513052 - Thunderbird prevents Mac from going to sleep

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core :: General, defect)

Description

[Justin]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_8; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.3 Safari/531.9
Build Identifier:  2.0.0.23 (20090812)

Thunderbird prevents my MacBook Pro (Fall 2008 version) from going to sleep. The display will turn off, but the computer will never actually go into sleep mode.  I always have Thunderbird set to check email every 1 minute. When Thunderbird is closed, my Mac will go to sleep (whether set to sleep at 1 min or sleep at 15 min). When Mac Mac is open (but Thunderbird closed), also set to check for new email every 1 minute, my Mac will go to sleep. Checking for new email on the server every 1 minute should not prevent the computer from going to sleep. 

I saw blogs mentioning this same bug in 2006: http://forums.macnn.com/82/applications/289466/thunderbird-prevents-osx-from-going-sleep/

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Have Thunderbird set to check for new email every 1 minute (or more frequently than the time-to-sleep setting in Mac System Preferences -> Energy Saver).
2. Keep Thunderbird open
3. Watch Mac not go to sleep (display will go to sleep, but computer won't actual go to sleep)
Actual Results:  
Mac won't go to sleep.

Expected Results:  
Mac should go to sleep.

This seems like it would be easy to fix. This is a CRITICAL bug b/c I need my computer to go to sleep after a certain period of time. (Drains battery like crazy if it doesn't sleep. Also I set my Mac to require a password upon waking from sleep -- so without sleep, I don't have this added security layer). I always leave Thunderbird open so I am quickly notified of an email.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

So what happens if you change check emails every 5 minutes ? Does your mac goes to sleep ?

Comment 2

[Justin]

Actually on testing, changing Thunderbird to check mail every 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or 15 minutes -- or even to not check mail still is preventing my Mac from sleeping. I apologize, I should have tested this before the initial post. So not sure what Thunderbird is doing, but it is clearly preventing the Mac from going to sleep. 

This is high reproducible, however. Since I started checking, every time Thunderbird is open, my Mac won't sleep. Every time it is closed, it will go to sleep.

Comment 3

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Do you see nay messages related to thunderbird in /Application/Utilities/Console.app ?

Comment 4

[Justin]

I've had Thunderbird open on and off for this AM. I see the following in console under "Console Messages". Not sure what it means.

8/28/09 10:26:52 AM [0x0-0x1be1be].org.mozilla.thunderbird[4990] Warning: unrecognized command line flag -psn_0_1827262
8/28/09 9:05:21 AM [0x0-0x1a91a9].org.mozilla.thunderbird[4745] Warning: unrecognized command line flag -psn_0_1741225
8/28/09 8:13:39 AM [0x0-0x191191].org.mozilla.thunderbird[4555] Warning: unrecognized command line flag -psn_0_1642897

Comment 5

[Justin]

A new discovery! Even though I have Thunderbird now set up to not check for new messages, it is still receiving emails within 1 minute after they are received. I have gone to Account Settings/Server Settings and have unchecked "Check for message every ___ minute" and have also had it check every 15 minutes. No matter what, it is still receiving new messages within a minute.  I am not aware of any push system with my IMAP server.

So back to my original theory that Thunderbird won't let the computer go to sleep b/c it is constantly active, checking the server.

Comment 6

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Justin can you locate your prefs.js in ~/Library and check the values for checking email in that file ?

Is that file writable by your user ?

Comment 7

[Justin]

Hello. At the moment Thunderbird is set to check for new email every 15 min and the appropriate line appears in the prefs.js file: user_pref("mail.server.server2.check_time", 15);

However --  in Account Settings/Server Settings/Advanced I have the following box checked "Use IDLE command if the server supports it". I just read about this (I am not an IT person, just sort of computer hobbiest). I believe this allows you to receive email within a minute if the server detects it. I think this is what is allowing me to get emails within a minute of their being sent regardless of how often I set Thunderbird to check and "pull" new emails from the server. I think this is kind of like a push system. So I was incorrect in saying before "I am not aware of any push system with my IMAP server."

I just installed Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard and will check later today to see if this is still an issue (would suspect it would be). I should also probably reinstall Thunderbird before more sleuthing. Will post updates shortly.

Thanks.

Comment 8

[Justin]

It's still doing it with Snow Leopard. Although, interestingly, there was 1 time when the computer did go to sleep after at least 45 minutes (computer currently set to go to sleep at 1 minute). I also reinstalled Thunderbird by redragging into applications, no change.

