1317486 - printer properties button doesn't open if multiple instances of Thunderbird are running.

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[cooch17]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/54.0.2840.99 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

I am using T'bird 45.4.0, under Windows 7 (Pro). Unable to access printer properties by click the 'Properties' button.

1\ open up message I'd like to print
2\ select printer (although this step doesn't matter)
\ click the 'Properties' button
4\ nothing happens

Same occurs in SafeMode as well. Also, tried changing 3-4 different 'themes' (including T'Bird default), makes no difference. Also, doesn't matter which printer I select (out of several -- some networked, some direct connect via USB, and the print-to-PDF option). 


Actual results:

Nothing -- properties button does nothing - printer proprieties not accessed.  


Expected results:

Should be able to access printer properties.

Comment 1

[cooch17]

I just tried the Draconian step of completely uninstalling T'bird, nuking any trace of an existing profile, and re-installing from scratch. Brough up an email, and pressed the 'Properties button'. Worked perfectly. The first time. Closed T'bird, and tried the same thing again. This time, after clicking the 'Preferences' button...nada. Same as in OP for the bug report. 

So, something is getting 'set' that prevents T'bird from accessing printer properties.

Comment 2

[cooch17]

So, I know what the problem is, and its very odd. 

1\ start up T'bird -- try to print.

2\ shut down T'bird. But (and here is the problem), even after exiting T'bird, its still showing upo as a running process! Exiting T'bird doesn't terminate the T'bird process!

3\ if I manually terminate the T'bird process, then start T'bird again, printing preferences works *perfectly*.

So, the problem is this:

1\ if T'bird sees another version of itself already running, the 'Printer preferences' button doesn't work.

2\ X-ing out of T'bird doesn't seem to stop the T'bird process, which is what is causing T'bird to think its already running. 

Now, this doesn't seem to happen all the time -- just occasionally. In some instances, T'bird doesn't completely stop running when exiting the program.

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

So the real problem here is that Thunderbird only partly shut down.  
Does it depend on/get worse if you do anything particular in thunderbird before shutting down?
Can you put a rough percentage on it? 
And if you start Windows in safe mode, does the percentage change?

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

reporter email address bounces