299981 - Thunderbird won't stay shutdown and launches at startup but is not in Startup msconfig

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(mozilla.org :: FTP: Mirrors, task)

Description

[Lisa Ferro]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007 Firebird/0.7
Build Identifier: Thunderbird 1.0.2  Thunderbird is acting like a virus, so I'm reluctant to use that computer to check the About Mozilla . I just downloaded it around July  3.

I downloaded the latest Thunderbird on July 3. It came from a mirror site with
"playboy" in the URL. Thunderbird automatically launches at startup, though it
is not in the msconfig Startup tab. Worse than than that, Thunderbird won't stay
shut down. If I exit the program, it re-opens. After two rounds of this, the
entire computer system grinds to a near halt and never recovers.  I'm forced to
shut off the computer. In addition, one time when Thunderbird launched at system
start up, Norton Anti-Virus reported that it was blocking a worm invasion attempt.

I've monitered the Task Manager when shutting down Thunderbird, and I can't see
any other process that is running before Thunderbird self-relaunches itself, so
it doesn't seem to be opened by a secondary program.

I've also noticed that in the Task Manager, instead of referencing
"thunderbird.exe" it is using a DOS name like "THUNDE~.exe (what DOS does when
it can't handle names more than 8 characters).  I checked a friend's
installation in Windows XP, and his says "thunderbird.exe"

I've run a full system scan for viruses etc.

I'm wondering if a hacked version of Thunderbird is being distributed by the
playboy mirror site.

At this point, I don't know how to get rid of the Thunderbird and try again. 
How can I unintall/delete it if I can't get it to stay shut down?


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Boot up the computer.  Thunderbird will open for no apparent reason.

1.  Exit Thunderbird (Either with File | Exit, or by clicking the "X" box in the
upper right corner, or by doing "End Task" in the Task Manager).  It will shut
down, and then relaunch itself.  



Expected Results:  
It should stay closed when I close it.  It shouldn't open until I ask it to.

Comment 1

[Nick Bebout]

Playboy is not an official mirror site, please download a copy of Thunderbird
from one of the mirrors on http://www.mozilla.org/mirrors.html or from
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/1.0.2 

If this problem occurs on a copy obtained from an official mirror, please reopen
this bug.

RESOLVING as INVALID.

Comment 2

[Nick Bebout]

REOPENING.

I was told wrong.  I should have checked first.  Playboy IS an official mirror.

Comment 3

[Nick Bebout]

Changing products/component

Comment 4

[Lisa Ferro]

I uninstalled Thunderbird, with Add/Remove programs.  It was 1.0.2 20050317,
btw. (I still have the intall exe, if you'd like it.)  I rebooted.  On startup,
I got an unusual message from Windows, saying there was no default mail client
set so it was unable to process the message request and I should go set Outlook
as my default client. What message request? I have no idea.  I clicked Okay (the
only choice), but did not set Outlook as my default. 

I got a new version of Thunderbird from your Nightly Builds page (1.0+
20050707), installed it, and rebooted. Thunderbird started automatically.  So I
went into Tools | Options and turned off Thunderbird as my default mail client.
 I rebooted.  Thunderbird no longer launches without being told, and it stays
shut when I shut it.  Oh, and it now shows up as thunderbird.exe in my Processes
tab.

So it sounds like to me there is a secondary program that is doing something
sneaky.  I don't know if I downloaded it with the first Thunderbird, or it's
been hanging around for a while and I never happened to have a "default mail
client" for it to launch.  I used to use Outlook Express, but don't know if it
was set as the default.

So I've found a work-around.  Please let me know if you find that the playboy
site version came with a worm, and how to get rid of it.

Thanks.

Comment 5

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

It's likely something you already had was trying to use your default mailer to
send out email in the background (like a virus or worm) and once Thunderbird got
set as the default mailer, it got started instead of Outlook Express.  I believe
Windows has it set up so the underlying functions in OE can actually be called
without OE itself having to open, so OE wouldn't be constantly launching (the
mail would just send in the background).

Have you checked that your virus definitions are up to date, and also attempted
to reinstall your antivirus software?  Some worms will cripple your antivirus as
the first thing they do when they infect the computer (if they happen to infect
you before you pick up the updated definitions that include how to test for that
one, then it can get in and do that).

All of the Thunderbird files currently listed on mirrors.playboy.com check out
as exact matches of the official ones, so they don't appear to be altered at all.