When activation fails
In short: activation fails for one of five reasons — the add-on isn’t running, no plan matches your Thunderbird email, a Free email-switch cooldown, a disconnected bound account, or the device limit. Find your exact error below for its one-step fix.
These are the five errors we see most often during install. If yours isn’t here, email us and we’ll help — and add it to this list.
”Cannot reach bridge”
Section titled “”Cannot reach bridge””The atbridge.ai add-on isn’t running.
- Is Thunderbird open? Start it.
- Is the add-on installed? Tools → Add-ons. If you don’t see atbridge.ai there, install it (step 2 of Install).
- Is the add-on enabled? Same screen — make sure the green check is on.
- Did you run
atbridge bridge install? Run it now.
Restart Thunderbird once after fixing.
”No plan registered to any of your Thunderbird emails”
Section titled “”No plan registered to any of your Thunderbird emails””Auto-detect couldn’t find a plan that matches your Thunderbird account.
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You haven’t bought anything yet. Visit atbridge.ai — Free needs no purchase and starts a 14-day trial. For Personal or Pro, buy a plan.
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You bought with a different email. Use the explicit form:
Terminal window atbridge license activate --email <your-purchase-email> --key ATBR-...Or sign in at atbridge.ai/account to see which email your plan is on.
”Email cooldown”
Section titled “”Email cooldown””You’re on Free and you switched the bound Thunderbird account in the last 24 hours. The cooldown is to keep one free plan from being shared around indefinitely. Wait, or upgrade — Personal and Pro work with any number of Thunderbird accounts.
”Email disconnected”
Section titled “”Email disconnected””Your bound email account hasn’t been reachable in Thunderbird for a while.
- Check the account in Thunderbird — does it fetch new mail?
- Make sure offline storage is on (see When your AI can’t find anything).
- Run
atbridge license refreshonce the account is healthy.
”Device limit reached”
Section titled “”Device limit reached””You’ve activated on more devices than your plan allows.
atbridge license devices list --prettyOn the device you no longer use:
atbridge license deactivateThere’s a 24-hour cooldown before the freed slot can be reused. Free is 1 device, Personal 2, Pro 5.
Where to go next
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