570659 - hang on exit/shutdown, works after removing account in prefs.js fixes, "Smart Folders"

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(MailNews Core :: Backend, defect)

Description

[edA-qa mort-ora-y]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100423 Ubuntu/10.04 (lucid) Firefox/3.6.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.9) Gecko/20100423 ""

Thunderbird would fail to exit, leaving processes hanging. There are many related issues, but in this case I have a specific solution which seems unrelated to the other defects. A clean profile worked, thus I started tinkering with the <prefs.js>

Ultimately I found the below. On the following line there is a reference to an "account3" which I never setup. That is, in previous version something automatic must have created this (it exists in the two profiles I use -- with different numbers).

user_pref("mail.accountmanager.accounts", "account1,account2,account3");

It has these further entries, something related to "Smart Folders".

user_pref("mail.account.account3.server", "server3");
user_pref("mail.server.server3.hidden", true);
user_pref("mail.server.server3.hostname", "smart mailboxes");
user_pref("mail.server.server3.name", "Smart Folders");
user_pref("mail.server.server3.type", "none");
user_pref("mail.server.server3.userName", "nobody");

By removing this from the "mail.accountmanager.accounts" entry, and removing all other entries, Thunderbird exits correctly again. I have started/exited about 10 times now and been unable to reproduce the hanging problem.

As these "Smart Folders" were setup automatically in a previous version I would suspect many people have them. This may be the cause of many of the hanging at exit issues.


NOTE: Strangely, if you start thunderbird in a console (Konsole in this case) it exists correctly even with this odd account left enabled.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. start thunderbird
2. exit
3. process is hanging
Actual Results:  
These processes remain:
edA-qa    6103     1  0 07:07 ?        00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.4/thunderbird -no-remote -P Corinne
edA-qa    6111  6103  0 07:07 ?        00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.4/run-mozilla.sh /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.4/thunderbird-bin -no-remote -P Corinne
edA-qa    6115  6111 21 07:07 ?        00:00:03 /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.4/thunderbird-bin -no-remote -P Corinne



This hang issue also causes some preferences not to be written correctly, things like Layout selection and some add-ons won't properly save their data. This, and that likely many migrated profiles have the problem, is why I classify this as "critical" rather than "normal".

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

bienvenu...
> user_pref("mail.accountmanager.accounts", "account1,account2,account3");
> 
> It has these further entries, something related to "Smart Folders".
> 
> user_pref("mail.account.account3.server", "server3");
> user_pref("mail.server.server3.hidden", true);
> user_pref("mail.server.server3.hostname", "smart mailboxes");
> user_pref("mail.server.server3.name", "Smart Folders");
> user_pref("mail.server.server3.type", "none");
> user_pref("mail.server.server3.userName", "nobody");
> 
> By removing this from the "mail.accountmanager.accounts" entry, and removing
> all other entries, Thunderbird exits correctly again. I have started/exited
> about 10 times now and been unable to reproduce the hanging problem.
>...
> NOTE: Strangely, if you start thunderbird in a console (Konsole in this case)
> it exists correctly even with this odd account left enabled.

Comment 2

[David :Bienvenu]

millions of users have those prefs set so I don't think they're sufficient to cause an issue. They're automatically created when you first use smart folders mode (which was the default in 3.0). If you go into smart folders mode (view | folders | smart (unified for 3.1)) and then try to shut down, does the problem re-occur?

Comment 3

[edA-qa mort-ora-y]

If I choose View | Folders | Smart the program hangs. I've tried it three times. So something related to smart-folders *is* broken.

And I would say, base on the searching I did, that a *large* number of users are having a problem with hanging at shutdown.

Comment 4

[David :Bienvenu]

(In reply to comment #3)
> If I choose View | Folders | Smart the program hangs. I've tried it three
> times. So something related to smart-folders *is* broken.

It hangs when you pick the view menu, or when you shut down after picking that?

Can you e-mail me your prefs.js file so I can see if anything else jumps out at me?

> And I would say, base on the searching I did, that a *large* number of users
> are having a problem with hanging at shutdown.

Hangs on shutdown can be caused by all sorts of different things, but if you've found something that's causing the problem for a lot of users, that would be very helpful, thx!

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> > And I would say, base on the searching I did, that a *large* number of users
> > are having a problem with hanging at shutdown.
> 
> Hangs on shutdown can be caused by all sorts of different things, but if you've
> found something that's causing the problem for a lot of users, that would be
> very helpful, thx!

indeed. But when saying "other people see this", please include citations, references or context. otherwise such statements are not so useful, and for some people not believable.

additionally, it would be useful to know whether you saw the problem, i.e. does it reproduce in version 3.0.3, 3.0.2, etc.

