1357770 - Bad startup display (theme used, profile shared between Windows and Linux distros)

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Edward Diener]

Attachment: ThunderbirdStartScreenBug pictures

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64; rv:45.9) Gecko/20100101 Goanna/3.2 Firefox/45.9 PaleMoon/27.2.1
Build ID: 20170322223557

Steps to reproduce:

Start Thunderbird


Actual results:

The screen where my e-mail, newsgroup, and local folder should be is completely empty.


Expected results:

I should see my e-mail, newsgroup, and local folders.

I share a TB profile between Windows and Linux distros on a single-user multi-boot computer. On Windows when I first start TB the folder screen is completely empty. After I close TB and start it again, TB correctly shows my folders and operates successfully.

On Linux distros when I start TB the folders show correctly and TB operates successfully.

I have had this issue on 3 computers where I am using the same TB profile, so it is not a hardware related issue.

In Windows when TB does not show correctly the first time I start it up, the menu File | Exit does nothing and the only way I can shut it down is by clicking the Windows 'x' close button.

I have attached screenshots for the first time I open TB under Windows and the subsequent time I open TB under Windows, to show what I am seeing.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Same problem in safe mode? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/safe-mode-thunderbird

If not, then look for an addon to be causing it.

Comment 2

[Edward Diener]

In safe mode the problem does not occur.

After manually disabling all my Add-ons the problem continues to occur. However I cannot manually disable the Appearance | Default ( The default theme ) Add-on, whereas safe mode automatically disables it. How can I tell whether or not this Default Add-on is causing my problem ? What other settings other than disabling Add-ons does safe mode encompass ?

Comment 3

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

(In reply to Edward Diener from comment #2)
> What other
> settings other than disabling Add-ons does safe mode encompass ?
A few: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_mode.

I'd try this on a new profile, start with -p.

Also, I don't think your setup is really supported "share a TB profile between Windows and Linux distros", so you're pretty much on your own since we don't have time to answer support questions.

Comment 4

[Edward Diener]

Nice going. Because there is some sort of bug in Thunderbird you slough it off with "I don't think your setup is really supported", and then you close the bug report as resolved. Of course nothing has been resolved when TB does not work like it should, which is clearly the case when I use it under Windows.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Jorgk is pretty much correct, and offering you good advice. xplatform profiles are not formally supported. Further, if TB works in safe mode than something is amiss in your profile data.  Perhaps the theme issue, which, BTW, safe mode does not disable the built-in default Thunderbird theme. But it will disable user or OS installed themes.

When he says "we don't have time to answer support questions." he means here in bugzilla.  If you need support, that's at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/thunderbird

Comment 6

[Edward Diener]

You have an entire page of documentation about sharing a profile between different OSs on which Thubderbird runs, so how is it that it is not supported ?

I am only asking here that you take a look at a situation which is clearly a bug. I can attach my profile and you can look at it to determine why Thunderbird does not handle it correctly as my bug report says. But if you are not interested in fixing this bug then I am wasting my time reporting it here.

I am a first-rate programmer myself and I know how easy it is for others to close out bug reports when they do not want to make any effort to fix one. This is clearly that case, and the highhanded way this bug report was "resolved" clearly shows that you would rather ignore this bug than attempt to find it what is causing it and fix it.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

"You have an entire page of documentation" - really?  It's hard to talk about"documentation when you fail to cite the location. I suspect you are referring to something on mozillazine, like http://kb.mozillazine.org/Sharing_a_profile_between_Windows_and_Linux   which is a user organized site, not oficial documenation.

I doubt there is any bug report that supports your opinion that this use of profiles is supported. On the contrary see bug 252099, bug 653389.  A larger bug list if you like https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?v4=profile&f1=short_desc&o3=anywordssubstr&o7=nowordssubstr&list_id=13545324&short_desc=share%20sharing&v3=profile&o1=nowordssubstr&j2=OR&resolution=---&resolution=INVALID&resolution=WONTFIX&resolution=DUPLICATE&classification=Client%20Software&classification=Components&v7=profiler%20devel%20search%20tool%20folder&f4=component&query_format=advanced&f3=short_desc&f2=OP&o4=substring&short_desc_type=anywordssubstr&f5=CP&v1=profiler&f6=OP&product=Core&product=Firefox&product=MailNews%20Core&product=Thunderbird&product=Toolkit&f7=component

We're here to shoot you down. Just citing facts as we know them.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

typo  c/We're here to shoot you down/We're _not_ here to shoot you (or anyone) down for no reason/

Comment 9

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Please understand that we have limited resources and no resources to research somewhat exotic setups (although I had a Windows/Linux cross-platform installation myself for a while) and that Thunderbird is a community based project.

We don't have time to analyse your profile, but feel free to bisect the problem and then deliver us steps to reproduce it and we can look into it. What is that brown/beige theme you're using? Does it fail with that theme disabled? Anyway, if it works in safe-mode we're 99.5% convinced that it's not a software problem and you'd have to invest the work to convince us otherwise.

We can also re-open bugs, but this one here is just not actionable right now. While this issue might be the most pressing issue for you right now, we take the liberty to prioritise bugs to get the best benefit for our "normal" users.