285305 - crash on startup after importing mozilla profile [@ nsNetscapeProfileMigratorBase::RecursiveCopy]

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Migration, defect)

Description

[James Turner]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050225 Firefox/1.0.1
Build Identifier: Thunderbird version 1.0 (20041206)

After installing Thunderbird for Linux, I let it import my old mozilla 1.7.5
profile with my existing mail. It is then unusable, however, crashing
immediately on startup every time.

After some trial and error, I discovered that I can get Thunderbird to work by
commenting out the following entry in my pref.js file (along with the equivalent
lines for server2 etc):

 user_pref("mail.server.server1.directory-rel",
"[ProfD]../../../../../export/home/jturner/nsmail");

The problem seems to stem from the fact that Mozilla's profiles are kept one
subdirectory further down than Thunderbird's, so there is one ".." too many in
the relative path from the old profile. It would be good for Thunderbird to
handle this without crashing! In the meantime, things seem to be working again
for me...



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Make sure there is no ".thunderbird/" in the home directory.
2. Start thunderbird.
3. At the "Import Wizard" screen, let thunderbird import old mail profile from
"~/.mozilla/", including the user_pref entry given above in details.

Actual Results:  
Thunderbird always crashes immediately on startup.


Expected Results:  
I should be able to read my mail, blissfully ignorant of the contents of my
preferences file, like a good end user.


/home/jturner/local/share/thunderbird/run-mozilla.sh: line 451: 29671
Segmentation fault      "$prog" ${1+"$@"}

Comment 1

[Jerel Mackay]

I can confirm.  I had the exact same problem switching from mozilla 1.7.6 to
thunderbird 1.0.2.   It causes a core dump until you remove one "../" from the
"directory-rel" preferences.

However, I believe this problem only occurs if you've *moved* the location of
your mail directories while using mozilla (e.g. when running a standard mozilla
setup without moving these directories I did not have this problem importing
into thunderbird).

Here are the steps I use to consistently reproduce this behavior:

Remove ~/.mozilla and ~/.thunderbird (to start over fresh)
Run mozilla 1.7.6 and setup imap email account.
Edit -> Mail & Newsgroup Account Settings
Select Server Settings
  Local directory: Changed from
     /u/f/r/frida/.mozilla/default/o7flz1ab.slt/ImapMail/imap.cs.wisc.edu
  to
     /afs/cs.wisc.edu/u/f/r/frida/.mozilla.common/mail/ImapMail/imap.cs.wisc.edu
select Local Folders
  Local directory: Changed from
     /u/f/r/frida/.mozilla/default/o7flz1ab.slt/Mail/Local Folders
  to
     /afs/cs.wisc.edu/u/f/r/frida/.mozilla.common/mail/Local Folders

  Clicked OK

restarted mozilla and verified that everything email related works.


Start Thunderbird 1.0.2  and import from Mozilla 1.x
Import wizard says everything was successful and then thunderbird dumps core.

Talkback Incident ID:  TB4918470Y

if you look at the thunderbird prefs.js
you'll see that the directory and directory-rel prefs point to *different*
directories....I believe they should point to the *same* directory but this is
probably a different bug (?)

Furthermore (and this is the part that causes the core dump), there are
one too many "../" in the directory-rel pref, presumably because (as James
already said) mozilla (where this value original came from) has one more
directory in the profile name (e.g.  ~/.mozilla/default/o7flz1ab.slt   vs.
~/.thunderbird/hy18xsz2.default)  and this value is apparently copied
verbatim rather than adjusting for the difference in directory depth(?)   As an
aside, why this relative path insists on going all the way to the *root* of the
filesystem rather than just as far up as it needs to (the user's homedir in this
example) is a good question; a "relative path" that ends up going all the way to
the root of the filesystem isn't really a relative path anymore, is it?


e.g.   relevant sections from thunderbird prefs.js:

user_pref("mail.server.server1.directory",
"/u/f/r/frida/.thunderbird/hy18xsz2.default/ImapMail/imap.cs.wisc.edu");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.directory-rel",
"[ProfD]../../../../../../../afs/cs.wisc.edu/u/f/r/frida/.mozilla.common/mail/ImapMail/imap.cs.wisc.edu");

user_pref("mail.server.server2.directory",
"/u/f/r/frida/.thunderbird/hy18xsz2.default/Mail/Local Folders");
user_pref("mail.server.server2.directory-rel",
"[ProfD]../../../../../../../afs/cs.wisc.edu/u/f/r/frida/.mozilla.common/mail/Local
Folders");

NOTE: again, note that the directory and directory-rel prefs point to
*different* directories.  I don't think this really matters, as the
directory-rel seems to override the other one(?), and doesn't seem to effect
this bug, but this doesn't seem right.