Comment 6

[edA-qa mort-ora-y]

It hangs as soon as I select the menu item.

I've emailed you the smaller of my two prefs.js files (both reproduce the problem).

Comment 7

[edA-qa mort-ora-y]

Related issues (it has its own link on https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Bug_Queries, called "shutdown hangs"

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?keywords=hang;keywords_type=allwords;short_desc_type=anywordssubstr;short_desc=shutdown%20quit%20exit;resolution=INVALID;resolution=---;query_format=advanced;product=MailNews%20Core;product=Thunderbird

Some have *very* similar symptoms.

Comment 8

[David :Bienvenu]

Looks like you have the german spell checker and enigmail installed. As odd as it sounds, if I remember correctly, I believe there were shutdown issues with that both of them. If you startup in safe-mode, do you still see the bug?

Comment 9

[edA-qa mort-ora-y]

The error still occurred when I disabled all plugins. Removing the german spell-checker is a bit more work (one package for all programs on Ubuntu).

Starting in safe-mode from the command prompt the problem does not occur. However I cannot switch to "Smart Folders". I select the menu option and nothing happens, or it just seems to stay in "All" mode.

Also note, if I start in safe-mode from a KDE launcher on the desktop, the main window doesn't come up, it hangs while starting:
edA-qa    9209  1363  0 23:02 ?        00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.4/thunderbird -no-remote -safe-mode -P edA-qa
edA-qa    9218  9209  0 23:02 ?        00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.4/run-mozilla.sh /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.4/thunderbird-bin -no-remote -safe-mode -P edA-qa
edA-qa    9222  9218 98 23:02 ?        00:00:35 /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.4/thunderbird-bin -no-remote -safe-mode -P edA-qa

Comment 10

[David :Bienvenu]

by plugins, do you mean add-ons/extensions?

does anything show up on the console when you try to switch to smart folders mode, after starting in safe-mode?

You might check that your version of Enigmail is the latest, for 3.0.4, at least. I notice that they seem to be at version 1.1, and you're running 1.0.1. Enigmail ties in at a binary level so it's pretty critical that you have the right version.

Comment 11

[edA-qa mort-ora-y]

I uninstalled the german spellchecker and the error still occurred.

Also note that I'm using pretty much a stock Kubuntu 10.04 install, nothing but standard packages and a few plugins. I just reinstalled the whole system last week, so other than my migrated data I don't have anything unusual on the system.

Comment 12

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

edA-qa, what can you determine from https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing:Shutdown_Hang#Symptoms ... and please list results - perhaps your issue is a duplicate of another bug

Comment 13

[edA-qa mort-ora-y]

I now have version 3.1.7 and I believe the problem still exists. If I select "View|Folders|Unified" (the new name for Smart, is it not) then the program hangs (completely non-responsive, has to be killed).

Nothing else has changed in the setup. I don't get any problem unless I choose the Unified view mode. Same essential prefs.js I emailed before.

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #8)
> Looks like you have the german spell checker and enigmail installed. As odd as
> it sounds, if I remember correctly, I believe there were shutdown issues with
> that both of them. If you startup in safe-mode, do you still see the bug?
(In reply to comment #9)
> Starting in safe-mode from the command prompt the problem does not occur.

edA-qa, you mean the hang?


ludo, bienvenu, the following two items should be unrelated to the shutdown hang, and the hang unrelated to removal of account, correct?

> However I cannot switch to "Smart Folders". I select the menu option and
> nothing happens, or it just seems to stay in "All" mode.
> 
> Also note, if I start in safe-mode from a KDE launcher on the desktop, the main
> window doesn't come up, it hangs while starting:
> edA-qa    9209  1363  0 23:02 ?        00:00:00 /bin/sh
> /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.4/thunderbird -no-remote -safe-mode -P edA-qa
> edA-qa    9218  9209  0 23:02 ?        00:00:00 /bin/sh
> /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.4/run-mozilla.sh
> /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.4/thunderbird-bin -no-remote -safe-mode -P edA-qa
> edA-qa    9222  9218 98 23:02 ?        00:00:35
> /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.4/thunderbird-bin -no-remote -safe-mode -P edA-qa

Comment 15

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

I would say something is wrong in he profile (ie an issues with one of the folders we try to load). I would check the unix rights in the profile of the folders and files.

Comment 16

[Micah Gersten]

Did you run the profile as root or with sudo at any point?

Comment 17

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

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