Closed Bug 1675918 Opened 4 years ago Closed 3 years ago

Every update causes Thunderbird link icon pinned to Windows taskbar to change to a blank, non-functional placeholder, and disappear following Windows restart

Categories

(Thunderbird :: OS Integration, enhancement, P3)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
OS Integration
Platform:
x86_64
Windows 10
Type:
enhancement

Tracking

(thunderbird_esr78 wontfix, thunderbird91 fixed)

Status:
VERIFIED FIXED
Milestone:
92 Branch
Tracking Flags:
Tracking Status
thunderbird_esr78 --- wontfix
thunderbird91 --- fixed

People

(Reporter: nickelliott18, Assigned: rjl)

References

Details

Attachments

(2 files)

Screenshot of the taskbar, showing the blank icon
36.99 KB, image/jpeg
Details
Bug 1675918 - Update Windows installer with taskbar updates from upstream. r=paenglab
48 bytes, text/x-phabricator-request
wsmwk
: approval-comm-beta+
Details | Review

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:82.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/82.0

Steps to reproduce:

Allowed Thunderbird to download and install update

Actual results:

The thunderbird icon, which was pinned to the taskbar, was replaced with an empty icon. The next time I started Windows, the icon had disappeared altogether. This behaviour seems to happen most times Thunderbirds updates, and has done for several years at least.

Expected results:

Would it be possible to either leave the icon pinned, or detect that the icon was previously pinned and re-pin it after the update?

Updated from Thunderbird 68.12.0 or a more recent 78 version to 78.4.1?

After my Windows refresh a few weeks back I installed a 78.x version, pinned the icon to the taskbar and did not lose it upon updating to 78.4.1. I can't recall it ever happening.

You can search the Support Site for similar issues.

Component: Untriaged → OS Integration
Flags: needinfo?(nickelliott18)
OS: Unspecified → Windows 10
Hardware: Unspecified → x86_64
Whiteboard: [support]
Flags: needinfo?(nickelliott18)

Update was from the previous 78 version, I believe. I always respond to the Update Available dialogue straight away, so I'm always current.
I've attached a screen grab of what it looks like.
By the way, a slight correction to what I said above - the Thunderbird icon actually switched to this empty one a short while after the update, even though I've not shut down or restarted Windows since the update.

I am having the same issue - the Thunderbird taskbar icon turns to a blank icon. It seems to happen when there is a Thunderbird update, although I have not sat in front of the display to watch it happen. I estimate this has happened approximately three or four times within the last year. Nickelliott18 can you edit the bug summary title to mention that the icon actually changes to one that is blank? It may get more attention for others searching for this bug.

(In reply to larkandmike from comment #4)

I am having the same issue - the Thunderbird taskbar icon turns to a blank icon. It seems to happen when there is a Thunderbird update, although I have not sat in front of the display to watch it happen. I estimate this has happened approximately three or four times within the last year. Nickelliott18 can you edit the bug summary title to mention that the icon actually changes to one that is blank? It may get more attention for others searching for this bug.

Actually, my experience is that the icon changes to a blank initially, I'm guessing because Windows can longer locate the icon, and then following a Windows restart, there is nothing, no Thunderbird icon and no blank placeholder one.

But sure, if you think it will help, I will edit the title.

Summary: Update causes icon to be unpinned from taskbar → Update causes Taskbar-pinned icon to change to a blank placeholder, and disappear following Windows restart

Haven't been able to reproduce and now using version 78.5.1 on Windows 10.

Support is at Thunderbird Help

(In reply to WaltS48 [:walts48] from comment #6)

Haven't been able to reproduce and now using version 78.5.1 on Windows 10.

Support is at Thunderbird Help

It happened again here, following the update to 78.5.1, on 2 separate Windows 10 machines.
Had you pinned Thunderbird to the taskbar, prior to the update?
On both my machines, the icon changed to a blank one following the update, and when I next powered up, I had to pin Thunderbird again.

I have this issue with every single Thunderbird update and have done for at least a year. It feels like every time I reboot, Thunderbird disappears from the taskbar where it was pinned, and invariably it is because Thunderbird has just auto-updated itself.

I occasionally get the blank icon followed by it disappearing, and other times Thunderbird is just gone after a reboot.

This is on Windows 10 64-bit.

Other software (e.g. Firefox) does not exhibit the same behaviour. It's very frustrating having to find and re-pin Thunderbird every time it updates and does not seem to be correct behaviour for a Windows 10 application.

(In reply to nickelliott18 from comment #7)

(In reply to WaltS48 [:walts48] from comment #6)

Haven't been able to reproduce and now using version 78.5.1 on Windows 10.

Support is at Thunderbird Help

It happened again here, following the update to 78.5.1, on 2 separate Windows 10 machines.
Had you pinned Thunderbird to the taskbar, prior to the update?
On both my machines, the icon changed to a blank one following the update, and when I next powered up, I had to pin Thunderbird again.

See comment 1 and comment 6.

What AV software are you using? I only use Windows Defender.

