Closed Bug 1653168 Opened 4 years ago Closed 4 years ago

Thunderbird 78.0 message reading pane is always blank.

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Message Reader UI, defect, P1)

Tracking

(thunderbird_esr78+ fixed, thunderbird79 affected, thunderbird80 fixed)

RESOLVED FIXED
Thunderbird 80.0
Tracking Status
thunderbird_esr78 + fixed
thunderbird79 --- affected
thunderbird80 --- fixed

People

(Reporter: gerardr, Assigned: mkmelin, NeedInfo)

References

Details

(Keywords: regression, regressionwindow-wanted, Whiteboard: [workaround: comment 15])

Attachments

(9 files)

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0

Steps to reproduce:

I download and installed this release:

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/78.0/linux-x86_64/en-US/thunderbird-78.0.tar.bz2

Then ran it against the 68.10 profile, highlighted a message and then pressed F8.

Actual results:

The message preview pane opened, but was empty, not even the normal menu items were shown.

Expected results:

Minimal headers, menu items and message body should have been displayed.

Anything in Tools > error console ?

Blocks: tb78found
Component: Untriaged → Message Reader UI
Flags: needinfo?(gerardr)

Also, does the message display if you open it in its own window?

There are some things in the error console, and I'm attaching a capture of the error console window, plus a text file with all the errors expanded and the text copied.

When highlighting a message, neither the message preview pane nor the 'Open Message in New Tab' menu item display the message headers or contents.

However, as you suggested, 'Open Message in New Window' does display the message. I'm attaching a screenshot of that as well.

Flags: needinfo?(gerardr)

In case it's relevant/useful, I should also add that I'm using a Socks5 proxy that's setup using the most recent Open SSH release.

Same here (Thunderbird 78.0):

  • Message preview pane doesn't display message headers or contents
  • New tab doesn't display message headers or contents
  • New window does display message headers or contents

I disabled every plugin but a provider for google calendar.
Affects all messages: different mail providers (all IMAP) and local folders.
No proxy is used.

To test a fix:

  1. download and extract https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/api/queue/v1/task/WAxn9pUkSVix7EHar9_6PA/runs/0/artifacts/public/build/target.zip
  2. Navigate to the Thunderbird directory and run thunderbird.exe directly from there
  3. Please post your results.

After testing, at the point where you want to get back to version 78 or 68, you'll need to use --allow-downgrade at the dos command prompt.

Flags: needinfo?(gerardr)

Sorry, but I'm using the Linux x86_64/en_US version, not the Windows version.

OK, thanks. I did try that, running /usr/local/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird directly.

No change in behavior, still blank on the preview pane, and in the message tab, but OK in the new window.

I did try it with the proxy on and off. Also note that like another user reporting above, I'm using IMAP, and my messages all reside on the remote server.

Sorry.

Hi. Thanks for looking into that.
I've tried the Windows version on Windows 10 (1909).

I copied my profile, extracted target.zip and called
D:\thunderbird_test\thunderbird.exe -profile D:\thunderbird_data\6ma85ax6.default

Unfortunately nothing has changed.

  • Message pane: blank
  • New tab: blank
  • New window: ok

I have the same Problem on Windows 10 Home Build 19041. Mail Content only shown in Window.

We maybe have related reports in support forums. Working solution could be to use safe mode once with the additional option to reset all toolbars and deactivate add-ons. After doing this, normal startup was possible and the message preview works as expected.

Confirming based on multiple reports.

So something in the profile is affecting this. Speculatively, a regression. NI Magnus to assign.

Severity: -- → S2
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Flags: needinfo?(mkmelin+mozilla)
Whiteboard: [workaround: comment 15]

We can't fix until we find the cause. If indeed running in safe-mode fixes it, sounds like an add-on is the cause.

Flags: needinfo?(mkmelin+mozilla)

Of course, but please at least CC a developer now who can advise us, since you won't be here next week.

Flags: needinfo?(mkmelin+mozilla)

Indeed running safe-mode with reseting toolbars and deaktivate add-ons fixed the little problem on my system. The only add-on I remember for sure was a german dictionary.

Thanks and have a great time :)

(In reply to Magnus Melin [:mkmelin] from comment #17)

We can't fix until we find the cause. If indeed running in safe-mode fixes it, sounds like an add-on is the cause.

AFAIK after doing the safe-mode once with the optional things, the add-ons work again. So maybe a cache-problem could be the issue.

My serious concern is that even when we identify the cause, that it will take some time to issue a fix or whatever is needed (again reminding everyone that we must contend with summertime PTOs).

