512243 - crashing when disk C: full/out of space with error message: "Instruction at 0x0054ff01, referencing memory at 0x00000000...."

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: General, defect, P3)

Description

[Agnar Renolen]

User-Agent:       Opera/9.64 (Windows NT 5.0; U; en) Presto/2.1.1
Build Identifier: version 2.0.0.22

This is an elementary bug.  It appears that Thunderbird (or one of its components) is assuming that disk space is allways infinite.  It is not, particularly for us who are using older computers.

In my case, the C: volume had only 2Mb left.  This was sufficient to make Thinderbird crash quite frequently  partly when trying to do something (such as selecting "Properties" in the right-mouse menu in the Local folders icon, and partly all by itself (brobably every time it checked for new mail on the mail server).  The error message was allways something like: "Instruction at 0x0054ff01, referencing memory at 0x00000000....".  
Same instruction address all times.  This is not as informative as "Cannot complete ....., because your C: volume is full".  Such a message would save me and a lot of other a lot of burden.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Fill your C: volume with various files till you hav less than 2Mb left of free disk space.
2. Start Thinderbird, and try working with it.
3. It should crash sooner or later....
Actual Results:  
Imediate crash with error message: "Instruction at 0x0054ff01, referencing memory at 0x00000000....".  (or something like that). And Press "OK" to auit the application anc "Cancel" to debug.

Expected Results:  
Check if it got a non-null file pointer, when it tries to open a file for writing.  If the pointer is null, find out why and isse an error message like

"Cannot complete ....., because your C: volume is full"

 

I do not believ I have lost any mail because of this.  I'm using IMAP mail, and have located the data for local folders on different volumes.  I don't know if I would have lost data if I had local folders on same volume.  I don't want to try...

Comment 1

[timeless]

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/How_to_get_a_stacktrace_for_a_bug_report
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/How_to_get_a_stacktrace_with_WinDbg

if you use windbg, you'll need to change the path from 'firefox' to 'thunderbird'.

In order to get this to work, you'll probably need to set up your computer so that your profile (but not your mailbox) isn't on C:.

We have lots of bugs, but debugging this one isn't something that I personally have the time to work on. OTOH, if you manage to get a stack trace, anyone could help write a fix for it.

FWIW, for people who want to actually play with this stuff, the right thing to do is setup Quotas on (Windows NT) NTFS or (Solaris/OS X/FreeBSD) ZFS. I used to do this stuff for mail, but it was about 5 years ago.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

needs retest with v3 
xref bug 195077

Comment 3

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

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