I use the Thunderbird e-mail client on Fedora 8 running on an Intel Core2 Duo system. Throughout the day, Thunderbird will frequently become unresponsive and I have to wait for an extended period of time before I can use it again.

What could be done that will prevent Thunderbird from locking up like this?

I have problems like that when i am using imap. the imap server is unresponsive and it seems to lock up the client. check to see if thats you issue. I bet you are getting a mail server host timeout and not seeing the error dialog box.

Is it the problem only with ThunderBird? Try disabling the Desktop effects and see.

I am not using imap. I don't know if there would be a similar problem with POP.
I certainly do not see any error dialogs. Often when this problem happens, Thunderbird is the only application running. I will be away from the computer doing something else, and when I come back to my system to check the mail, Thunderbird will be in its unresponsive state. I would think Thunderbird would be able to display an error messages it wanted to and no other application are on the screen.

I can try disabling desktop effects, and see what happens. There have been times when other applications are running at the same time Thunderbird becomes unresponsive and they are not affected. I can launch new applications when Thunderbird is in this state and they work fine as well. Also, killing Thunderbird and restarting it will make responsive again. I don't often kill Thunderbird as I know that if I wait long enough I can use it again, and e-mail is usually never such an urgent thing that I need to use it right away.

I disabled the GL Desktop effects and I have not seen any problem with Thunderbird locking up, so I think there is a relationship there.

I don't know why it is that Thunderbird is seems to be the only application that has this problem.

No man, the thing is about your RAM. Have you seen how much RAM space Thunderbird takes? Firefox itself takes around 75-80 MB, that's pretty much. And if you are on a lower RAM, it may be a problem, because your GL Desktop effects takes pretty much too!

My system has 2 Gigabytes of RAM. How much RAM should a system have if someone expect to run Thunderbird with GL Desktop?

Actually, I have a, somewhat, similar problem. I cannot play videos in fullscreen mode along with the desktop effects. But if I disable them, they all work fine. I had started a thread regarding this issue. I think a graphics card makes a lot of difference.

My system is fairly new. It is less than a year old. I got a 256 Megabyte nVidia graphics card. I would think that card should be able to handle the GL Desktop effects without having problems.