We are using Norton Security Online.

No AV software installed, just the standard Windows Defender stuff.

Glad this is being discussed, as it's a huge annoyance.

Actually, my experience is that the icon changes to a blank initially, I'm guessing because Windows can longer locate the icon, and then following a Windows restart, there is nothing, no Thunderbird icon and no blank placeholder one.

This is exactly the behavior, I've encountered dozens of times now after every auto-update (ie Thunderbird is pinned to taskbar -> update -> blank icon now pinned to taskbar where Thunderbird icon was before update -> if you reboot, blank icon disappears). If you click on the blank icon, Windows prompt appears saying it cannot find the program and asks if you want to remove it, which I do, then open the updated Thunderbird using the desktop icon, and then have to re-pin the new icon to the taskbar. It's weird because Firefox does not have this problem when it auto-updates.

(In reply to mattpazar from comment #12)

Glad this is being discussed, as it's a huge annoyance.

Actually, my experience is that the icon changes to a blank initially, I'm guessing because Windows can longer locate the icon, and then following a Windows restart, there is nothing, no Thunderbird icon and no blank placeholder one.

This is exactly the behavior I've encountered dozens of times now after every auto-update (ie Thunderbird is pinned to taskbar -> update -> blank icon now pinned to taskbar where Thunderbird icon was before update -> if you reboot, blank icon disappears). If you click on the blank icon, Windows prompt appears saying it cannot find the program and asks if you want to remove it, which I do, then open the updated Thunderbird using the desktop icon, and then have to re-pin the new icon to the taskbar. It's weird because Firefox does not have this problem when it auto-updates.

This post isn't going to really add anything other than to definitely confirm the error is occurring during updates. Last evening, TB auto updated to 78.6.0 and I now have a blank icon on the toolbar. Here are some excerpts of TB Troubleshooting Information (Help -> Troubleshooting Information) in an effort to find a common thread:
Application Basics
Name: Thunderbird
Version: 78.6.0
Build ID: 20201211152611
Distribution ID:
Update Channel: release
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/78.6.0
OS: Windows_NT 10.0
Launcher Process: Enabled
Multiprocess Windows: 0/0
Disabled
Remote Processes: 0
Enterprise Policies: Inactive
Google Location Service Key: Missing
Google Safebrowsing Key: Missing
Mozilla Location Service Key: Missing
Safe Mode: false
AND
No Crash Reports
AND
Extensions
Amazon.com
1.1
true
amazondotcom@search.mozilla.org

    Bing
    1.0
    true
    bing@search.mozilla.org

    DuckDuckGo
    1.0
    true
    ddg@search.mozilla.org

    Google
    1.0
    true
    google@search.mozilla.org

    Wikipedia (en)
    1.0
    true
    wikipedia@search.mozilla.org

    Hide Local Folders
    2.1
    false
    hide-local-folders@alexcabal.com

If anyone knows of a particular section of the Troubleshooting Information to post that would help resolve the error, let us know.

Hey everyone, sorry for coming late to the party - it's one of those things where you think, maybe it's my fault or my personal setup...

Confirming. This is definitely happening - I'm seeing it happen on every minor update and it's quite annoying. Wayne, any ideas who's the right person to look into this?

Severity: -- → S3
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Priority: -- → P5
Summary: Update causes Taskbar-pinned icon to change to a blank placeholder, and disappear following Windows restart → Every update causes Taskbar-pinned Thunderbird icon to change to a blank placeholder, and disappear following Windows restart
Whiteboard: [support]
Summary: Every update causes Taskbar-pinned Thunderbird icon to change to a blank placeholder, and disappear following Windows restart → Every update causes Thunderbird link icon pinned to Windows taskbar to change to a blank, non-functional placeholder, and disappear following Windows restart

(In reply to WaltS48 [:walts48] from comment #6)

Haven't been able to reproduce and now using version 78.5.1 on Windows 10.

I would be great to find out what is different between WaltS48 and our setups...

My link (which will disappear on next update) lives here:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar

I'm actually seeing a pile of 14 numbered previous Thunderbird links there (those who disappeared in the past), but only the last one is actually seen pinned to taskbar.

(In reply to Thomas D. (:thomas8) from comment #15)

Confirming. This is definitely happening - I'm seeing it happen on every minor update and it's quite annoying. Wayne, any ideas who may be the right person to look into this?

Flags: needinfo?(vseerror)

Also, I couldn't swear but I'm quite sure I've only seen this happening on TB 78, and not to all the daily links which I have pinned on taskbar. Also, I have another (second) TB 78 link on the taskbar (to a test installation different from default installation) which I believe has never disappeared.

(In reply to Thomas D. (:thomas8) from comment #18)

Also, I couldn't swear but I'm quite sure I've only seen this happening on TB 78, and not to all the daily links which I have pinned on taskbar. Also, I have another (second) TB 78 link on the taskbar (to a test installation different from default installation) which I believe has never disappeared.

I've had this issue for a long time - several years, I would guess.

Don't recall seeing this, but I don't doubt it. I've seen this with a different application.

