400263 - XML parsing error when setting mail start page to about:config (unless nglayout.debug.disable_xul_fastload set to true)

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9a9pre) Gecko/2007101702 SeaMonkey/2.0a1pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.8pre) Gecko/2007101703 Thunderbird/2.0.0.7pre

Details: See "Steps to Reproduce" below.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Edit => Preferences (or Tools => Options or Thunderbird => Preferences) => General => Thunderbird Start Page
[x] When Thunderbird launches, show the Start Page in the message area
Location: [ about:config ]
(tick the checkbox, and enter "about:config", without the quotes, into the input box).
2. Click OK
3. In the Main (3-pane) window, make sure the preview pane is displayed (by hitting F8 if it isn't)
4. Go => Mail Start Page

Actual Results:  
XML Parsing Error: no element found
Location: about:config
Line Number 1, Column 1:
^


Expected Results:  
The same page should appear as when the "Config Editor" is invoked from the Preferences popup.


Additional info:
This bug has also been seen on Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 (Windows/20070728), see thread "XML Parsing Error: no element found,Location: about:config,Line Number 1, Column 1:,^", started on Thu, 18 Oct 2007 04:15:34 -0500 by Gudmund Areskoug

Comment 1

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

P.S. ... on newsgroup mozilla.support.thunderbird on server nntp://news.mozilla.org/

Comment 2

[Nir]

Works fine in Linux version 2.0.0.6 (20070728) and version 3.0a1pre (2007101704)

Comment 3

[Gudmund Areskoug]

FWIW, this worked fine up until recently (W2K, Portable Thunderbird updated to version 2.0.0.6 (20070728)). As much background as I can give:

This behaviour started after I used the filter in the config editor to
try and find how to influence the "Re: " string. I'm not aware of
changing anything, just looking.

This Start Page *may* have been open in Thunderbird while perusing the config editor.

TB seems to be working as it should, except for this message showing instead of the about:config. If I knew which file(s) to look into, I would have already checked for visible errors in a plain text editor.

Comment 4

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

Attachment: list of extensions at time of failure

(In reply to comment #2)
> Works fine in Linux version 2.0.0.6 (20070728) and version 3.0a1pre
> (2007101704)
> 

Maybe one of my extensions throws a wrench into Tb's gears? I wonder which extensions Gudmund has got.

Comment 5

[Gudmund Areskoug]

I've got abcTajpu 1.5, BasPage 0.8, Dictionary Fix 1.0, Défilemessage 0.3.3, Enigmail 0.94.2, Nightly Tester Tools 1.3b3.

I'm using the default theme.

Comment 6

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to comment #5)
> I've got abcTajpu 1.5, BasPage 0.8, Dictionary Fix 1.0, Défilemessage 0.3.3,
> Enigmail 0.94.2, Nightly Tester Tools 1.3b3.
> 
> I'm using the default theme.
> 

Hm. Unless it's abcTajpu (which I doubt), then maybe something common to "Nightly Tester Tools" and "MR Tech Local Install"?

Comment 7

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to comment #6)
> (In reply to comment #5)
> > I've got abcTajpu 1.5, BasPage 0.8, Dictionary Fix 1.0, Défilemessage 0.3.3,
> > Enigmail 0.94.2, Nightly Tester Tools 1.3b3.
> > 
> > I'm using the default theme.
> > 
> 
> Hm. Unless it's abcTajpu (which I doubt), then maybe something common to
> "Nightly Tester Tools" and "MR Tech Local Install"?
> 

I've added a new topic in the Local Install help forum ( http://www.mrtech.com/forums/index.php?topic=433 ) so the author will be alerted.

Comment 8

[Gudmund Areskoug]

My gut feeling is that it's probably not to do with any extension, but rather to do with having two instances of about:config open simultaneously.

Can someone confirm or refute that it's all-thunderbird.js in ...\thunderbird\defaults\pref that I should be looking for any errors in? Or is it all.js in ...\thunderbird\greprefs ?

Comment 9

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to comment #8)
> My gut feeling is that it's probably not to do with any extension, but rather
> to do with having two instances of about:config open simultaneously.
[...]

not quite but close: with a new Tb2 nightly,

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.8pre) Gecko/20071018 Thunderbird/2.0.0.7pre

1. Open about:config as Start Page in preview pane
       no error
2. Open any message in preview pane to close about:config
3. Open Config Editor
       no error
4. Close Config Editor
5. Go => Start Page (which is still set to about:config)
       error is there

Comment 10

[Gudmund Areskoug]

...and the error then remains there on each instance of re-starting TB, even without going through the motions you detailed.

Has something in a/some file/s become corrupted? If so, where?

