775623 - Bad user experience when lightning calendar add-on became incompatible after Thunderbird upgrade/update. Calendar disabled without warning

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Kathleen Wilson]

I got the pop-up asking if I wanted to upgraded Thunderbird, so I clicked OK, never suspecting that my calendar (Lightning add-on) would stop working. Now I'm missing a teleconference because my calendar is not working, so I cannot get the conference #.  

The error is "Lightning is incompatible with Thunderbird 14.0."

So, I would like to very quickly go back to the previous version of Thunderbird, but it's not very easy to figure out how to do that.

It sure would have been nice if before the upgrade completed it could have checked my add-ons and asked if I wanted to continue with the upgrade even though the add-ons would not work -- I would have opted to not upgrade.

Comment 1

[Kathleen Wilson]

While searching for "Install old versions of Thunderbird" I found
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/lightning/
Which works with Thunderbird 14.0.

So I used their Download button and instructions to install the add-on, and now I have my calendar back. (I had tried using Thunderbird's add-on manager to upgrade the add-on, but it didn't help, so I had assumed I needed to just go back to a previous version of Thunderbird.)

Anyways, things are working again, though I missed my meeting, and feel like I just went through a bad user experience.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Other users who have had trouble with lightning not updating automatically ... https://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging/tags/tb14calendar

Comment 3

[:aceman]

Why do you not let Lightning update to a compatible version of 1.6?

Wayne, see also bug 774998, this may be a dupe.

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #3)
> Wayne, see also bug 774998, this may be a dupe.

could be. Unfortunately I don't ahve time to investigate the precise language and steps of the bug and https://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging/tags/tb14calendar to see which really are failures of Thunderbird/addons update process, and which are users not understanding the process/wording.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I also encountered someone in gsfn with bug 767646

Comment 6

[Kathleen Wilson]

This might be a duplicate of bug #774998, but there may be a difference.

In the Add-ons Manager for "Automatic Updates" the value "Default" selected. It's not clear to me when that got set, and what "Default" means -- e.g. is it on or off?

Now I have switched it to "On".

By the way, I'm pretty sure that Lightning has updated automatically in the past when I have upgraded to new versions of Thunderbird, because I have been using it through several Thunderbird upgrades, and had never had to do anything to update Lightning, and this is the first time that my Calendar disappeared.

Comment 9

[quixote7]

I've used thunderbird since so long ago I don't even remember when. Late 1990s? I love it, it's my only mail program, so please forgive me for yelling.

GET THIS BUG FIXED. IT IS FATAL.

If this keeps happening, Thunderbird is unusable.

I have my life on Lightning. I cannot afford to have it blow up. Ever. All that needs to be done is a poll of used extensions, query to the user about any breakages, and then NOT UPDATING if so requested.

I'm using LinuxMintDebian-testing. I've pinned to Thunderbird14 because of user interface changes I don't like in later versions. Lightning 1.6 works with 14, 1.9 does not. For reasons I still haven't understood, Thunderbird spontaneously updates, despite explicit instructions to the contrary, and then tells me my Lightning is incompatible and just blows it up. Despite Preferences: do not automatically install either Thunderbird or addons.

I can fix it by reinstalling Lightning 1.6, but that gets real old after the umpteenth time Thunderbird goes off on one of its "checking for compatible addons" excursions.

Please get this fixed. Yesterday.

Comment 10

[Worcester12345]

Would this not be cleared up by Bug 401779 - Integrate Lightning Into Thunderbird by Default and Ship Thunderbird with Lightning Enabled ?  Making it all "work together" in an "integrated fashion" was part of the main intent of that bug.

Comment 11

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][☁️📆]]

I'm fine with closing this bug since we are now shipping Lightning and there will always be a compatible version available.