755659 - Offline detection with a virtualbox virtual machine doesn't seem to work

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[David]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux i686; rv:11.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/11.0
Build ID: 20120310010757

Steps to reproduce:

I am testing Thunderbird (12 or any other version) on a virtual machine (Virtual Box). For information the Virtual Machine is a Windows XP SP3 and the real machine is Ubuntu. To reproduce the problem, just start Thunderbird on the Virtual Machine. Check that offline.autoDetect is set to TRUE. Then disconnect the network on the real machine.


Actual results:

Thunderbird doesn't detect the offline mode.


Expected results:

Thunderbird should detect that the network is down but it detects that only if you deactivate the inferface on the virtual machine.

Comment 1

[Hashem Masoud]

(In reply to David from comment #0)
Can you try that in the host machine just to see if it works?

Comment 2

[David]

Yes, it works on the host machine.

Comment 3

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Roland you still use virtual box ?

Comment 4

[Hashem Masoud]

(In reply to David from comment #2)
> Yes, it works on the host machine.

Then it seems the type of network connection you use between host and virtual machines is the reason for this. You might want to refer to the virtual machine vendor/developer.

Comment 5

[David]

Furthermore, it doesn't work on a (host) machine with Microsoft Windows 7. Thunderbird doesn't detect online/offline mode. Can anyone confirm that ?

Comment 6

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

(In reply to David from comment #5)
> Furthermore, it doesn't work on a (host) machine with Microsoft Windows 7.
> Thunderbird doesn't detect online/offline mode. Can anyone confirm that ?

It does and does work on vmware. Can you try updating your network drivers ?

Comment 7

[David]

My network drivers are up to date. I tried on two different physical machines and I couldn't get it to work on Windows 7. 
I have two interfaces (wifi and Ethernet). I deactivate the wifi interface and activate the Ethernet interface. When I start Thunderbird, if I unplug the Ethernet wire, Thunderbird doesn't detect that I got offline. 
Moreover, if I deactivate the Ethernet interface and activate just the wifi, when I disconnect from my network TB doesn't detect it neither.

So as far as I am concerned, on physical machines : 
- WINDOWS XP (SP3) : SUCCESS, it works well
- LINUX (Ubuntu 11.04) : SUCCESS, it works well
- WINDOWS 7 : FAIL, it doesn't work at all.

and on virtual machines : 
- VirtualBox (with WINDOWS XP) : FAIL, it doesn't work except if you deactivate all network interfaces.
- VMWare (with WINDOWS XP) : SUCCESS PARTIAlLY, it works but after disconnecting a Ethernet wire VMWare rebuild the network interface after 5sec, so then TB goes online where it should not because I have no access to Internet.

I don't really mind if it doesn't work on virtual machines, but on windows 7 it's a problem. Are you sure it should work on this OS ? Is anyone else experiencing the same troubles than me ?

Comment 8

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

(In reply to David from comment #7)

> I don't really mind if it doesn't work on virtual machines, but on windows 7
> it's a problem. Are you sure it should work on this OS ? Is anyone else
> experiencing the same troubles than me ?

Not that I know of.

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Do you still see this in version 17 or newer? 
If not, please close by setting status to resolved, and resolution to worksforme.
If it fails, please supply additional information.
Thanks

Comment 10

[David]

No it still doesn't work in version 17 and I guess it will never be.

But I don't think TB is responsible for this. It only checks if the network interface is down. But on a virtual machine, even if you unplug the Ethernet wire of your computer, the interface is still up. So TB cannot detect you couldn't go on the Internet.

Comment 11

[Phoenix]

Resolved per whiteboard and Comment 10