1777822 - Thunderbird cannot update itself automatically and falsely reporting it is out of date

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[rindred]

Attachment: Thunderbird update error message (screen clip)

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/102.0

Steps to reproduce:

Any time I open Thunderbird

Actual results:

I get a message telling me that it needs to update and cannot download the latest client, shown in a pop-up bubble (shown in attached file). I actually went out and downloaded the latest client (91.10.0 64bit, which shows as current in Help -> About Thunderbird). But once every day when opened, it will display the error again.

Expected results:

After manually updating, it should have stopped prompting to update.

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Rob, can you explain a bit how this might happen, and possible cures?
I recall vaguely there's something like temporary update folder which may need to be checked, too?

Rindred, do you have any *.moz-upgrade and *.moz-delete files in your Thunderbird application directory (typically C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird)?

If yes, you could try the procedure of Bug 1716654 Comment 10:

The application directory is in an unknown state. Here's what I suggest:

• Download the latest Thunderbird installer from www.thunderbird.net
• Delete any *.moz-upgrade and *.moz-delete files from the application directory.
• Run the installer

Comment 2

[rindred]

I could not find any files with those extensions in my Thunderbird folder. I did notice that my update logs do not show 91.10.0 being installed even though it is running this version - it shows 91.09.00 being the last installed update.

Comment 3

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

I can't say what went wrong without seeing the actual update logs.

Set app.update.log to true in the config editor (Settings->General, scroll to bottom) and upload last-update.log to this bug after the next failure? (There should not be any sensitive information in that file.)

On Windows, last-update.log will be in a path like C:\ProgramData\Mozilla-1de4eec8-1241-4177-a864-e594e8d1fb38\updates\D78BF5DD33499EC2\updates. The Mozilla-* directory is shared with Firefox installs, but the D78B*one will only be Thunderbird. Those Ids will be different on your machine.

You can also try disabling the Update Backgroynd Service in Settings. Sometimes it runs into UAC issues.

Comment 4

[rindred]

Here's the contents of the Log file:

Performing a replace request
PATCH DIRECTORY C:\ProgramData\Mozilla-1de4eec8-1241-4177-a864-e594e8d1fb38\updates\308046B0AF4A39CB\updates\0
INSTALLATION DIRECTORY C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
WORKING DIRECTORY C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\updated
Begin moving destDir (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox) to tmpDir (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox.bak)
rename_file: proceeding to rename the directory
Begin moving newDir (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox.bak/updated) to destDir (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox)
rename_file: proceeding to rename the directory
Now, remove the tmpDir
ensure_remove: failed to remove file: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox.bak/updater.exe, rv: -1, err: 13
ensure_remove_recursive: unable to remove directory: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox.bak, rv: -1, err: 41
Removing tmpDir failed, err: -1
remove_recursive_on_reboot: file will be removed on OS reboot: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\tobedeleted\rep12277002-a480-40a0-a5a1-9f8de0b385c9
succeeded
calling QuitProgressUI

Comment 5

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

That's a Firefox update log. The Thunderbird update log will be in another directory under C:\ProgramData.

Comment 6

[rindred]

Despite having turned on logging as requested, I'm not seeing anything new than from May 10th in my folder, but here's the content of the only Thunderbird log file:

Performing a replace request
PATCH DIRECTORY C:\ProgramData\Mozilla\updates\8216C80C92C4E828\updates\0
INSTALLATION DIRECTORY C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird
WORKING DIRECTORY C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\updated
Begin moving destDir (C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird) to tmpDir (C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird.bak)
rename_file: proceeding to rename the directory
Begin moving newDir (C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird.bak/updated) to destDir (C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird)
rename_file: proceeding to rename the directory
Now, remove the tmpDir
ensure_remove: failed to remove file: C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird.bak/updater.exe, rv: -1, err: 13
ensure_remove_recursive: unable to remove directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird.bak, rv: -1, err: 41
Removing tmpDir failed, err: -1
remove_recursive_on_reboot: file will be removed on OS reboot: C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\tobedeleted\rep69a008bf-6b1a-4aad-8618-afdb3c5e9dad
succeeded
calling QuitProgressUI

Comment 7

[Robin Steuber (she/her) [:bytesized]]

(In reply to rindred from comment #0)

I get a message telling me that it needs to update and cannot download the latest client, shown in a pop-up bubble (shown in attached file). I actually went out and downloaded the latest client (91.10.0 64bit, which shows as current in Help -> About Thunderbird). But once every day when opened, it will display the error again.

Expected results:

After manually updating, it should have stopped prompting to update.

It sounds very likely to me that Thunderbird is failing to check for updates. If true, yeah, we can't only prompt you to update when there is a newer one, because we failed to check if there is a newer one. So there is no way for us to know that you are on the newest version.

It's also possible that it is trying to finish the update process of an update that is screwed up somehow, and that's what it's complaining about. A console log would tell us more.

---

(In reply to Rob Lemley [:rjl] from comment #3)

Set app.update.log to true in the config editor (Settings->General, scroll to bottom) and upload last-update.log to this bug after the next failure?

Not entirely sure what's going on here. That pref is to turn on browser console logging. And a browser console log would almost certainly helpful. But then the user is instructed to upload an updater log, which is created regardless of this pref (in part because the updater cannot read any part of the profile, including prefs).

With that pref enabled, it would be useful to see a browser console log. I'd recommend using a filter of AUS: to filter out everything but the update-related messages. I don't actually know how to open the console in Thunderbird. Perhaps it's Control+Shift+J like it is in Firefox?

Comment 8

[rindred]

(In reply to Robin Steuber (they/them) [:bytesized] from comment #7)

(In reply to rindred from comment #0)

I get a message telling me that it needs to update and cannot download the latest client, shown in a pop-up bubble (shown in attached file). I actually went out and downloaded the latest client (91.10.0 64bit, which shows as current in Help -> About Thunderbird). But once every day when opened, it will display the error again.

Expected results:

After manually updating, it should have stopped prompting to update.

It sounds very likely to me that Thunderbird is failing to check for updates. If true, yeah, we can't only prompt you to update when there is a newer one, because we failed to check if there is a newer one. So there is no way for us to know that you are on the newest version.

It's also possible that it is trying to finish the update process of an update that is screwed up somehow, and that's what it's complaining about. A console log would tell us more.

---

(In reply to Rob Lemley [:rjl] from comment #3)

Set app.update.log to true in the config editor (Settings->General, scroll to bottom) and upload last-update.log to this bug after the next failure?

Not entirely sure what's going on here. That pref is to turn on browser console logging. And a browser console log would almost certainly helpful. But then the user is instructed to upload an updater log, which is created regardless of this pref (in part because the updater cannot read any part of the profile, including prefs).

With that pref enabled, it would be useful to see a browser console log. I'd recommend using a filter of AUS: to filter out everything but the update-related messages. I don't actually know how to open the console in Thunderbird. Perhaps it's Control+Shift+J like it is in Firefox?

I had forgotten to update Thunderbird for quite some time, so I just pushed it to the latest version and re-enabled automatic updates. We'll see if the major software revisions have any effect on the process.

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Closing this bug as INCOMPLETE due to inactivity from the reporter.

rindred, if you're able to provide new/requested information then we can re-open this.