assumption was that the email client Thunderbird had to be closed before the uninstallation of the security software. It could have been a rights-problem that the uninstaller could not edit Thunderbird related files that were in use on the system.
After closing Mozilla Thunderbird the uninstallation of Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 went through without problems. The important part however was that the Junk Filter in Thunderbird was still working as intended.
To put this in a broader perspective: It does not necessarily have to be Kaspersy Internet Security 2009 that causes those problems after uninstallation. Basically any application that interferes with the junk mail filters can cause a similar problem. Good to know that it can be solved that easily.
Update:
There is another option if that is not working in first place. All you need to do is disable the anti-spam module in the Kaspersky software to disable it before uninstalling the software. This way the Thunderbird junk filter will keep on working after the uninstallation.
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You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!