The usual problem is anti virus scanning of incoming email. Have you tried turning that off?

Thank you, Matt, for you assistance. I have not tried turning off anti virus program yet as it is still quite early in the morning here and I make enough errors when fully awake. :) I do have a question for you. Not only do I have Thunderbird running, but the default email program that comes with Windows 10, both accessing the same email account., . The Windows 10 email program works fine with the anti virus program running while Thunderbird does not. My preference would be to use Thunderbird but I do not know how and access to sent mail and various self created sub-folders are a couple of the reasons. Any thoughts?

Matt, I turned off the Anti Virus program and no luck.

In more detail here is what happens with I click on "Get Messages" In the lower left of Thunderbird I see a message saying "emailaddress@PacBell.net: Downloading 1 of 91" This happens after watching Thunderbird log into my email account. Never get any message saying that logging in failed. Thunderbird just sits there while the green status bar in the lower right corned slowly moves from left to right. Eventually the "download" and green bar goes away. No emails down load. No error messages. Nothing

If messages are arriving to the account but not downloading to TB, sometimes it's caused by a corrupted message blocking the download of the other messages. Access the account via webmail and delete or move messages one-at-a-time, starting from around when the problem occurred, and see if eventually the newer messages download to TB.

sfhowes, that was the problem. I moved the oldest non-downloaded messages into a non-system folder and all the rest downloaded without a problem. Then starting with the oldest non-downloaded message I moved them 1 at a time until I found the bad one. That problem is now solved. I will open a new thread for the "new" inbox and trash folders that were added when I tried to rebuild my Thunderbird.