1177371 - Thunderbird stops asking for POP3 password: NS_ERROR_XPC_GS_RETURNED_FAILURE when cert8.db was corrupted

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: Security, defect)

Description

[pgargan]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0
Build ID: 20150511103946

Steps to reproduce:

I'm running Thunderbird 31.7.0 on Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS.

My mail account is POP3. I don't use the password manager, so every time on startup I expect Thunderbird to ask for a password. This has been working for a long time until today.


Actual results:

Now, when I startup, it connects to the POP3 server, sends a CAPA command, and then immediately closes the TCP connection (verified with Wireshark) after receiving the reply. I don't get asked for a password. I set "signon.debug = true" and see the following errors in the Error Console:

Login Manager: Searching for logins matching host: mailbox://127.0.0.1 formSubmitURL:  httpRealm: mailbox://127.0.0.1
Login Manager: No alternate nsILoginManagerStorage registered
PwMgr cryptoSDR: Initializing key3.db with default blank password.
PwMgr mozStorage: Initialization failed: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80570016 (NS_ERROR_XPC_GS_RETURNED_FAILURE) [nsIJSCID.getService]"  nsresult: "0x80570016 (NS_ERROR_XPC_GS_RETURNED_FAILURE)"  location: "JS frame :: resource://gre/components/storage-mozStorage.js :: LoginManagerStorage_mozStorage.prototype._crypto :: line 67"  data: no]
Timestamp: 06/25/15 12:45:03
Error: [Exception... "Initialization failed'Initialization failed' when calling method: [nsILoginManagerStorage::init]"  nsresult: "0x8057001e (NS_ERROR_XPC_JS_THREW_STRING)"  location: "JS frame :: resource://gre/components/nsLoginManager.js :: LoginManager.prototype._storage :: line 98"  data: no]
Source File: resource://gre/components/nsLoginManager.js
Line: 98
Login Manager: Initialization of storage component failed: {}
Timestamp: 06/25/15 12:45:03
Error: this._storage is null
Source File: resource://gre/components/nsLoginManager.js
Line: 323

With various repetitions. The above shows mail server on localhost; this is correct as I use SSH tunnelling to connect. It's been working like this for a long time and packet capture shows Thunderbird performing the initial POP3 CAPA, getting the reply, and then closing the connection. I tried removing signons.sqlite but it made no difference.


Expected results:

Thunderbird should have prompted me for my password and sent that to the POP3 server.

Comment 1

[pgargan]

Fix was to remove cert8.db, as per various forum threads:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1049037

Be good to identify what causes this bug and fix it; it seems to have bitten a few forum users. If it's just file corruption, we should at least test for that and throw a sensible error.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

duplicate?

Comment 3

[Kai Engert (:KaiE:)]

cert8.db used a file format that got frequently corrupted. We've switched to cert9.db which is better.