439130 - Thunderbird locked up and restart required a cold boot, profile apparently lost

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Tom Magnuson]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0
Build Identifier:  2.0.0.14 (20080421)

program became unresponsive when I requested save of incomplete email. Entire computer arrested; mouse worked by no programs responded.CAD and close program didn't work, Cold booted.  Restarted.  Profile goes; no email accounts, calendar still worked.
Closed and restarted with new profile name and old profile files.  Lost calendar.  Total: six months of mail and calendar info.

Reproducible: Didn't try

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
I believe I found the mail in the Mozilla folder profile.  Thunderbird has a separate folder under Documentsandsettings/'usr'/applicationData/...
The TBird folder contains no current file dates.  Mozilla folder, though, has email sent out yesterday via Thunderbird.  So, I'll be trying to recover the data in the Mozilla folder.  Calendar simply disappeared after I downloaded and used the Mozbackup program.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

use support.mozilla.com if you need enduser support to recover from your lost prefs.js

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I think this deserves a better place than bug 193749 - that bug is a generic mess and isn't going anywhere. reopening.

Comment 3

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

(In reply to comment #2)
> I think this deserves a better place than bug 193749 - that bug is a generic
> mess and isn't going anywhere. reopening.

I'd agree with that -- but this bug will need slightly more info. Was there a crash log (if it crashed)? Can you attach a testcase of the incomplete email (minus sensitive data)? Does this still occur with Thunderbird 3 beta 1?

Comment 4

[Tom Magnuson]

Tell me where to find the crash log and I'll send it as the program is still installed.  I have since switched to Eudora (beta) and find there is a vestige of the issue in that program as well.  To wit: downloading attachments takes far too long and some just don't happen (running on Clearwire).  Forward of an email with attachment hung the system...repeatedly.  Several iterations with different attachment, same result.  As noted above, Eudora seems to manage this better.  I haven't tried reinstalling.  Version = 2.0.0.19

Comment 5

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

The crash log should be within the Mozilla folder where the mail is. Sometimes they do not get generated. If you take the time to try with a recent build (http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/early_releases/downloads.php), you will trigger a way better crash reporter that will send us the crash log. And if you can't reproduce with the lastest version it might mean that the issue got fixed between the two releases. 
Could you take the time to try with a recent version please ?

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

it didn't crash.  that was gary musing :)

the profile lost issue is key. I had this happen several months ago - unable to diagnose due to other issues.

sometimes it can be recovered. I did this recently within the last 2 months.

see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared

Comment 7

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

The profile lost on crash/system crash is a long, long story. This is 8years+ old and many people tried fixing it. In most cases only the prefs.js is lost.

I think TB should move the Account prefs to a different file and open it only readonly unless people change things in the Account Manager.
The prefs.js is often rewritten and that's the cause that this corrupts the prefs.js frequently.

Comment 8

[Tom Magnuson]

Attachment: file from tbird folder

In the program directory tbird folder there are but three files, and all have a file type .xpt  

Something tells me these are not crash reports though the dates do seem to correspond to problem moments.  Should I upload all three or look elsewhere?

Comment 9

[Tom Magnuson]

Though it probably comes as no surprise to you, it surprised me to find that when I loaded the latest TB beta I received a message that it was already running.  I had forgotten to close my Eudora beta.  Both Eudora and TB [Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1b3pre) Gecko/20081204 Thunderbird/3.0b1] have issues with the address book; long delays searching that halt all manipulation of the message.  I can, though, switch to another message and work it while the program works through the address book issue.

Comment 10

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to comment #0)

There are 3 different phenomenon. "One problem per a bug" is rule at bugzilla.mozilla.org. Which is the problem of this bug?
> (A) program became unresponsive when I requested save of incomplete email.
> (B) Entire computer arrested; mouse worked by no programs responded.CAD
>     and close program didn't work,
> (C) Cold booted. Restarted. Profile goes; no email accounts, calendar still worked.

For (B).
Kill of Tb process from Task Manager didn't work?
> mouse worked by no programs
May be focusing issue produced by Tb. May be mouse driver issue.
Operation with keyboard was possible when the problem occurred?

For (C) after (A)&(B).
As Matthias Versen says in Comment #7, many bugs reported phenomenon of lost/corrupted prefs.js with no sufficient data to analyze problem.
See Dependency tree for meta Bug 123929.
Read also Bug 392956 and Bug 422447, please. (Meta bug like bug, not for specific issue. But not real meta bug. These should be closed as INVALID, WONTFIX, or INCOMPLETE)

Comment 11

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

Tom can answer to comment #10, please?

Comment 12

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

RESO INCO due to lack of response to last question. If you feel that this change was made in error, please respond to this bug with your reasons why.