Hopefully someone else can chime in.

Flags: needinfo?(vseerror)

Rob, any ideas?

Just happened again when updating to 78.8.0 (32-Bit) on 64-bit Win10. Same for last minor update to 78.8.0 (64-bit). Taskbar icon goes blank (as seen in screenshot, with white paper icon) and next thing it'll be gone. It's terribly annoying.

Flags: needinfo?(rob)
Priority: P5 → P3

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1328012

Mike any tips?

Flags: needinfo?(mozilla)

I've reached out to the install/update team on Firefox to see if they have any ideas.

Flags: needinfo?(mozilla)

There's a similar bug on Firefox but no one has been able to recreate - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1495295

See Also: → 1495295

This one should be easy to replicate. I've had the same exact issue with different installs of Thunderbird across different machines over several years.

Always:

Windows 10 with all current patches
64-bit version of TB
Latest release version of TB

Nothing else weird about my setup on any of these machines.

See Also: → 1688389

I just tried with Win 10 x86 Thunderbird 78.10.0 -> 78.11.0. The pinned icon may have flickered briefly, but came right back.
It could be specific to x64?

In any case, patch is coming that incorporates a bunch of Taskbar icon update changes in the installer.

Flags: needinfo?(rob)
Assignee: nobody → rob
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Keywords: checkin-needed-tb
status-thunderbird91: --- → affected
status-thunderbird_esr78: --- → wontfix
Target Milestone: --- → 92 Branch

Pushed by mkmelin@iki.fi:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/a4c5d91d80d5
Update Windows installer with taskbar updates from upstream. r=Paenglab

Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 3 years ago
Keywords: checkin-needed-tb
Resolution: --- → FIXED

Not fixed !
New behavior is that the taskbar Icon no longer goes blank, but still becomes non-functional and Windows asks if you'd like to remove it.
78.12.0 (32 bit)

The "FIXED" resolution just prior to your comment indicates the issue is resolved on the development branch. So yes, you are correct, the issue is not in version 78. You may have noticed that Magnus has notated the bug report to indicate this issue not planned be fixed in version 78. But, I expect it will be fixed in version 91 which will be released in about a month.

Thomas, could you verify this is fixed in Nightly?

Flags: needinfo?(bugzilla2007)

Version 92 fixed and version 91 affected: Should be backported?

Flags: needinfo?(vseerror)
Flags: needinfo?(rob)
Flags: needinfo?(vseerror)

(In reply to Rob Lemley [:rjl] from comment #33)

Thomas, could you verify this is fixed in Nightly?

I think it is fixed. I have just updated my standard Daily installation (3rd egg icon of my lot) from 92.0a1 (2021-07-27) (64-bit) to 92.0a1 (2021-07-28) (64-bit) and the icon remained properly pinned and functional after the update. It was a 5MB partial update, and it even succeeded directly without full update (wrt Bug 1698155).

Flags: needinfo?(bugzilla2007)

No guarantees, but I'd say this is fixed (from my test in comment 35).

(In reply to Uplift Request from comment #34)

Version 92 fixed and version 91 affected: Should be backported?

This bug is pretty annoying and disruptive, so I agree that this would be worth uplifting to get the update UX right. Will set the flags.

Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED

Comment on attachment 9230495 [details]
Bug 1675918 - Update Windows installer with taskbar updates from upstream. r=paenglab

[Approval Request Comment]
Regression caused by (bug #): unknown - see FF bug 1495295
User impact if declined: Thunderbird icon pinned to taskbar self-destroys at every minor update, forcing users to recreate it manually - pretty annoying and disruptive not only in enterprise environments.
Testing completed (on c-c, etc.): yes
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky): Maybe medium, don't know - it's upstream from FF, should work. Probably more risk if we do not take it.

Attachment #9230495 - Flags: approval-comm-beta?

Comment on attachment 9230495 [details]
Bug 1675918 - Update Windows installer with taskbar updates from upstream. r=paenglab

[Triage Comment]
Approved for beta

Attachment #9230495 - Flags: approval-comm-beta? → approval-comm-beta+
Flags: needinfo?(rob)

First time reporting a bug here. This annoying problem still happens for me with every minor update. I'm currently on version 91.3.2. The "blank" icon that ends up in my taskbar after an update is the same as the Windows Notepad icon, but the behavior is the same as that previously described. Sounds from the above comments like this is fixed, but it is definitely not.

This is definitely NOT fixed!
Still happens with every update.
Hovering over the taskbar icon currently shows (10) as the number of iterations of the shortcut still hidden on my machine.
I am also on 91.3.2 (32 bit)
Gotta wonder how many users abandoned the APP after encountering this problem, feels like a newbie killer and should be given high priority if Thunderbird has any aspirations to becoming a mainstream popular tool.
Only diehards like us are willing to tolerate and work around this nonsense. <G>

This bug number is closed. Please file follow up issues as new bug reports so they can be addressed. Thanks.

See bug 1756293.

See Also: → 1778783
Regressions: 1787264
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