Comment 11

[Nir]

Now I can reproduce this bug using the method described in Comment 9 .
( Actually step 4 is unnecessary )

I believe this bug is somehow related to 'config.xul' file ( attaching a screen-shot soon  )

Comment 12

[Nir]

Attachment: Error occurred at config.xul file

Comment 13

[Nir]

(In reply to comment #10)
> ...and the error then remains there on each instance of re-starting TB, even
> without going through the motions you detailed.
> 
> Has something in a/some file/s become corrupted? If so, where?
> 

In Linux , delete 'XUL.mfasl' file from profile .

Comment 14

[Nir]

Tony , Gudmund  : can you reproduce this problem if you set start page to 'chrome://global/content/config.xul' ?

Comment 15

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Confirmed on Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9a9pre) Gecko/2007101803 Thunderbird/3.0a1pre ID:2007101803

Comment 16

[Gudmund Areskoug]

I tried setting the start page to chrome://global/content/config.xul

Problem gone, here at least. 

Tried reproducing it the way I did when it occurred - it doesn't reoccur.

It would be interesting to know what went/goes wrong when using about:config.

Comment 17

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to comment #14)
> Tony , Gudmund  : can you reproduce this problem if you set start page to
> 'chrome://global/content/config.xul' ?
> 

I can now alternate between these two settings at will:
chrome://global/content/config.xul      => no error
about:config                            => error

Comment 18

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to comment #15)
> Confirmed on Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9a9pre)
> Gecko/2007101803 Thunderbird/3.0a1pre ID:2007101803
> 

...setting "Version" and "Whiteboard" fields

Comment 19

[Al Billings [:abillings - ex-MoCo]]

about: now gives the following error on OS X on the latest trunk nightly:

XML Parsing Error: undefined entity
Location: jar:file:///Applications/Internet%20Apps/Thunderbird%203.app/Contents/MacOS/chrome/toolkit.jar!/content/global/about.xhtml
Line Number 70, Column 9:    <li>&about.copy.beforeLink; <a href="about:credits">&about.copy.linkTitle;</a> &about.copy.afterLink;</li>
--------^

This makes it difficult for QA to get full user agent strings for testing and bugs. Per conversation with Dan Mosedale, I'm setting this as blocking‑thunderbird3.0a2.

Comment 20

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

Al: wrong bug, you wanted bug 424767

Comment 21

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

Tranferring blocking request to bug 424767 as per comment 20.

Comment 22

[Al Billings [:abillings - ex-MoCo]]

Doh. Sorry....

Comment 23

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

This is now working fine for me, I think bug 424767 may have fixed this as well.

Comment 24

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

I don't think so. Here's some even easier steps:
1. New profile, create an RSS account because it's easiest.
2. Prefs-General, set start page to about:config
3. Select the account's trash folder, about:config displays
4. Prefs-Advanced-Config Editor, add a new boolean nglayout.debug.disable_xul_fastload set to false
5. Leave config editor open, in 3pane Go-Mail Start Page now fails
6. Filter on xul_fastload in config editor, toggle to true
7. Go-Mail Start Page works, and will continue to work while fastload is disabled, and fail when it is not.

Dunno quite what it means, but I can reproduce it perfectly in a clean trunk profile from half an hour ago.

Comment 25

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to comment #24)
> I don't think so. Here's some even easier steps:
> 1. New profile, create an RSS account because it's easiest.
> 2. Prefs-General, set start page to about:config
> 3. Select the account's trash folder, about:config displays
> 4. Prefs-Advanced-Config Editor, add a new boolean
> nglayout.debug.disable_xul_fastload set to false
> 5. Leave config editor open, in 3pane Go-Mail Start Page now fails
> 6. Filter on xul_fastload in config editor, toggle to true
> 7. Go-Mail Start Page works, and will continue to work while fastload is
> disabled, and fail when it is not.
> 
> Dunno quite what it means, but I can reproduce it perfectly in a clean trunk
> profile from half an hour ago.
> 

I can reproduce it (and turn it on or off) by these same steps in the following Tb2 build:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.16pre) Gecko/20080627 Thunderbird/2.0.0.16pre
Build ID: 2008062703

Comment 26

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to comment #24)
> 7. Go-Mail Start Page works, and will continue to work while fastload is
> disabled, and fail when it is not.
> 
> Dunno quite what it means, but I can reproduce it perfectly in a clean trunk
> profile from half an hour ago.

So this (now?) only happens in a non-standard configuration where you have to add a hidden preference?

I'm updating the summary because that really isn't clear.

Comment 27

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

Nope, that was just my "simple" steps winding up being more confusing: it fails in the default state (having disable_xul_fastload set to false is exactly the same as not having it), I was just making the steps a little shorter by adding the pref at the same time that the start page was being broken by opening the Config Editor window. The pref isn't there to break it, it's there to show you that the problem only occurs when fastload is enabled, as it is by default.

Of course, with multiple workarounds (disable fastload, use the chrome URI as your start page, don't open the window when you have it vastly easier to get to as your start page) it's really very low priority, it's just that it's very high curiosity priority.