Quickcam vs Thunderbird

I recently discovered that if you have a Logitech Quickcam installed on Windows XP, you are going to have major problems with the email client Mozilla Thunderbird.  I’ve been a long time user of Thunderbird and think that it’s a great program to use for email.

A few months ago Thunderbird tried to do an auto update and I got this message:

One or more files could not be updated. Please make sure all other applications are closed and that you have permission to modify files, and the restart Thunderbird to try again

If you click ok, it tries again and fails, bringing you back to the same error, over and over and over again.

There is a quick fix out there that will get you past the problem without actually fixing the problem. For this you just have to delete everything in the Mozilla Thunderbird folder:

C:/Documents and Settings/<username>/Local Settings/Application Data/Thunderbird/Mozilla Thunderbird/

This will get you into Thunderbird but you can count on having the same endless loop come up again the next time Thunderbird notices that you need to upgrade, usually the next time you run Thunderbird.

But what happens if you manually download the latest version of Thunderbird from Mozilla and update that way.  Then you will get this error.

error opening file for writing: mozMapi32.dll

Once you get this error you are stuck, because you cannot load Thunderbird or install Thunderbird. Now it is time for the permanent solution.

Uninstall the Logitech Quickcam software.  Once uninstalled you will be able to install Thunderbird without any problems. If you want to keep your Quickcam software installed you can try to shut it down from the taskbar. Still the surest way to fix this is to just uninstall your Quickcam software. After you have completed the Thunderbird upgrade you can then reinstall the Quickcam Software.

Repeat the above process for the next Thunderbird upgrade.

It appears the culprit in this situation is Logitech. The Thunderbird team has been asked to do something about this but can’t.