1235934 - Thunderbird 38.5.0 won't startup (folder contents not displayed) after Thunderbird update with Lightning installed

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1211291

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[davehooper]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/47.0.2526.106 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

Simply updates from 38.4 to 38.5 (auto update).


Actual results:

After install 38.5 wants me to create a new email account. All my account data is there in my profile. Go back to 38.4 and all is ok.


Expected results:

Should have started normally using my profile data.

Comment 1

[davehooper]

I'm running Windows 10 - 64 bit. Been using TB for years. First time an update ever failed on me like this. I restarted TB. I restarted Windows and then TB. Same thing. It somehow forgets I already have a profile. And yet Tools -> Account Settings shows all my data there as it always has.

So.... All I see is the "New Account" screen. Can't select anything in the Folder Pane.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Please post a screen shot.
And, does problem go away if you start thunderbird in safe mode?
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/safe-mode

Comment 3

[davehooper]

I will provide that info tomorrow. Too late tonight here.

Comment 4

[davehooper]

Attachment: TB 38.5.jpg

This is the startup screen when I run TB 3.5. As you can see there is no Help menu item. Hence I'm unable to restart TB is Safe Mode.

Everyone has seen this screen the very first time they run TB. Its detecting there is no profile yet. The Folder Pane is 'dead'. It can't me to tell it about my account.

See my next comment.

Comment 5

[davehooper]

Attachment: tb 38.5 Account Settings.jpg

Here is what shows up (under TB 38.3) for Tools -> Account Settings

Comment 6

[davehooper]

I'm assuming that TB 38.5 thinks I have no TB Profile. If TB is determining this from a Registry entry then if tell me where that entry might be I can send you the contents of that Registry entry.

Comment 7

[davehooper]

Mistype in my 2015-12-31 06:21:06 PST comment. Should read "shows up (under TB 38.5) for...

Also in the comment before that one... "It can't me to tell it about my account" should read " It wants me to tell it about my email account data".

Comment 8

[davehooper]

In the attachment in comment 2015-12-31 06:19:12 PST you will notice it says I have 2 unread emails in my Inbox. That is in fact true. When I started up TB 38.4 this morning I received two new emails. I didn't read them. I exited 38.4 and uninstalled it. Then installed 38.5 again and started that up. That attachment shows that somehow 38.5 is picking up my Inbox from my Profile. And yet if I click on my Inbox folder, nothing happens.

Very strange.

Comment 9

[davehooper]

Final comment... When I uninstall 38.5 and then reinstall 38.4 I get the message that the Add On Lightning 4.0.5 is incompatible with that version. Be that as it may, I do not get that message when I install 38.5.

I have now removed the above Add On under 38.4 and will now go through the process of uninstalling it and reinstalling 38.5. Will get back to tell you what happened.

Comment 10

[davehooper]

Bingo. Success.

With Lightning 4.0.5 removed under TB 38.4, uninstalling TB 38.4 and then installing TB 38.5 it comes up perfectly.

Might not be considered a 'bug' but at least you now have something you can get your hooks into.

Have a nice New Years Eve.

Comment 11

[davehooper]

Last comment... After installing TB 38.5 I added the Add on Lightning 4.0.4.1.
 
It and TB 38.5 get along.

Comment 12

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(better summary)

This is related to other reports that are gathered in bug 1215828. For example bug 1196666

Meaning this will probably happen to you again in a future update. 
So let's leave this report open.

Comment 13

[Sean M. Pappalardo]

Some of my users just experienced this again in 38.5.0 with Lightning 4.0.4.1 on Windows 7 32-bit. Thunderbird's menus wouldn't even work, so I had to manually rename the Lightning UUID folder in the user's profile directory, then install it in Add-ons again which worked fine.

Comment 14

[davehooper]

Not being part of the Mozilla team this is about the only thing I can say.

It sounds to me that the 'problem' here is in the Thunderbird installation package. TB 38.4's package obviously detected my version of Lightning was incompatible and disabled it. TB 38.5's package didn't pick up on it - even though my Lightning was disabled - and somehow set up a confused TB 38.5. And leaving the user with no way to disable / remove the Add On.
 
Sounds like TB 38.5 isn't the problem. Its its install package.

Comment 15

[Kent James (:rkent)]

Dave and Sean, please report how your profiles are managed, like what kind of file system they are on. Are these synchronized somehow by the operating system, say using roaming profiles? The current theory of this problem (which we have not been able to reproduce) is that it results from a sync error by the operating system during updates.

Comment 16

[davehooper]

My disk is formatted as NTFS. My Thunderbird Profile data is recorded both under Local and Roaming. I can't tell which Profile is the relevant one.

Comment 17

[Sean M. Pappalardo]

The user's PCs use NTFS file systems and roaming profiles on a domain. Now that you mention it, I have one user who is disconnected (so uses the local copy of his roaming profile) most of the time and he doesn't experience this problem.

Comment 18

[davehooper]

Errata to my Comment #16. I can confirm my TB Profile is for sure under Roaming.

Comment 19

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to davehooper from comment #18)
> Errata to my Comment #16. I can confirm my TB Profile is for sure under
> Roaming.

What Kent means by roaming, is are you using Windows roaming, whereby when you login into windows, it gets your data from a file share on a file server that is maintained by your origanization?

Also, can we test version 45 please?
- make a backup of your profile [1]
- upgrate to version 45 at help | about
- if you see the problem, make another backup of your profile

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb#w_backing-up-a-profile

Comment 20

[davehooper]

I can confirm the symptoms have gone away with TB version 38.7.2

Thanks.

Comment 21

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to davehooper from comment #20)
> I can confirm the symptoms have gone away with TB version 38.7.2

I would not necessarily expect with 38.7.2. It is the update to veriosn 45 that is of interest. (steps in comment 19)

Also, can you please answer the question about roaming?  Thanks.

Comment 22

[davehooper]

Please see my comment #18 (Dec 31, 2015). I am operating under Roaming.

Comment 23

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to davehooper from comment #22)
> Please see my comment #18 (Dec 31, 2015). I am operating under Roaming.

(Yes, I understand that) But *Every* Windows user, including me, has files in those locations. That does not mean that you are using "Roaming profiles".

I'll rephrase. Are you in a corporate environment such that "A user's unique profile is automatically available when he or she logs on to *any* computer on the network"?   reference https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb776897(v=vs.85).aspx

Comment 24

[davehooper]

Sorry. I am not running in a corporate environment. I amd running a single computer at home.

The only thing I can tell is that under TB's Tools -> Account Settings and listed under Local Directory I have this entry... C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\k80l2bf9.default\Mail\pop.broadband.rogers.com

Comment 25

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

This is a confirmed issue in bug 1211291, so let's dup to there