And based on what we know now (which is we don't know enough) that this will very negatively affect 78.2 when we will be enabling automatic updates.

(In reply to Gerard A. Robinson from comment #0)

Created attachment 9163935 [details]
Thunderbird78blankPreviewPane.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0

Steps to reproduce:

I download and installed this release:

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/78.0/linux-x86_64/en-US/thunderbird-78.0.tar.bz2

Then ran it against the 68.10 profile, highlighted a message and then pressed F8.

Actual results:

The message preview pane opened, but was empty, not even the normal menu items were shown.

Expected results:

Minimal headers, menu items and message body should have been displayed.

I don't know if it would help---as it's looking to be profile related---but any chance you could test with https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/78.0.1/linux-x86_64/en-US/thunderbird-78.0.1.tar.bz2?

(In reply to Markus Brehm from comment #14)

I have the same Problem on Windows 10 Home Build 19041. Mail Content only shown in Window.

I'm on 19041 and not seeing this.

On Linux, I tried several things in a process of elimination, by moving aside my .thunderbird directory as .thunderbird.68.10, copying it recursively back to .thunderbird, and then doing various hacky bits of cleanup.

Long story short, removing the file 'xulstore.json' was all that was needed to allow the preview pane and new tab to display the message. There was even an extension present and working (a toggle preview pane one, by "dillinger").

I'm doing a little bit more, pretty-printing the file and removing select definitions. If I find something, I'll post it back here.

Attached file xulstore.json

Additional note, I was testing with the 78.0.1 Linux, x86_64, en_US version suggested above.

I'm attaching the faulty xulstore.json file (pretty-printed) in case that helps.

Can someone clear the needinfo flag for me, please. Every time I try to clear it, it comes back set. Thanks!

Flags: needinfo?(gerardr)

OK, looking at the xulstore.json file that's created when none exists, I removed the matching entries from the 68.10 xulstore.json before starting 78.0.1. The preview pane and open in tab then work as expected. The two entries are:

"chrome://messenger/content/messenger.xhtml"
"chrome://messenger/content/messengercompose/messengercompose.xhtml"

Narrowing it down more, removing only the messenger.xhtml entry from the 68.10 xulstore.json file also lets the the preview pane and open in tab work as expected.

I'm attaching the content of that entry so that it can be compared against the entry in the 68.10 xulstore.json attached earlier.

Did I get that right, attachment 9165686 [details] is the xulstore.json causing a problem if I have it in a 68 profile and upgrade to 78?

68 wouldn't have a messenger.xhtml entry (or any xhtml entry at all), so I don't understand what comment 28 and 29 are about.

(In reply to Magnus Melin [:mkmelin] from comment #30)

Did I get that right, attachment 9165686 [details] is the xulstore.json causing a problem if I have it in a 68 profile and upgrade to 78?

68 wouldn't have a messenger.xhtml entry (or any xhtml entry at all), so I don't understand what comment 28 and 29 are about.

Correct. That attachment came from what I thought was (tried to keep) a clean 68.10 profile. It appears to have been tainted by the original 78.0 code use.

So, removing that xulstore.json file allowed the 78.0.1 release to have both the preview pane and open in new tab work. Later, I determined that removing just the messenger.xhtml entry allowed both the preview pane and open in new tab to work.

I went back to a June 29th backup for the Thunderbird profile and tried again. That was TB 68.9, so I ran 68.10 against the profile, and verified that indeed, no '.xhtml' entries were present, as you stated. I then backed that 68.10 profile up to a tar file.

Then, using the 68.9 profile newly updated to 68.10, I ran the TB 78.0.0 release and confirmed that it added three '.xhtml' entries to xulstore.json, and that indeed 'preview pane' and 'open in new tab' both resulted in empty panes.

I then removed my '.thunderbird' directory and restored the 68.10 profile I'd just backed up. I ran the TB 78.0.1 release against that profile and can again confirm that 'preview pane' and 'open in new tab' both resulted in empty panes. I pretty-printed the xulstore.json file, removed the chrome://messenger/content/messenger.xhtml entry, and ran the TB 78.0.1 release to see filled in preview panes and message tabs. I've backed up that newly (re)created 78.0.1 profile, just in case.

I went back to the 68.10 profile, ran the TB 68.10 release and removed my one legacy extension (Lightning and WeTransfer were both left in), and exited verifying that my one extension was now in the extensions/staged directory (which I then removed). Launching the TB 78.0.1 release still resulted in blank preview and message tab panes, with removing 'xulstore.json' fixing it as before.

