Thunderbird, spell checker

[Qqmike]

12.04, using Thunderbird email 24.0. Spell checker works (after typing text, highlight text, and click on Spelling). BUT "Check spelling as you type" does not work.
Edit > Preferences > Composition : Enable spell check as you type

It's checked, it remains checked, but won't work. I have tried un-checking, closing, opening, and checking the box again, etc.

Any ideas about how to make it stick?

[Detonate]

Go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced> and open the Config_Editor. Enter the word "Spell" in the search block. See if mail.spellcheck.inline is set to "true". If not, change it to "true".

[Qqmike]

Good response, Detonate, good info to know. Thanks. Now here's what happened. I realize this is not a unique experience, but when it happens to you, if feels unique. My progress report:

Never had a problem with 'Check spelling as you type' in T-Bird for as long as I've used T-Bird (forever).
But it started about 3 weeks ago: no spell checking as I typed.
Yesterday, composed and sent several emails, the spell-check issue persisted: no spell check while typing.
It persisted this morning.
Then, I posted my problem and question.
I'm gone all day. I come home in the afternoon.
I compose an email and 'Check spelling as you type' is working fine! I had made NO changes on it to make that happen.
I read your response to my post, checked things out, they check out OK.
I play with T-Bird settings, manually (through the config editor) and GUI with the check-box option, turning off and on, opening and closing T-Bird, testing, and everything works just as you think it should, ON and Off according to how it is set.

How did it NOT work for those 3 weeks? (because I DID check the GUI option as I indicated in my OP).

I'll report back if this thing changes on me here somehow (and if it does, I will now check the setting in config editor), but I wanted to post a response back to your good tip on it. Thanks, again.

[Qqmike]

afterthought ...

Unless it is somehow a malfunctioning (optical, wired, Logitech) mouse I'm using. I have noticed for some weeks that when I click to open a program/menu, sometimes it fails to open, or it opens quickly and immediately closes (like on the K Button to open menus, or to open T-Bird or Firefox). The clicks seem to either not go, or they go, hang, reverse (or something). If this happened while messing with or checking my setup menus in T-Bird, maybe that caused this problem (and the apparent strange behavior I think I see). We'll see, as I will pay closer attention now.

[jlittle]

Another thought...

... The clicks seem to either not go, or they go, hang, reverse (or something...

The Blur desktop effect can do that, (in my case and others much worse than you report) and it's on by default in Precise.


Regards, John Little

[Qqmike]

Ah h***. I surprised T-Bird by starting a new email composition (sneak attack). 'Check spelling as you write' did NOT work! Yet, immediately right after that failed attempt, while T-Bird was still ope; in fact, the "failed email" was still open (not sent), I started several other new emails and in every one of them, 'Check spelling as you write' worked. WTH!

[Detonate]

I don't know. I am unable to duplicate the problem.

[Qqmike]

Detonate, heck, even I can't duplicate the problem!
I tested this on several email 'compositions' this morning (FWD, Reply, new email, addressed/unaddressed while writing, etc.), and it works fine on everything I try. Now that it knows I'm watching more closely (and I know some tricks like the Advanced > Config menu), the gremlins will no doubt be up to their very best, sly tricks. But they have no idea who they are dealing with!

Thanks.

[Qqmike]

Darn, doing it again, even though all settings look good. No spell check as I write. Unpredictable, and I see no obvious correlates.

[Qqmike]

back to this red-hot topic that has everyone dizzy with excitement and puzzlement ...

More info: I often leave T-Bird open, all day, for some days (I do not shutdown my PC, leaving it running as long as it will, 7x24x365). Again, this morning, T-Bird was open from yesterday, the "check spelling as you write" failed to work. Then I closed T-Bird, re-opened it, tried again (writing the same email that I tried a minute ago), and this time "check spelling as you write" worked as it should; and it has worked now for 3 emails so far this morning prior to posting this.

[Detonate]

Maybe that's the difference between yours and mine, I shut my computer down every night and reboot the next morning. But I do keep TB up and running all day.

[jglen490]

I know, it shouldn't make a difference, but it does. When I leave my machine on for a few days, things start to act a little weird. By things, I mean normally stable software not being so stable, certain actions within an application not working right, while other actions are just fine. A reboot always fixes everything. Now I try to reboot everyday, or no more than about two days.

Theory: Back in "the day", PC specs were fairly similar, processors were of a single family and there were maybe two families, multitasking was not so prevalent, etc. Perhaps a simplistic viewpoint, but the world of PC computing today is very dynamic, there are P4 processors and multicore processors, virtual machines running next to and independently of each other on the same platform, all using pretty much using the same software environment; and that environment must be flexible enough to do all that. Seems to me it's a hard thing to handle and anticipate all the variables. Sometimes, even machines need to take a deep breath and clear the head (i.e., warm reboot), or take nap (cold boot), and just clear out the environment.

[Qqmike]

Yeah, something like that seems to be going on. That's the only correlate I can see: when I open T-Bird fresh, spell as I type works * for awhile *. Then, after writing n emails, it stops working (unless, again, I close T-Bird and re-open it fresh). And the value of n may be anything: n may be 1, 2, 3, ... but usually n < 5. Sounds like a programming/code issue. Btw, all the settings continue to persist and look OK ('check spelling as you type').

[sparhawk]

It's a bug in Thunderbird 24.0. For me, the first compose is fine, but subsequent compositions fail to spell-check. I can restart Thunderbird to fix.

A better workaround is in the link, but basically, Edit > Preferences > Advanced > General > Config Editor. Search for mail.compose.max_recycled_windows, double click it, and change the '1' to '0' in the 'Enter integer value' window that pops up.

[Qqmike]

Good work sparhawk! That fix is working here. The BUG thread says it's been fixed, but I guess I have not yet rec'd a newer version. Anyway, it's working for now. Thanks.