Comment 9

[Jay Moran (jaym/lazvon)]

I cannot make my Mac Book Pro (April 2008) running Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6) go to sleep automatically EVEN WHEN I have no foreground programs running. So without a control point, my feedback for this bug is not valid. I likely have some background software installed/running which causes this behavior; smcFanControl, Mira Remote, Steer Mouse. MacFUSE, Growl... all are likely candidates.

That being said, everything operates exactly the same for me with or without Thunderbird running. If I FORCE the machine to Sleep via the Apple Menu, then it goes to sleep (fans stop running) and stays asleep even while Thunderbird is running and configured for IDLE command against Exchange server that I normally have instantaneous email delivery with. But with or without Thunderbird running and my machine set to Auto-Sleep after 1 minute, my display goes dark, but my fans are still running.

So, I'm afraid I cannot confirm or deny this bug. I'll spend a little time this morning trying to figure out how to make my machine auto-sleep. But not sure how much time I can devote to uninstalling software to see if auto-sleep starts working.

Comment 10

[Justin]

Before I run Bugmail, has anyone else reported this issue? It seems like it would be easily reproducible if it is not, indeed, just my Mac that has this problem. It would also be a problem with large impact as anyone leaving their e-mail client open all the time (many or most people) would be affected (most people want their computers to go to sleep after 15-20 min, especially laptop users).

Comment 11

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

I don't reproduce either. You're the first one that I hear having this issue.

Comment 12

[Steve Guerrera]

I'm seeing the same behavior on an early 2008 Macbook running 10.6.1 with the latest version of Thunderbird (2.0.0.23).  

In order to get the system to sleep at all while idle, I needed to disable Growl notifications.  Now, when thunderbird is open, the display will go to sleep when idle, but not the system.  When I close Thunderbird, the system will sleep. Forcing sleep through the menu or by closing the cover always works.

I've checked the console for anything obvious, but didn't see anything, except for the warning on startup reported above:

9/28/09 5:16:53 PM	[0x0-0x82082].org.mozilla.thunderbird[1176]	Warning: unrecognized command line flag -psn_0_532610

According to an Apple KB article (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1776):

"If there is disk access activity at least once a minute--on disks such as ATA drives, FireWire drives, optical media drives, or USB drives--the computer will not idle sleep."

So is it possible that Thunderbird is accessing the disk more often than that?

Comment 13

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Well yes it's possible but we would need to figure out why. Mark any ideas ?

Comment 14

[Timothy Miller]

I don't know why you would want to mark this bug as invalid.  It's a very well-known problem with Firefox.  It has something to do with sqlite always accessing the disk in the background even when it has nothing to do.  I'm betting Thunderbird has exactly the same problem.

See these references:
http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=eu&comments_parentId=178042&forumId=1
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=428565
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=479001

Comment 15

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

I don't know why you would want to claim that someone wants to mark it invalid when nobody has mentioned doing so. I also don't know why you would want to claim this bug, about a version of Thunderbird which didn't actually use sqlite for anything at all, much less fuss with its sqlite databases when it detected that the user was idle, has something to do with sqlite.

Comment 16

[Timothy Miller]

Sorry.  My bad.  I noticed "this bug is not valid" and took it out of context.  In context, it's "my feedback for this bug is not valid."

Comment 17

[woreis]

I can confirm this bug. My Mac does not go to sleep if I have either thunderbird or firefox open. If I close both the system will go to sleep. I observed this behaviour when my machine was on Tiger, now I'm using Leopard and it is still the same.

Comment 18

[woreis]

Someone above mentioned the prefs.js file. I had a look at it and found entries like
browser.download.dir", "AAAAAAFIAAIAAQxNYWNpbn..../8AAA==");
They looked garbled to me. So I saved my prefs.js file and deleted these entries meaning I did put simply "" instead of the strange looking string. That seems to work for me, my mac just went into sleep mode with thunderbird running.

Comment 19

[johnbugzilla]

I have the same problem on my 10.5 iMac.  I did some additional research and narrowed down the problem:
I configured check for new mail every 7 minutes
My sleep time is set for 5 minutes.
*** If no new email arrives between the time I stop using the mac and 5 minutes, the mac will sleep.
*** If mail DOES arrive between between the time I stop using the mac and 5 minutes, the mac will NOT sleep.
I was wondering whether this problem would therefor be related to the change in the Thunderbird Dashboard icon to have a number overlayed on top of it.
Hope this helps.
I'm also curious whether the solution described in Comment 18 works for anyone else?

Comment 20

[johnbugzilla]

I tried comment 18.  It didn't solve the problem.  iMac 10.5 still refused to go to sleep.

Comment 21

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

johnbugzilla, what version were you using?

Steve, john, do you still see this?

Comment 22

[Phoenix]

Resolved per whiteboard