Looks like the initial generation of the messenger.xhtml entry gets munged going from 68.10 -> 78.x maybe depending upon something else, don't really know. Let me know if you want some content uploaded.

Note to self: https://searchfox.org/comm-central/rev/eb69eff3ca16509af6cf8f2dd29be396bebbc14d/mail/base/modules/MailMigrator.jsm#405 is wrong, but should not cause problems (other than not migrating persistent items for the standalone msg window)

Thanks for the xulstore.json, with that I can reproduce the problem, by putting it in a 68 profile and upgrading to 78.

I suspect the problem is caused by having the ToggleMessagePane installed in 68. This persists messagepanebox and messagepaneboxwrapper "collapsed": "true" which will mean those permanently not shown. I'm assuming the add-on (while working) is toggling these as needed.

That add-on has very little usage though: https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/toggle-message-pane/

For the actual solution of the problem, not sure what we should do in general. For this specific case I guess we could just skip migrating the known problem cases.

Force the problematic values to be set to false

Assignee: nobody → mkmelin+mozilla
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Flags: needinfo?(mkmelin+mozilla)
Attachment #9165873 - Flags: review?(khushil324)

OK, thanks for the patch. I'm guessing, though, that it's not just the various toggle message pane extensions, but also the use of the 'F8' key shortcut to toggle the message pane on/off that puts those entries in the messenger.xul/xhtml entries in various versions, no?

Priority: -- → P1
Attachment #9165873 - Flags: feedback+

(In reply to Magnus Melin [:mkmelin] from comment #36)

No, that uses other code - https://searchfox.org/comm-central/rev/eb69eff3ca16509af6cf8f2dd29be396bebbc14d/mail/base/content/commandglue.js#295

OK, but both eventually get down to using ChangeMessagePaneVisibility(), right?

It's really not worth continuing this side discussion, though, as the issue has been addressed, thanks! I was just thinking that it was potentially a more widespread issue than just the users of the various "button-for-function" extensions, since there's also a function key shortcut.

Thanks again!

Comment on attachment 9165873 [details] [diff] [review]
bug1653168_msg_pane_blank.patch

Review of attachment 9165873 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Looks good to me. r=khushil
Attachment #9165873 - Flags: review?(khushil324) → review+
Target Milestone: --- → Thunderbird 80.0

Pushed by kaie@kuix.de:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/94e3760bbc84
ensure an (add-on) persisted collapse=true value for message pane is not restored. r=khushil

Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 4 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED

I realized this could be a slightly better fix (just remove the value)

Attachment #9166120 - Flags: review?(khushil324)
Comment on attachment 9166120 [details] [diff] [review]
bug1653168_messagepane_v2.patch

Review of attachment 9166120 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Looks good to me. r=khushil
Attachment #9166120 - Flags: review?(khushil324) → review+

Pushed by geoff@darktrojan.net:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/8830963d1624
Better fix to ensure an (add-on) persisted collapse=true value for message pane is not restored. r=khushil DONTBUILD

Comment on attachment 9166120 [details] [diff] [review]
bug1653168_messagepane_v2.patch

[Approval Request Comment]
Regression caused by (bug #): an add-on
User impact if declined: can't read mail in 3pane
Testing completed (on c-c, etc.): landed on c-c
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky): this is a low risk patch
Attachment #9166120 - Flags: approval-comm-esr78?
Attachment #9166120 - Flags: approval-comm-beta?
Attachment #9165873 - Flags: approval-comm-esr78?
Attachment #9165873 - Flags: approval-comm-beta?

Screen shot showing an example of the blank preview pane today, after my 3rd reinstall of T-bird 78.0.1 32 bit today, 7/28/20 on my HP Compaq Elite 8300 Small Form Factor running Windows 10. When selecting an email for display the body won't display on that screen either.
The problem does not manifest on my Dell 3135 Inspiron laptop running Windows 8.1 with the same T-bird rev.

Flags: needinfo?(mkmelin+mozilla)

We have not shipped it to 78.0.1 yet. You can test it on the Thunderbird Daily if this issue is resolved or not.

(In reply to Chuck Lindeberg from comment #45)

Created attachment 9166682 [details]
T-Bird - 2020-07-28 16_19_56-Window.png

Screen shot showing an example of the blank preview pane today, after my 3rd reinstall of T-bird 78.0.1 32 bit today, 7/28/20 on my HP Compaq Elite 8300 Small Form Factor running Windows 10. When selecting an email for display the body won't display on that screen either.
The problem does not manifest on my Dell 3135 Inspiron laptop running Windows 8.1 with the same T-bird rev.

