Thunderbird 102.7.0 requires manual updating due to a bug

The Thunderbird team has released Thunderbird 102.7.0 to the public. The new version of the open source email and messaging client is not available as an automatic update, but only as a manual update.

The only exception is Thunderbird for Ubuntu Linux, which has been distributed as a snap already.

Reason for that is a bug that affects OAuth2 authentication for Microsoft 365 Enterprise accounts.

The team plans to release a fix for the issue in Thunderbird 102.7.1 and distribute that version automatically again to all installations of the email client. The fix is in testing already internally.

Thunderbird and OAuth2 authentication

Thunderbird 102.7.0 is the first version of the email client that handles OAuth2 authentication for Microsoft accounts differently. The team had to make the change, according to a blog post on the official Thunderbird website, to meet Microsoft's publisher verification requirements.

The project switched to a new Azure application and ID. Some users who use Thunderbird may receive a notification prompt on first run of Thunderbird 102.7.0 that prompts for administrative approval.

If that is the case, an IT administrator needs to approve the client. The team provides the following information on the procedure:

"If you encounter a screen saying “Need admin approval” during the login process, please contact your IT administrators to approve the client ID 9e5f94bc-e8a4-4e73-b8be-63364c29d753 for Mozilla Thunderbird (it previously appeared to non-admins as “Mzla Technologies Corporation”).

We request the following permissions:

IMAP.AccessAsUser.All (Read and write access to mailboxes via IMAP.)
POP.AccessAsUser.All (Read and write access to mailboxes via POP.)
SMTP.Send (Send emails from mailboxes using SMTP AUTH.)
offline_access"

Thunderbird users who are affected by the issue may install Thunderbird 102.6.1 again until the fixed version is released. Progress can be followed here.

Other changes in Thunderbird 102.7.0

Thunderbird 102.7.0 is a security update, but the notes have not been published yet.

The Enterprise policies support Thunderbird-specific preferences now.

The release includes a number of fixes:

• MSF files loss experienced if too many folders were open at startup.
• Windows 7 users sometimes received the error "Another operation is using the folder" when copying emails between local folders.
• Email address pill accepted incorrectly formatted email addresses.
• Uppercase letters in the hostname prevented security exceptions for messages sent using a self-signed certificate.
• S/MIME certificate verification "was prohibitively slow".
• OpenPGP key import failed if the key block had comments with Unicode characters.
• The scrollbar was unusable in the chat conversation sidebar under certain circumstances.
• Deleting events from the Today Pane using the Backspace-key on Mac deleted the selected message instead.
• Changes to localized builds and langpacks, which now use the "comm-l10n" repository.

The full release notes are available here.

Thunderbird users may update the client manually by selecting Menu > Help > About Thunderbird.

Now You: will you install Thunderbird 102.7.0 or wait for the fix?

Thunderbird 102.7.0 requires manual updating due to a bug