1162788 - New mail notifications not always working since bug 858919 enabled libnotify usage on Linux again

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Backend, defect)

Description

[rsx11m]

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #1144693 +++

Initially noticed with SeaMonkey 2.33 release on x86_64 with KDE4, also confirmed for Earlybird 38.0a2:

> http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2921717
> http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=14076713#p14076713
> http://logs.glob.uno/?c=mozilla%23seamonkey&s=15+Mar+2015&e=15+Mar+2015#c638403

When new mail arrives, Inbox gets bolded in the folder pane and the mail icon in the statusbar (SeaMonkey only) indicates new mail. However, no notification appears on the desktop. Some of these reports state that other notifications like downloads finished or from add-ons don't work. So, this may very well be a Toolkit bug, but filing against MailNews Core/Backend first to see if something is missing specific to the comm-central part.

Bug 858919 allows usage of libnotify on Linux again, if available. The underlying code for nsMessengerUnixIntegration::ShowAlertMessage() in mailnews/base/src/nsMessengerUnixIntegration.cpp#318 attempts to submit the message using the system alert service first; if that fails, it falls back to using ShowNewAlertNotification() instead.

Apparently, sending the alert to libnotify is either silently reported as a success even though it fails for whatever reason, or the resulting failure code isn't correctly interpreted and therefore the built-in alert isn't triggered as a fallback.

Note that manually raising an alert shows it correctly as a libnotify desktop notification: (code courtesy of barbaz)
> Components.classes["@mozilla.org/alerts-service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsIAlertsService).showAlertNotification('chrome://branding/content/icon48.png', 'Test', 'This is a useless notice.');

Comment 1

[rsx11m]

As reference for the history of this bug:
 - bug 1144719 introduced a new preference setting "mail.biff.use_system_alert";
 - bug 1144693 was retargeted to switch the default to "false" until all issues are fixed;
 - bug 1152773 was spun off to handle missing information in the libnotify alerts.

Comment 2

[rsx11m]

Cleaning up past versions from status tracking.

Comment 4

[Or Schiro]

After two years, can someone confirm if this is still an issue?

Comment 5

[Ian Nartowicz]

I can't speak for Seamonkey and Thunderbird, but the underlying libnotify issue is still apparently fixed. It is broken in 45ESR and I cannot reproduce in 55. Possibly fixed by bug 1233086, or perhaps bug 1328153.

Comment 6

[Or Schiro]

It also seems to work well for me on Thunderbird 52 on Linux Solus Budgie 2017.04.18.0.

New incoming messages properly show a libnotify notification.

Comment 7

[Michael Heyns]

I've also been using this Thunderbird Daily for a while and haven't experienced the issue.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Thanks for the updates