A quick work-around is to exit Thunderbird, remove the 'xulstore.json' file from the profile, start-up Thunderbird and rearrange a few things back to how you like them. The xulstore.json file can be found, generally, here:

/Users/YourUserName/AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/xxxxxxxx.default/xulstore.json

of course substituting for 'YourUserName' and the 'xxxxxxxx' in the Thunderbird profile name. There's some instructions on the web to open the profile directory from within Thunderbird itself, then exit Thunderbird.

(In reply to Khushil Mistry [:khushil324] from comment #46)

We have not shipped it to 78.0.1 yet. You can test it on the Thunderbird Daily if this issue is resolved or not.

Are you sure? It's shown as the current version on thunderbird.net as of July 21.

(In reply to Arthur K. from comment #49)

(In reply to Khushil Mistry [:khushil324] from comment #46)

We have not shipped it to 78.0.1 yet. You can test it on the Thunderbird Daily if this issue is resolved or not.

Are you sure? It's shown as the current version on thunderbird.net as of July 21.

Version 78.0.1 was released prior to the creation of the patch; i.e. the patch has not made it into a release yet, although it might be in the nightlies. If you scroll up through this bug's comments, the target release for this bug's patch is 80.0, although I do hope it makes it into 78.1 or 78.2.

Again, there's the work-around described above for having 78.0.1 work; remove (or rename) the xulstore.json file so a new one is created. The instructions for opening the profile directory from within Thunderbird itself are mostly associated with the creation or editing of a userChrome.css file (for customizations).

78.0.1 doesn't have the fix. The fix would be in 78.1 (maybe), or later depending on approvals

Flags: needinfo?(mkmelin+mozilla)
Comment on attachment 9165873 [details] [diff] [review]
bug1653168_msg_pane_blank.patch

Approved for beta
Attachment #9165873 - Flags: approval-comm-beta? → approval-comm-beta+
Comment on attachment 9166120 [details] [diff] [review]
bug1653168_messagepane_v2.patch

Approved for beta
Attachment #9166120 - Flags: approval-comm-beta? → approval-comm-beta+
Comment on attachment 9166120 [details] [diff] [review]
bug1653168_messagepane_v2.patch

[Triage Comment]
Approved for esr78
Attachment #9166120 - Flags: approval-comm-esr78? → approval-comm-esr78+
Comment on attachment 9165873 [details] [diff] [review]
bug1653168_msg_pane_blank.patch

[Triage Comment]
Approved for esr78
Attachment #9165873 - Flags: approval-comm-esr78? → approval-comm-esr78+

I can confirm the presence of this bug for Mozilla 91.5.0, 64 bits. Windows 10.

(In reply to jgratero from comment #59)

I can confirm the presence of this bug for Mozilla 91.5.0, 64 bits. Windows 10.

Then perhaps you need to file a new bug report. This was fixed in V78 some 2 years ago and no further action will be taken on this report.

Summary: Thunderbird 78.0 message preview pane is always blank. → Thunderbird 78.0 message reading pane is always blank.

(In reply to jgratero from comment #59)

I can confirm the presence of this bug for Mozilla 91.5.0, 64 bits. Windows 10.

Did you try the workaround in Comment 47?

(In reply to Gerard A. Robinson from comment #61)

(In reply to jgratero from comment #59)

I can confirm the presence of this bug for Mozilla 91.5.0, 64 bits. Windows 10.

Did you try the workaround in Comment 47?

Additionally, how does it behave in Safe Mode?

(In reply to Arthur K. [He/Him] from comment #62)

(In reply to Gerard A. Robinson from comment #61)

(In reply to jgratero from comment #59)

I can confirm the presence of this bug for Mozilla 91.5.0, 64 bits. Windows 10.

Did you try the workaround in Comment 47?

Additionally, how does it behave in Safe Mode?

It behaves the same in safe mode, only instead of a blank message pane it shows a black message pane (system preferences)

(In reply to jgratero from comment #59)

I can confirm the presence of this bug for Mozilla 91.5.0, 64 bits. Windows 10.
It behaves the same in safe mode, only instead of a blank message pane it shows a black message pane (system preferences)

I presume the black message pane is still blank.

Did you do this:
Menu app icon > Help > More Troubleshooting Information
Under 'Application Basics' section - half way down - Profile Folder - click on 'Open Folder'
A new window opens showing contents of the profile name folder.

Exit Thunderbird now - this is important.

In profile name folder - Scroll down locate and delete this file: xulstore.json

Start Thunderbird.

Flags: needinfo?(jgratero)
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