Thunderbird 102.2.1 released

[German]The developers of Thunderbird have released an update of the email client to version 102.2.1 on September 1, 2022 (thanks to Gerold for pointing this out). It's a bug-fix update that should close a serious security hole, but also fixes a number of issues.

Thunderbird 102.2.1

According to the Thunderbird release notes, this version now includes the ability to specify a command line argument (-calendar) to open the calendar when starting the client. In addition, as a change, buttons to connect automatically detected address books and calendars during account setup are now displayed. There are also corrections of the following errors: 

• Compression of IMAP folders failed when "Mark as deleted only" was set
• Message thread status and sort order were not applied when column layout was applied to other folders
• Folder names with half-width Kana characters were displayed incorrectly
• Digital signing of messages was not disabled after switching to an identity that could not sign
• POP message retrieval was paused after a network error occurred and the connection was restored
• The activity manager did not display the "Retrieve messages" activity when the "Leave messages on server" option was disabled and no new messages were found
• Email quota color was not updated correctly for multiple accounts
• Profile export failed if an expected file was not present
• Spell check dialog could exceed the screen size if many dictionaries were available
• Dragging a message to the desktop caused Thunderbird to hang when synchronized for offline use
• Remove all expired items was not displayed for expired NNTP messages
• Sending messages to encrypted matrix spaces failed in some cases
• Adding a CalDAV calendar on BSD-based operating systems failed due to DNS errors

The developers also mention various visual and UX improvements without providing details. With the new version, there are also various security fixes that eliminate one vulnerability rated as high and others rated as moderate in the previous versions. In the release notes, however, the developers still list two known issues from the previous version:

• The "Get map" function is missing in the address book for physical addresses.
• No separate field "Department" in the address book

I myself am still on the 91 Thunderbird version, as I had problems with the 102. So one should be cautious with the update and backup the profile before.

Reverting to an old Thunderbird version is rejected if the profile is updated (see also). I fell into this trap some time ago. With an updated profile a downgrade is only possible with tricks by starting Thunderbird with the –allow-downgrade option (see also).

The system requirements for the different operating system versions (see here for more details):

• Windows: Windows 7 or higher
• Mac: Mac OS X 10.12 or higher
• Linux: GTK+ 3.14 or higher

The download of the free Thunderbird is available here.