I can confirm that turning off pango by setting MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=1 in /etc/environment fixes this issue.
The version is: $ ldd mozilla-thunderbird-bin | grep pango libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 libpango-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpango-1.0.so.0 libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 There is a patch to fix this from RedHat: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=198759 -- keyboard navigation in message faulty https://launchpad.net/bugs/38758 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs