Why do Thunderbird and Firefox hang on return from standby?

In this excerpt from
Answercast #48, I look at a machine that is hanging when it comes back from
standby mode.

Standby crashes

Unfortunately, standby can occasionally be a little bit destabilizing for
some computers.

I say “some computers” and not necessarily “some
applications,” but of course, it’s a combination of the two.

• Standby, or sleep, actually requires support from the computer’s own
  BIOS;

• And many BIOS’ on older computers basically have issues with sleep.

So much so that I ended up training myself to never use sleep because it was
always so unreliable when I came back.

Things like what you are describing (the applications hanging when you come
back from sleep) were common to me and it wasn’t just Firefox or Thunderbird; it
was any number of different applications and occasionally the entire operating
system itself.

Network adapters not coming back from sleep

My guess is, in your case (since you’re mentioning both of these two network
based applications),…my guess is that your network adapter simply isn’t coming out of sleep properly.

You can certainly try getting updated drivers for it… but in all honesty,
my guess is you’re running a slightly older machine with a slightly older BIOS.
It’s probably a function of the BIOS that’s causing these kinds of
problems.

You can also (if you feel like it, it’s important enough to you)… you can
certainly try updating the BIOS for that computer.

Turn off standby

Ultimately, I personally don’t find standby that helpful in most cases. You
can try hibernate instead.

• Hibernate actually shuts the computer down in a completely different way
  that uses much less power while it’s in hibernation.

• When it comes back up, hardware is reinitialized in a completely different
  way.

That can be more stable. I’m not saying that it doesn’t have its own set of
problems on some machines. But, in my experience, hibernate can be slightly
more stable than standby on older machines.

Ultimately, I really don’t have an answer for you. You can certainly try, as
I said:

• Updating the BIOS;

• Updating the drivers for your network adapter.

But in all honesty, it’s very possible that there’s not a whole lot that can
be done here.

Shut down completely

If that’s the case, you can try hibernate or you can simply revert to
shutting the machine down normally and completely, and avoiding the feature
entirely.