Thunderbird won't connect to the mail server on the first startup and I must shut down and restart T-bird sometimes 4 or 5 times for it to connect and retrieve mail. Sometimes I get the message "Connection was reset" or "Connection timed out" or the little blue rotating activity circle just turns and turns in which case I must shut down T-bird and restart and hope for the best. I have checked the system with Avast and Malwarebytes which give me a clean bill of health. I do not have any add-ons or plugins associated with Thunderbird and it doesn't matter if I start in safe mode or not. T-bird is the default in my W7 system and if I shut down T-bird and retrieve mail with Outlook, Outlook connects first time every time without fail so I've concluded that the problem is Thunderbird. I use POP mail on ATT. Also doesn't matter if it is the first startup of T-bird after a system shutdown or not. Any suggestions on where to look.

Thanks -v-