Windows Task Bar Icon Flash Option
Categories
(Thunderbird :: OS Integration, enhancement)
Tracking
(Not tracked)
People
(Reporter: staneck, Unassigned)
Details
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:69.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/69.0
Steps to reproduce:
Just using TB as normal
Actual results:
At some recent point in the past, Tb started flashing the task bar icon when certain tasks complete in the background, I am not sure which tasks those are, but I think it might be updates downloaded/pending to install and new RSS feed items. I have about 20 RSS feeds and my task bar is looking like a christmas tree these days.
Expected results:
I would love to have an option to turn this off.
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Comment 1•6 years ago
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There are some options available in Thunderbird you might be able to use. If you go to Preferences --> Preferences --> Advanced --> Config Editor you will be greeted with a popup that allows you to edit some of the less used, and possibly more dangerous settings.
Once you have confirmed that you understand the risk you can search for "alert" in the text entry at the top of the about:config window. I suspect one of these when set to false will shut off the light show.
Be sure not to delete any of the options, and only change their values. These are all safe options to mess with, but deleting them will cause all sorts of issues.
Let me know when you find the option that slows down or stops the flashing.
I do like the idea of a "quiet" mode that disables alerts or allows only certain things to alert you.
I am aware of the config editor, which of the options with "alert" in the name are responsible for taskbar flashing?
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Comment 3•6 years ago
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I would start with setting alerts.useSystemBackend and mail.biff.use_system_alert to false.
If it doesn't work we might need to find out more from the person that does Windows integration.
I don' t have mail.biff.use_system_alert but I turned alerts.useSystemBackend off and will report back to see if it helps, thank you!
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Comment 5•6 years ago
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(In reply to Stanzilla from comment #4)
I don' t have mail.biff.use_system_alert but I turned alerts.useSystemBackend off and will report back to see if it helps, thank you!
I believe "mail.biff.use_system_alert" is there to enable native Linux notifications for users of Thunderbird on Linux systems.
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Comment 6•6 years ago
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Thanks Walt,
I just tested it and it does stop the notifications from being grabbed by Gnome and displayed as a system notification.
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Comment 7•6 years ago
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What do you mean by "flashing the task bar icon". Do you see this in TB 68 beta?
Windows can make the task bar icon blink orange to catch the user's attention. FlashWindowEx is the API, I think.
I'm always on Daily and it started happening around 1 or two weeks ago. Turning alerts.useSystemBackend did not prevent it from happening. I believe it might be pending/available updates or connection failures that cause it. I'm on a very spotty LTE connection.
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Comment 9•6 years ago
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Oh, that task bar flash notification.
I think see it with Daily on Linux when I'm using another application and an update is offered to Daily. I'm not sure when it started.
I'm not sure it happens with the Beta version, because I'm usually using Help > About Thunderbird to update it.
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Comment 10•6 years ago
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Today 07/13 I only see the Update notification green circle with the white arrow and no doorhanger to download the update with, so have to use Help > About Daily again.
Now updated to 20190712214754
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Comment 11•6 years ago
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Stanzilla,
Ah, yeah there are probably Windows specific notification options I'm unaware of. I could see how a spotty issue would cause it to go bonkers. As you suggested a dnd (do no disturb) mode might be the best solution.
For testing purposes try turning off the auto downloads for your RSS feeds for a day or so. If they have anything to do with the issue it should be obvious. However, it sounds like Walt might know whats going on.
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Comment 12•6 years ago
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We're talking about the Windows taskbar here, not some issue in the TB status bar as reported in bug 1564813 which will be fixed soon, right?
Richard, do you know anything about this?
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Comment 13•6 years ago
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(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2) from comment #12)
We're talking about the Windows taskbar here, not some issue in the TB status bar as reported in bug 1564813 which will be fixed soon, right?
Yes, this is the taskbar icon.
Richard, do you know anything about this?
I see it only blink orange when it wants to update or when where would be a connection error.
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Comment 14•6 years ago
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Okay that might just be it then, I had a TON of connection errors. Is this controlled by flag somewhere?
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Comment 16•6 years ago
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I guess this is a feature request then, it's highly annoying especially with a lot of RSS feeds that tend to bork out a lot.
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Comment 17•6 years ago
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Can you set a different type for this bug? I think it is confirmed now.
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Updated•6 years ago
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Updated•3 years ago
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Description
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