Betterbird Blog

We've shipped Betterbird 153.4.0esr-bb10 today. Please refer to the Release Notes for full details.

The most visible change in this version is the new context menu on the system tray icon for both Windows and Linux that allows closing the application. It's particularly useful for people using the "close to tray feature".

Other fixes worth mentioning:

• Most importantly, the Tags folder view mode was made to work correctly. This had mostly been neglected after it first shipped in Thunderbird 115 Supernova.
• We fixed and annoying Gloda constraint error logged in the console. Equally we fixed a console error reporting missing localisation resources when language packs were used.
• Plaintext and news users will appreciate that newlines no longer disappear at random while editing quotes.

Release drama is nothing new to the gentle reader, see these posts: [1] and [2]. Here it goes again.

In the post picture you can see how the 11th attempt to build Thunderbird 153.4.0 ESR looks like. Orange test failures, pointing to and mismatch with the upstream Mozilla platform code: Not enough arguments [nsICookieManager.countCookiesFromHost]" nsresult: "0x80570001 (NS_ERROR_XPC_NOT_ENOUGH_ARGS)

Additionally, in this build the Thunderbird folks didn't pin against the Mozilla platform code. That means it's a random non-reproducible build.

The first 10 attempts were complete failures as the picture shows. Red "B"s indicating failure to build the binary package. Paid professionals at work. Can it get worse? It wouldn't be a surprise if our Betterbird 153.4.0 ESR release were delayed yet again.

We've shipped Betterbird 153.3.0esr-bb9 today. Please refer to the Release Notes for full details.

In this release, a few issues were fixed for Linux users:

• The main application window will now be restored to its previous position after the next start.
• hyprland and Cinnamon are not officially supported for "minimise to tray".
• Maximised windows will be restored correctly when "minimised to tray".
• High CPU load on X11 system when Betterbird was "minimised to tray". We fixed a bug in the Mozilla platform code to achieve this.

All platforms benefit from the following fixes:

• When using POP accounts, working offline was interrupted by constant "could not connect" error notifications.
• When saving a sent message to a local Sent folder failed, Retry and saving to an alternative location also failed.
• Minor fixes: Folder name not shown correctly in Windows system notification. Most Recent + Alphabetical folder list not sorted correctly. Window control buttons (minimise, maximise, close) missing when menu bar and windows system title bar were hidden.

Thunderbird 153.3.0 is due on 15st September 2026, but the Thunderbird folks had an issue building it. They basically messed up some important backports, so it needed some intervention to get them back on track. Sounds familiar?

We depend on a correct Thunderbird build, so Betterbird is also delayed. At time of writing, 15th September 2026, 22:53 Middle European Daylight Saving time, the Thunderbird folks are still building their release.