T'bird a sick pidgeon

T'bird is having all sorts of difficulties.
When I open it to download messages, it seems to just "spin its wheels" with the status (?) bar streaking across the bottom right of the screen for several minutes, and the message "downloading 1 of xx messages." Problem is it seems to be a long drawn out procedure, it it does at all. Often I get other messages such as "mail drop busy", pw not recognized, could not connect.
When I try to send, it also goes into wheel spin. I exit, sign back on. Sometimes I need to back out and retry send two or three times before I can connect.
Anyone with thoughts as to wasup?

Skysarge

 

So was it previously OK or never satisfactory? Works well here on several systems.

 

Several months ago I had similar problems.
After some frustrating times, problem seemed to go away. This popped up a week or so ago

Skysarge

 

I would uninstall and reinstall. It's easy enough to link a new install to your existing TBird message store and address book.