1229555 - Lightning uninstalls itself on every minor Thunderbird upgrade

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Johannes]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:42.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/42.0
Build ID: 20151029151421

Steps to reproduce:

Every time I install a minor Thunderbird update (e.g. 38.0 -> 38.0.1), Lightning completely disappears. I do not get a notice that it is incompatible with the new version like it happens with major updates - no, it just disappears completely without a trace. It's no longer listed in the add-ons manager and I have to manually reinstall it.


Actual results:

Lightning uninstalls itself.


Expected results:

Lightning should be upgraded or just stay as-is.

Comment 1

[[:MakeMyDay]]

Can you please let us know more information about your environment?

1. Do you operate TB with user or administrator privilidges?
2. Is this a self managed installation or is there enterprise software distribution involved?
3. Where is your TB profile located (also on C:, another local partition or on a network share)?
4. If not located on the same partition as the application itself (probably C:), what file system is used on both locations
5. Is there a folder {e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103} in {TB-Application-Folder}\distribution\extensions\ and that folder is not empty
5. After an update when Lightning has disappeared, what folders do you see in {TB-Profile-Folder}\extensions - especially is there a folder or subfolder named {e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103}?

Probably you can answer the last question only after the next update. If so, please do not update Lightning manually immediately but report back as we probably need the smoking gun for further analysis.

Comment 2

[Johannes]

1. No administrator privileges
2. Self-managed
3. The default location in %APPDATA%.
5. It does exist, and it is not empty. The same folder does currently exist in the {TB-Profile-Folder}\extensions folder after reinstalling it. If it happens again some other time, I will check if it's still there after the upgrade.

This is pretty much a default Thunderbird installation with very few settings changed in about:config, but I've been using this profile for maybe 8 years or so.

Comment 3

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

The first time you started Thunderbird 38 there might have been some notice bar at the bottom with content like: 

> Thunderbird now contains calendaring functionality by integrating the Lightning extension. 
> [Learn More] [Disable] [Keep]

Although the button is labeled [Disable] this will lead to removal of Lightning. Do you remember if and how you answered the question? Can you check your about:config settings and post the value for "mail.calendar-integration.opt-out" and "calendar.integration.notify"?

I think maybe there could be problem if you decided to not use Lightning the removal of Lightning could be applied during every update.

Comment 4

[Johannes]

opt-out is false, notify is true.

I used Lightning way before it came bundled with Thunderbird, so it would be strange if hadn't clicked the "Keep" button back then.

Comment 5

[[:MakeMyDay]]

This is ok, so you decided to keep. Anyway, this pref cannot prevent installing Lightning, it's foremost to control the notification bar. It is not considered throughout addon installation. Do you have

extensions.installedDistroAddon.{e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103} = true

in your advanced prefernces?

Comment 6

[Johannes]

That key does not exist. The only key under extensions.installedDistroAddon is [e-mail].

Comment 7

[[:MakeMyDay]]

That implies you never had a successful installation from distribution folder.

What file system do you use for the partition %APPDATA% is pointing to? NTFS or FAT32?

Comment 8

[Johannes]

It's NTFS.

Comment 9

[[:MakeMyDay]]

Have you once upgraded from a previous version (which?) to TB 38 or was that a fresh installation of TB 38 (which point release?)?

Comment 10

[Johannes]

This has already happened before, the TB 38 version numbers were just examples. As far as I can recall I have not skipped any Thunderbrid updates. I did a handful of OS reinstallations inbetween (last one around November 2013), at which point I always used MozBackup to bring the profile from the old OS to the new one.

Comment 11

[Johannes]

I'm having the same issue again, but on a different installation (also on Windows 7) this time. It happened twice in the last months, I suppose everytime when Thunderbird was updated. This time, when trying to reinstall Lightning from the addons page, it would tell me that I have to restart Thunderbird (that's expected), but after restarting, Lightning was still not there. However, the addons page still listed Lightning as requiring a restart. So I restarted another time, and after that, Lightning was completly gone from the addons page again. This was an infinite loop until I deleted the Lightning folder in the "staged" folder and completely re-downloading the addon again.

Comment 12

[Johannes]

Updating to Thunderbird 45.8 on this machine seems to have nuked the extension once again.

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Johannes from comment #12)
> Updating to Thunderbird 45.8 on this machine seems to have nuked the
> extension once again.

Johannes, Do you continue to see this issue?

Comment 14

[Johannes]

I don't think I have seen it happening in recent months.

Comment 15

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Thanks for the update