579848 - empty folder pane on startup - exception message 0x80550007 chrome://messenger/content/folderPane.js :: ftvItem_getProperties (NS_MSG_ERROR_FOLDER_MISSING)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Kaveh]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.6) Gecko/20100625 Firefox/3.6.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20100608 Thunderbird/3.1

Since upgrade to Thunderbird 3.1 when I start thunderbird the left hand folder pane (e.g. unified folders / All folders) comes up empty.  Reinstalling does not resolve the problem however trying to launche the mail window and eventually brings up a populated folder view.  The error console reports the following error repeatedly. 

Error: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80550007 [nsIMsgFolder.getStringProperty]"  nsresult: "0x80550007 (<unknown>)"  location: "JS frame :: chrome://messenger/content/folderPane.js :: ftvItem_getProperties :: line 1963"  data: no]

 The problem appears to be with the "unified folder view" as if I select a different view (when it's showing folders) the error doesn't get reported in the error console unless I've selected the "unified folders view". 

  I have 3 IMAP accounts.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Launch Thunder with Unified View selected

Actual Results:  
Unified folder View is empty with above mentioned error in the error console

Expected Results:  
Expect to see unified view of folders

1 other person has experienced this same problems see

http://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging/topics/thunderbird_3_1_on_mac_os_10_6_4_displays_no_folders?utm_content=topic_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=reply_notification

Comment 1

[Kaveh]

To get a populated folder view I need to do the following

1. Launch TB - select "All folders" (even though it's empty + broken)
2. Close TB
3. Launch TB - All folders show properly, selecting Unified view will also show folders but will produce the reported error in error console
4. If I close TB when it's in "Unified View" a relaunch will produce an empty folders pane and the error and will not show the folders unless I follow steps 1 - 3 again.

Comment 2

[David :Bienvenu]

Have you tried starting up in safe-mode?  http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_Mode

This sounds like something we've seen with certain extensions, so if you have any extensions installed, you should try safe mode, and if that works, disabling the extensions one by one to see if one of them is causing the problem.

Comment 3

[Kaveh]

Hi David,

  If I launch TB in safemode the folder view starts in "All Folders" view and shows the folders.  If I click through to the "Unified Folders" view I get the same error in error console.

Error: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80550007 [nsIMsgFolder.getStringProperty]"  nsresult: "0x80550007 (<unknown>)"  location: "JS frame :: chrome://messenger/content/folderPane.js :: ftvItem_getProperties :: line 1963"  data: no]

I have no add-ons
Default Theme
The following Plugins
  Flip4Mac 2.3.2.6
  iPhotoPhotocase 7.0
  java plugin 2 for NPAPI Briwsers 13.2.0
  MS Office Live Plugin-in 12.2.5
  QuickTime plug-in 7.6.6.
  Showwave Flash 10.1.53.64
  Silverlight Plug-in 3.0.50106.0
  WebEx General Plugin Container 1.0

On Safe mode startup (and normal startup) I see the following warning about the indexer (just in case it's related)

2010-07-19 15:51:01	gloda.indexer	WARN	Problem during [job:folderSweep id:null items:0 offset:0 goal:null], bailing.  Problem was at undefined:1905: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80550007 [nsIMsgFolder.getStringProperty]"  nsresult: "0x80550007 (<unknown>)"  location: "JS frame :: file:///Applications/Thunderbird.app/Contents/MacOS/modules/gloda/datastore.js :: gloda_ds_mapFolderURI :: line 1905"  data: no]

thanks for your help.

regards,

Kaveh.

Comment 4

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

How about extensions  ? Tools -> Add-ons to see these.

Comment 5

[Kaveh]

Hi,

  Sorry I must have done add-ons on FF instead of TB :-( so please ignore previous comment.  

   When I do TB.tools -> Add-ons I have no extensions, themes, languages, plugins or updates.

kind regards,

Kaveh.

Comment 6

[David :Bienvenu]

I think those are browser plugins, not Thunderbird plugins, aren't they?

That error is a folder missing error, which means that the folder pane is asking for information about a folder that doesn't exist on disk, or the .msf file doesn't exist. I suspect this is due to a invalid account in prefs.js, or an invalid server directory, though that's just a guess. We should be handling this exception, I think, but it would be good to figure out what's going on underneath, because it sounds like gloda is getting confused as well. Your prefs.js file from your Thunderbird user profile directory might give me a clue, if you wanted to e-mail that to me.

Comment 7

[Kaveh]

Hi David,

  Yes sorry about that I reposted with the TB plugin / extension list which in my case is empty.  I've also forwarded my prefs.js to your e-mail.

thanks again,

Kaveh.

Comment 8

[Jonathan Protzenko [:protz]]

Marking as new because I've experienced this as well on OS X. So Kaveh, just to make things clear, you have zero extensions installed, am I right?

Comment 9

[Jonathan Protzenko [:protz]]

Oh and by the way I just experienced the same issue in a XP VirtualBox, so less chance this is specific to Mac OS.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

list of bugs that mention folderpane.js (activity in 200d)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?bug_id=539392%2C490328%2C510643%2C545217%2C552037%2C542165%2C555296%2C553747%2C568807%2C471336%2C414038%2C466311%2C468081%2C467527%2C490479%2C490749%2C506632%2C518614%2C531929%2C579848&bug_id_type=anyexact&query_format=advanced

most notable
Bug 506632 - starting up in special folder mode results in blank folder pane (fixed in 3.0)
Bug 490749 - File/New/Saved Search produces exception, if no account/no folder is selected at folder pane
Bug 466311 - Accounts and folders missing after installs of Thunderbird 3 (dup of bug 506632?)

