719236 - Thunderbird 9.0.1 didn't start after UPGRADE. Leftover file "dependentlibs.list" triggers failure.

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Installer, defect)

Description

[Jeff Barry]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:9.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/9.0.1
Build ID: 20111220165912

Steps to reproduce:

I installed Thunderbird 9.0.1 when it was suggested that I do so.



Actual results:

After installing version 9.0.1 Thunderbird will not start.

I traced through the start-up scripts and it goes like this: thunderbird --> run-mozilla.sh --> run-mozilla.sh-bin except that the last one isn't anywhere on my machine. I am already running Firefox 9.0.1 on my machine so there should be no version dependency issue here, I would think. 

Why would any of your scripts ever want to access a binary which does not exist?




Expected results:


Thunderbird should have just started like it has in every version prior to 9.0.1.

I can't read my eMail.  I will try re-installing the previous version from scratch.

Comment 1

[Jeff Barry]

PS: I only traced to where it failed.  I did not analyze where it might be making an incorrect decision which would lead it to where it failed.

Comment 2

[Jeff Barry]

OK, I completely wiped out all traces of my previous version of Thunderbird and installed 9.0.1 from scratch.  This time it worked.  So now I have to believe that your 9.0.1 UPGRADE package has a hole it it.  run-mozilla.sh-bin is still nowhere on my computer but Thunderbird starts now so I have to believe that the 9.0.1 UPGRADE package failed to install <something> such that the start-up scripts took the wrong path and ended up wanting the non-existent run-mozilla.sh-bin.

Comment 3

[Jeff Barry]

PS: I regret that I did not check the existing Thunderbird version number before installing 9.0.1 when this all started.  That would have been useful to you.  Sorry.

Comment 4

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Do you still have the original install that was broken available? I'd be interested to see the 'thunderbird' file. It sounds like this got corrupted or something, as that file should have pointed direct to thunderbird-bin, not to run-mozilla.sh.

Comment 5

[Jeff Barry]

Mr. Banner,

Thanks for the reply.

I use Thunderbird, I don't hack at it, so the 'thunderbird' file would have been just as it was installed.  Hmmm.  I *do* keep backups.....  Yes.  I have it there from before I overlaid 9.0.1 on it.  I could wrap the whole thing up in a tarball so that you could try to reproduce the problem.  In fact let me retrieve the files, set up a test case and see if I can reproduce the problem here on my machine.  I'll get back to you tomorrow.

Jeff Barry

Comment 6

[Jeff Barry]

I almost forget that I keep backups because I use them so infrequently, but I do keep them so...

I was able to restore my Thunderbird to the way it was (8.0) prior to my initial attempt to "upgrade" to 9.0.1.  I then tried twice to reproduce the error and got the same error both times.  This fault is reproducible, at least on my machine (Slackware 13.37.0).  When I tell 8.0 to do the upgrade it is downloaded, it tells me it's going to restart, then nothing.  Running Thunderbird fails too.

Use the tar file I created to set up Thunderbird.  That Thunderbird should run.  Then try to get it to do the upgrade.  It should fail.

The tar file is at  www.myletters.us/share/thunderbird-before-9.0.1_upgrade.tar.gz
It's too big for me to send to your servers (19078106 bytes, cksum 2628991268).  If you want it then start the download and go for an extended coffee break.  My upload speed is 40K bytes/second.

NOTE: When I tried to trace this problem initially I did so by plastering trace statements all over the 'thunderbird' and 'run-mozilla.sh' scripts.  Today I traced with 'set -x' and it failed in a different place, tho it still failed.  Now that I think on it my initial method of trace probably interfered with choices made within the scripts so kindly disregard my earlier observations as to where it fails.

Nevertheless I can repeat the upgrade failure and if it happens to me its likely to happen to others.

Thanks,
Jeff Barry

Comment 7

[:aceman]

Jeff, I also got this broken update to 9.0.1 on Slackware 13.37. Can you propose any trace method that we could both run and compare the logs?

(I also fixed it by downloading full package but I have the broken install at hand).

There is also a similar problem in bug 720201.

Comment 8

[Jeff Barry]

Hi,

I fooled around with this problem a bit more trying to figure out what the difference was between Thunderbird 8 UPGRADED to 9.0.1 versus a clean INSTALL of 9.0.1.  I found something when I traced the open() system calls in thunderbird-bin to see where UPGRADE and INSTALL varied.

Both the updated and installed 9.0.1 tried to open() a file called "dependentlibs.list".  That file is NOT there in the INSTALLED 9.0.1 version but it IS there in the version UPDATED to 9.0.1.  When I went into the UPDATED version and renamed the "dependentlibs.list" file to something else, then the UPDATED version worked, ie Thunderbird started.  When I renamed that file back to its original name, "dependentlibs.list", Thunderbird failed to start.

Where did "dependentlibs.list" come from?  That file exists in my backup file  thunderbird-before-9.0.1_upgrade.tar.gz  so it was there before the update process started.    I went back and re-installed my old Thunderbird 8, deleted "dependentlibs.list", then I started 8, asked it to upgrade and it worked; Thunderbird started right up.

I don't know what "dependentlibs.list" was supposed to do, but I think your 9.0.1 upgrade package might work better if it deleted that file.  Or at least that's a place to start.

Hope that helps.

Jeff Barry

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #7)
> Jeff, I also got this broken update to 9.0.1 on Slackware 13.37. Can you
> propose any trace method that we could both run and compare the logs?
> 
> (I also fixed it by downloading full package but I have the broken install
> at hand).
> 
> There is also a similar problem in bug 720201.

Should we still care about these two bugs, i.e. will current verison installers still have the issue?

Comment 10

[:aceman]

I do not remember any problem since then.

Comment 11

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

I haven't seen anything else about it either, so let's close it.