274129 - command-line switch needed to prevent Profile Manager from loading when the invoked profile is locked

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Profile: BackEnd, enhancement)

Description

[tbetz+mozilla]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

Using a new "-NoProfileManager" command-line switch, I'd like to be able to
prevent Profile Manager from loading unless directly invoked.

I'm testing Thunderbird as a POP/SMTP (no IMAP) client in an environment where
users have it installed locally on their PCs with their profile on a file server
on the Windows LAN. Every user's profile has the same name, and it lives on
their home share, which means it is in a different absolute location from every
other user's profile, but has the same drive letter and path (and profile name)
for every user. I then have Thunderbird installed on a Metaframe server, so that
when users log in remotely, they can use the same profile running Thunderbird on
the Metaframe server. 

However, if the user fails to close the local copy on their PC before leaving
the office, the user's profile is locked, and Thunderbird launches the Profile
Manager when the user logs in remotely.  Using the "-p ProfileName" command-line
option, I am able to prevent a default configuration being automatically
created; but if a user forgets or ignores my instructions not to create a
profile, I have to remove the new profile before the user can regain remote
access to their real profile. I'd really prefer it if I could prevent (by means
of a "-NoProfileManager" command-line switch) my users from ever seeing the
Profile Manager.  

Using this desired "-NoProfileManager" command-line switch in combination with
the "-p ProfileName" command-line option, when confronted with a locked profile,
I'd like to see Thunderbird throw up a dialog box stating that the ProfileName
profile is locked, with only a "Close" button that would exit Thunderbird.


Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:



Expected Results:  
Using this desired "-NoProfileManager" command-line switch in combination with
the "-p ProfileName" command-line option, when confronted with a locked profile,
I'd like to see Thunderbird throw up a dialog box stating that the ProfileName
profile is locked, with only a "Close" button that would exit Thunderbird.

Comment 1

[R.K.Aa.]

*** Bug 282780 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 2

[Richard Neill]

Just to help you, you can write a shell script as a wrapper.

Check for the existence of a file
 ~/.thunderbird/*/.lock

(the * deals with the profile salting).

If it exists, it's a broken symlink to the hostname and PID of the running process; if not, the profile isn't locked.

So just check if this file is there; if so, throw an error message to the user (eg with Zenity), if not, continue to start as normal.

HTH - Richard