Comment 11

[Jonathan Woods]

I've just seen the same problem with TB3.1.1 on Mac OS 10.6.4, with the same error console message and the same workaround.  I have no extensions or themes or anything non-default installed in Thunderbird.

Comment 12

[Kaveh]

(In reply to comment #8)
> Marking as new because I've experienced this as well on OS X. So Kaveh, just to
> make things clear, you have zero extensions installed, am I right?

That's right I have zero extensions installed.

Comment 13

[Jeremy Heslop]

Same issue here:

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100802 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1.2

With errors popping up in the Error console over and over again:

Error: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80550007 [nsIMsgFolder.getStringProperty]"  nsresult: "0x80550007 (<unknown>)"  location: "JS frame :: chrome://messenger/content/folderPane.js :: ftvItem_getProperties :: line 1963"  data: no]

Comment 14

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

David (Bienvenu): The error here is NS_MSG_ERROR_FOLDER_MISSING, any ideas?

Comment 15

[David :Bienvenu]

yeah, it's the same error as we saw in gloda, and is caused by somehow having a local folder in the folder pane that doesn't exist on disk, and then trying to get a property on that folder. See comment 6. We could add a try catch to deal with the error more gracefully, but it would be nice to know what's causing the underlying problem. The previous known instance had to do with a folder with a ':' in the name...

Comment 16

[David :Bienvenu]

Attachment: possible fix

I don't have a way of testing this, but this might help. Since this seems to be a common issue with 3.1.2, we should consider this for 3.1.3

Comment 17

[David :Bienvenu]

Attachment: fix an error in prev patch

Comment 18

[David :Bienvenu]

Comment on attachment 466636 [details] [diff] [review]
fix an error in prev patch

grumble, still not right.

Comment 19

[David :Bienvenu]

Attachment: patch that works so far...

I'll try to push this to a 3.1.3 try server...

Comment 20

[David :Bienvenu]

this is a trunk try-server build with a potential fix:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/tryserver-builds/[e-mail]-684386f0a4ea

If there's a 3.1.3 try server, let me know the url, and I can push to that as well.

Comment 21

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to comment #20)
> If there's a 3.1.3 try server, let me know the url, and I can push to that as
> well.

I believe I've set one off, I'm not sure if it will succeed (due to parts of builds being broken on 1.9.2). I'll update you on the details later.

Comment 23

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

If anyone can seeing this bug can give the following build a try it would be useful to us to verify that the patch is working before we ship the next stability update of Thunderbird.

The build is based on what will become the 3.1.3 builds, but note that it will report itself as "Lanikai", that is fine - it is just the unbranded version. The build can be found here:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/tryserver-builds/[e-mail]-2f5a4f73220e/tryserver-macosx/thunderbird-3.1.3pre.en-US.mac.dmg

Comment 24

[Jeremy Heslop]

3.2a1pre build above fixed a few issues for me. The empty pane on startup with unified folder as well as the scrolling issue with blurring/tearing when scrolling down.

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:2.0b4pre) Gecko/20100817 Shredder/3.2a1pre

Thanks!

Comment 25

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Comment on attachment 466797 [details] [diff] [review]
patch that works so far...

This is good, and we're getting good feedback from the try server builds, so we're almost there bar a couple of tweaks:

>-        let smartFolderName = aFolder.getStringProperty("smartFolderName");
>-        return smartFolderName && this.getSmartFolderTypeByName(smartFolderName) ||
>-            this.getSmartFolderTypeByName(aFolder.name);
>+        try {
>+          let smartFolderName = getSmartFolderName(aFolder);
>+          return smartFolderName && this.getSmartFolderTypeByName(smartFolderName) ||
>+              this.getSmartFolderTypeByName(aFolder.name);
>+        } catch (ex) {
>+          dump(ex);
>+          return false;
>+        }

You don't need the try/catch here as you're doing that in the getSmartFolderName function.

>+function getSmartFolderName(aFolder) {
>+  try {
>+    return aFolder.getStringProperty("smartFolderName");
>+  } catch (ex) {
>+    dump(ex);
>+    return null;
>+  }

Can you use Components.utils.reportError(e); here, it will mean it gets to the error console?

Comment 26

[David :Bienvenu]

Attachment: fix addressing comments

Comment 27

[David :Bienvenu]

fixed on trunk and 3.1.x branch

Comment 28

[Jeremy Heslop]

Just tried 3.1.3 Lanikai build in safe_mode and the Unified Folders view still comes up blank with the error:

Error: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80550007 [nsIMsgFolder.getStringProperty]"  nsresult: "0x80550007 (<unknown>)"  location: "JS frame :: chrome://messenger/content/folderPane.js :: ftv_smart__isSmartFolder :: line 1498"  data: no]

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9pre) Gecko/20100820 Lanikai/3.1.3pre

Shredder worked fine.

Comment 29

[David :Bienvenu]

Your build is from 08/20, which is the same day I landed the fix on the 3.1.3 branch, so I don't know for sure if your build has my fix in it.

Comment 30

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to comment #28)
> Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9pre)
> Gecko/20100820 Lanikai/3.1.3pre

That build is too old (dated 20th), you'd want one from the 21st or later.

Comment 31

[Jeremy Heslop]

Ok I reinstalled from the link above for 3.1.3. It has this string under about:

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9pre) Gecko/20100818 Lightning/1.0b2 Lanikai/3.1.3pre

But it works fine. I think the last time it ran an auto-update which brought me to the version above which likely does not have the fix. I'll not update as this version is working fine. Sorry for the confusion.

Comment 32

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

bienvenu, was it determined this is not a regression, either in fact or in effect?

Comment 33

[David :Bienvenu]

er, no, I thought it was a regression from bug 553747, which exposed an underlying issue.