692461 - Thunderbird 7.0.1 hangs when trying to attach files

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[s.schockert]

Attachment: firefox-debug_0bec_2011-10-06_15-53-17-986.log

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:7.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/7.0.1
Build ID: 20110928134238

Steps to reproduce:

Run Thunderbird 7.0.1, press STRG+N for new message, then try to attach file with the attach button or from the menu.


Actual results:

Thunderbird hangs and becomes unresponsive, after some clicks in the window the minimize and close buttons in the right window corner can be clicked again.
This leads to a "programm is unresponsive" dialogue with the "close it" and "wait for programm answer" dialogue. Choosing "close" closes the whole thunderbird (main and compose window), while with choosing "wait for answer" nothing happens and you have to close it through the close option.


Expected results:

A window should have appeared in which the file for being attached can be choosen.

Comment 1

[s.schockert]

sidenotes: 
system: windows 7 professional 32 bit

crash reports: none
since it seems not to create an crash report i tried to debug it with the infos given at https://developer.mozilla.org/en/How_to_get_a_stacktrace_with_WinDbg
i attached the log file of that try.

what still works:
drag and drop of files in the message compose window still works and attaches the files to the message!

Things I already tried:
-safe mode: same problem
-disabling all add-ons: same problem
-disabling anti-virus software: same problem
-created new profile: same problem
-tried thunderbird 8.0 beta: same problem

During trying to solve this error I encounterd another error in the "install add-on from file" dialogue in the add-ons section, which leads to the same hang/freeze. I have that add-on issue in Firefox 7.0.1 too.

Comment 2

[Vincent (caméléon)]

3 different users report this problem on GSFN, so marking as NEW.

Comment 3

[s.schockert]

Attachment: Windows 7 problem report

Since Thunderbird does not create a crash report I attached one or the Windows 7 crash reports of the incidents with a Bucket ID, unfortunately in German.

Comment 4

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Do you have the issue if you turn avast off ?

Comment 5

[s.schockert]

As stated above I already tried to:
-disable avast => still having the issue
-turning off avast => still having the issue
-tell avast to ignore the Thunderbird folders i could find on my system => still having the issue

I removed Avast (free edition) and installed Norton AntiVirus 2012 and the issue is still there.

Additionally I found out that drag-dropping only works until you try to send the mail, then it freezes like stated above.

Only thing that worked till now was the explorer right-click send-to dialogue, with which I was able to send a mail with attachment.

Comment 6

[s.schockert]

(In reply to Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul] from comment #4)
> Do you have the issue if you turn avast off ?

As stated above I already tried to:
-disable avast => still having the issue
-turning off avast => still having the issue
-tell avast to ignore the Thunderbird folders i could find on my system => still having the issue

I removed Avast (free edition) and installed Norton AntiVirus 2012 and the issue is still there and disabling Norton AV 2012 doesnt change the behaviour.

Additionally I found out that drag-dropping only works until you try to send the mail, then it freezes like stated above.

Only thing that worked till now was the explorer right-click send-to dialogue, with which I was able to send a mail with attachment.

Comment 7

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Tb holds last used directory by attach operation in mail.compose.attach.dir in prefs, and it's used as pre-selected directory when Tb shows file picker dialog. I thought the entry is updated when attached by Drag'Drop too, but it was wrong.
What directory is kept in the mail.compose.attach.dir?
(Tools/Options/Advanced/General, Config Editor)
If already disconnected remote server's directory is saved in the entry, Tb requests it and MS Win waits for lo---ng time to detect non-existent remote server.   
 
(In reply to s.schockert from comment #6)
> Additionally I found out that drag-dropping only works until you try to send the mail, then it freezes like stated above.

Tb currently doesn't try to read attached file data until draft save, or until send if no draft save occurs. Upon draft save or mail send, Tb reads attached file data and creates temporary files in %temp% directory for data encoding(base64, quoted-printable) and mail data strem composing.
If many garbages remain in %temp% directory, bug 389132 can occur upon draft save or send(Send Later too).
Are you looking phenomenon of bug 389132?

Comment 8

[s.schockert]

I looked at the value of mail.compose.attach.dir, it pointed at an existing Folder, just to be sure i changed the value, first just one folder up in the folder tree, then deleted the value, then filled in just c:\.
For each change Thunderbird behaved still the same (no response etc like stated in the original post)
I cant tell if its related to Bug 389132, when thunderbird freezes it does not consume cpu at a large scale nor have i found any thunderbird related temp files.

Comment 9

[fletertre]

Is it related to Bug 698993 - Thunderbird hangs while reading mails with attachments?

Comment 10

[s.schockert]

 I am really sorry to tell that I have to "opt-out" of this bug-report, after a Hardware Upgrade und Changing my Windos 7 to 64 bit with a complete Re-Installation the Bug is gone for me.

Comment 11

[joaormmota]

I had the same simptoms in a win7_64bits box. The problem was that the last attachment location was a now unaccessible network folder.

In my case I was able to restore this access but I think you can probable edit the the prefs.js file and change the value of "mail.compose.attach.dir" for a safe location.