601566 - Automatic offline management eratic and does not work

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Networking, defect)

Description

[u387838]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.10) Gecko/20100914 Firefox/3.6.10 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9) Gecko/20100915 Thunderbird/3.1.4

Thunderbird automatically switches to offline mode unpredictably, suddenly, and silently even when the computer is constantly connected to a network. From that point on, there are no new email notifications. It turns Thunderbird nothing more than a memory eater. Can't we just get rid of this **** feature. It is broken. Let Thunderbird attempt to access the network each time.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. This bug is eratic and unpredictable.

Actual Results:  
If my computer is connected to the Internet, Thunderbird should not stop checking for email.


This bug really sux

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

This is based on what the OS tells us. Are your drivers up to date ?

Comment 2

[u387838]

I've been running the same configuration for 5+ years with no problems from any other software. I.e. the drivers are up to date. Outlook doesn't have any problems with it.

The problem is Thunderbird.

Firefox has the same problem, but someone developed a "Disable Automatic Offline Management" plug-in which solves the problem. (The thousands of people 

The easiest thing, of course, would be to allow us to turn this feature off. If you think about it, it is impossible to accurately determine the status of the network on any multi-homed system anyway (how many network links have to go down? Does that include loopback adapters?), so it seems ridiculous to try. Please just let us turn it off.

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

there may already be a bug about changing thunderbird's behavior (not changing how core works).  I see one or two bugs that look promising in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?type1-0-0=anywordssubstr&type2-1-0=anywordssubstr&short_desc=offline&field0-0-0=short_desc&value2-0-0=offline&field2-0-0=longdesc&resolution=---&type2-0-0=substring&query_format=advanced&value2-1-0=connect%20network&value1-0-0=connect%20network%20offline&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&type0-0-0=nowordssubstr&value0-0-0=crash%20&field2-1-0=longdesc&field1-0-0=short_desc&product=MailNews%20Core&product=Thunderbird

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Matt, is this the firefox add-on you are using https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13152/ ?

If I remember correctly in version 3.1 thunderbird doesn't go offline if the connection drops. So what are you seeing in the thunderbird UI, or in thunderbird behavior, that is causing you to think TB cares about the current state of the network?

Comment 5

[u387838]

Wayne,

Yes, that is the add-on I was referring to. I understand that it is particularly useful in Firefox because developers may be running a server on 127.0.0.1 that should be accessed regardless of whether the external network is up or down.

I looked through your list (Comment 3) but could not find anything related.

> So what are you seeing in the thunderbird UI, or in
thunderbird behavior, that is causing you to think TB cares about the current
state of the network?

I think this is due to past experience with both TB and FF. My current setup is to use Wifi at home, and wireless broadband (which exposes itself to the OS simply as a regular COM port/modem) when out. Before auto offline was added, everything worked fine. Afterwards, FF and TB would automatically go offline the moment I switched to the modem. It doesn't do it all the time anymore, which is what has made the erratic component more obvious. It may be due to the low speed connection getting overloaded, and TB thus switching the offline, but it really shouldn't switch to offline, because the network is still there. In any event, it still seems that TB should not automatically switch offline without informing the user. It is very troubling to be connected to the Internet and think you are receiving mail, only to discover a number of hours later that TB had automatically gone offline and **** things up.

Comment 6

[u387838]

OK, I just had an even more surreal experience with this feature. I was out, connected to the Internet through a modem. I had sent an email (I hadn't realized that TB was in offline mode, so it was apparently queued without my knowledge). Anyway, when I was about to leave, I disconnected the modem and all of a sudden TB pops up with the following dialog box:

"Do you want to send your unsent message now?

[x] Always ask me when I go online"

I checked, and sure enough TB had automatically switched into "online mode" upon detected the modem disconnection event.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Matt, 
Do you still see this issue with newer version 5 or version 6?
Here is a much better query of potentially matching bugs - do any stand out?
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?type1-0-0=anywordssubstr&type2-1-0=anywordssubstr&type0-1-0=anywordssubstr&list_id=1106580&short_desc=offline&field0-1-0=component&field0-0-0=short_desc&value2-0-0=offline&type1-0-1=substring&resolution=---&field2-0-0=longdesc&type2-0-0=substring&query_format=advanced&value0-2-0=sleep%204gb%20http%20html%20cach%20panacea%20sync%20backg%20&value0-1-0=network%20backend&value2-1-0=connect%20network&value1-0-0=connect%20network%20offline&field0-2-0=short_desc&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&type0-0-0=nowordssubstr&value0-0-0=crash%20&type0-2-0=nowordssubstr&field2-1-0=longdesc&field1-0-0=short_desc&product=Core&product=MailNews%20Core&product=Thunderbird&field1-0-1=component



(from private message from Matt of 10-15-2010. I don't know if this repeats a prior comment)

> what i'm really wanting you to describe is what widget/object in the UI shows that Thunderbird is offline?
>
> and what action of yours is failing under these conditions - send, manu get mail, automatic get mail, ... ?
OK, there are two cases:

1) I go to send a mail, and instead of getting the "Send" button, I get the "Send Later" button. Because my mail server uses POP before SMTP, I have to go and click the "Get Mail" button, which tells me that TB is offline and offers to go online. (Sometime I just go to the File->Offline->Work Offline menu and unselect it).

2) I'm waiting for mail to arrive from a client, and it hasn't turned up. I go and check the File->Offline->Work Offline menu, and sure enough TB has gone offline. If I now click "Get Mail", TB offers to go online and I (belatedly) receive the email I was waiting for.

As for the trigger causing TB to go offline, I have no idea. The computer is connected to the network, and I never manually go offline.

This happens when I am out of the office, running on a wireless modem. When I am out of the office in this way, I always follow the same procedure. Start the computer (= bring it out of hibernate), connect the modem, then "Get Mail" in TB to check for mail that may have been sent while I was in transit. At this point, TB is always working fine and has not gone offline. The switch to offline mode happens invisibly at some point between the initial "Get Mail" and me finding that TB is offline. My modem has no auto-reconnect feature, so it is not possible for the modem to invisibly drop and reconnect as a cause.

Comment 8

[u387838]

Hi Wayne,
I no longer experience this bug for the same reason as the other one. I no longer use a wireless modem to connect to the Internet. I now connect using WiMax via an Intel 6250 WiFi/WiMax mini PCI card. TB never detects offline even when the card is switched off, so the problem doesn't appear anymore.

Comment 9

[Daniel Stenberg [:bagder]]

I want to remove the manage-offline-status prefs and associated logic in the work done with bug #939318.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Have you guys seen any reports of this? If not, we can close.

Comment 11

[Charles]

No reports of this that I can recall... feel free to close...

Comment 12

[gene smith]

Never seen tb switch to offline mode even when the network is down or wifi out of range. (If that's what this is about.)

Comment 13

[Matt]

(In reply to gene smith from comment #12)

Never seen tb switch to offline mode even when the network is down or wifi out of range. (If that's what this is about.)

That makes two of us, usually it stays online even when windows is telling me I have no internet. I have seen nothing in support.

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Thanks

Comment 15

[gene smith]

I wasn't familiar with this but finally found it under Advanced/Network & Disk Space/Configure offline settings. It defaults to Automatically Follow Offline State (and controls pref offline.autoDetect). Apparently this doesn't work with wifi. I've seen WADA mention it in various bug reports that it works when ethernet cable is pulled. I don't have a wired setup to try it with any more. But if it is erratic and takes tb offline or online when it shouldn't, you can always un-check the default setting.