1129136 - Component returned failure code: 0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED) [nsIPrefBranch.getCharPref]

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: Instant Messaging, defect)

Description

[Matt]

This error appears in the error console repeatedly,  probably caused by my not having a user name and password for irc.mozilla.org

Timestamp: 4/02/2015 7:43:22 AM
Error: NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED: Component returned failure code: 0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED) [nsIPrefBranch.getCharPref]
Source File: resource://gre/components/imIncomingServer.js
Line: 182

Identified Statement
  get username() this._prefBranch.getCharPref("userName"),

Expected result.  
No error listed

Comment 1

[Patrick Cloke [:clokep]]

What version of Thunderbird are you running?

Is this a new account? Did you just update versions?

What version did you create your accounts on?

Comment 2

[Matt]

Daily. 38.0a1
Application Build ID 	20150203030316

Account would have been created when the chat function was introduced, because I used chatzilla until then.

Cleared the error console this morning and restarted to update Lighning.

On restart there were 103 entries with the error.

I did try cancelling the certificate request from freenode and chat Mozilla instead of feeding then a mail certificate, but that did not change the appearance of the errors.  I must file a bug for that as well I suppose

Comment 3

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

I remember I had the same problem, and reported it through IRC.

Matt, search in about:config for userName, then somethig like mail.server.server7.userName should appear. But for me it was username (lowercase N). Change this n to uppercase and the issue should be solved.

Comment 4

[Matt]

Well that does fix it,  before I close this bug, any idea as to how the invalid username pref actually got there?

Comment 5

[:aceman]

I think, there was a version of chat module when it was first introduced, that produces these incorrect pref names. But it was fixed long time ago.
Maybe bug 736434?

Comment 6

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #5)
> I think, there was a version of chat module when it was first introduced,
> that produces these incorrect pref names. But it was fixed long time ago.
> Maybe bug 736434?

Seems right.

Comment 7

[Patrick Cloke [:clokep]]

Is this an edge-case that we care about or is this WONTFIX? (We could probably migrate the pref in a few lines of code...of course someone would need to write that.)

Comment 8

[Patrick Cloke [:clokep]]

Florian and I discussed this over IRC and decided that this is WONTFIX. It shouldn't happen unless someone has very old accounts (like TB 15-era). We've gotten very few reports (2 or 3) up to this point.