If you look at the corresponding entries from the original mozilla 1.7.6
prefs.js, the directory and directory-rel prefs point to the *same* directory,
as I think they should.  Also, there are the correct number of "../" in the
relative path because the mozilla profile is one level deeper, and everything
works fine:

user_pref("mail.server.server1.directory",
"/afs/cs.wisc.edu/u/f/r/frida/.mozilla.common/mail/ImapMail/imap.cs.wisc.edu");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.directory-rel",
"[ProfD]../../../../../../../afs/cs.wisc.edu/u/f/r/frida/.mozilla.common/mail/ImapMail/imap.cs.wisc.edu");

user_pref("mail.server.server2.directory",
"/afs/cs.wisc.edu/u/f/r/frida/.mozilla.common/mail/Local Folders");
user_pref("mail.server.server2.directory-rel",
"[ProfD]../../../../../../../afs/cs.wisc.edu/u/f/r/frida/.mozilla.common/mail/Local
Folders");


If I take one "../" out of the prefs.js for thunderbird, everything works fine
(even though the directory and directory-rel prefs point to different
directories; it seems to ignore directory and use directory-rel).

Comment 2

[timeless]

bug 262280 and friends, but thank you for the diagnosis.

Comment 3

[Mentar Mahmudi]

(In reply to comment #0)

I have the same problem. Please let me give you some information about my os and
thunderbird.

This is what I get from uname -a

$ uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 #1 Thu Jun 2 22:55:56 EDT 2005
i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

this is what I get from thunderbird --version (I am sorry I cant get the build
information and all of the other infos, If you assist me I would be glad to give
you any info about my system or the version of thunderbird I use.)

$ thunderbird -v
(null) Thunderbird 1.0.2, Copyright (c) 2004 mozilla.org

I followed the 'thunderbird dual install' at
http://www.plaintivemewling.com/?p=20 After running thunderbird -profilemanager
I got the following error:

$ thunderbird -profilemanager
/usr/lib/thunderbird-1.0.2/run-mozilla.sh: line 159:  5084 Segmentation fault  
   "$prog" ${1+"$@"}

This is my first bug report. If there is anything you would like me to add,
please let me know. 

Have a good day
Mentar

Comment 4

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

I saw this today on mac using version 1.5 Beta 2 (20051006), noticed this while
testing software update.

1. With a fresh profile, launch Tbird 1.5b2.
2. Select the radio button to import from Netscape 6/7 or Mozilla 1.x
3. Immediate crash, no talkback comes up. I will attach the Apple report.

When I launch Thunderbird again after the crash, it launches fine. Tried a few
other combinations, including importing Eudora and did not get the crash.  I
went back and tested Thunderbird 1.0 on the mac and I get the same behavior.

Comment 5

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

Attachment: Apple report generated from 1.5b2 crash

Talkback ID For the 1.0 crash I generated is: TB10671476Z

Comment 6

[Scott MacGregor]

Stack trace from Marcia shows:

nsNetscapeProfileMigratorBase::RecursiveCopy
nsSeamonkeyProfileMigrator::CopyMailFolders
nsSeamonkeyProfileMigrator::TransformPreferences
nsSeamonkeyProfileMigrator::CopyPreferences

Comment 7

[Adam Guthrie]

*** Bug 308266 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Adam Guthrie]

*** Bug 323476 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[klaungani]

system shuts down when mozilla is imported

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

bug 308266 is mac, so OS=ALL

Comment 11

[Randell Jesup [:jesup] (needinfo me)]

This (or at least the original report; some of the dups may be different problems) is probably moot/solved by the user of [PROFD] instead of ../, etc.

Comment 12

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Marcia, is this invalid per comment 11?

Comment 13

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

Marking invalid per comment #12, feel free to reopen with reasons why.