888654 - Thunderbird appeared as "Background Process" on Windows 8 Task Manager and won't close

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: OS Integration, defect)

Description

[john]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; WOW64; rv:22.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/22.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20130618035212

Steps to reproduce:

Using TBird and Fox, I had an occasion to open the New Style Task Manager on Windows 8.  While there, I saw that TBird was not listed as an "App" where I expected it, rather it had landed as a "Background Process", the second group on the "Process" tab.

The memory was up around 250MB, about twice the size of what I expected.

Given that memory condition, and the odd location in Task Manager, I closed TBird (from TBird).  However, that TBird background process would not close.  There was no other App showing TBird.

After a long while, I manually closed the TBird process in Task Manager.

Reopening TBird, it showed up where I expected it -- as a "App" in the task manager with a memory size as expected of about 110MB.



Expected results:

I would have not expected to see a background process listing TBird.  I don't know why it was there, but that does not appear sensible.  There were no noted operational issues defeating usability while it appeared as a Background Process.   I figured I would identify this as a bug, since it might raise some issue about memory or startup and Win8 that might be useful to someone.

Note: I loaded classic shell -- I wouldn't have run TBird from the goofy Win8 app screen.

Comment 1

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

”appeared as Background Process" is INVALID, because it's by design.
  Fx/Tb closes window before start of termination process
  when termination of Fx/Tb is requested via menu, X button etc. 
"won't close" part is simply that Tb's bug happened in termination process of Tb after window close, or that termination process takes longer than you expect.

Please state detail of the "won't close" part.
Loop like peoblem(CPU 100%, ...)? Or Wait/freeze like problem?
How about "Virtual Memory" size transition and "Real Memory" size(perhaps called "Working Set") transition?
If Win, "Process Monitor" of SysInternals is available. What kind of Tb's activity in file I/O is seen by tool like Process Monitor?
How about Tb's network access etc. while "won't close"?

When did your problem start to occur? Just after upgrade of Tb? Just after install of addon?
Does you problem occur every termination of Tb?
What did you do in Tb just before you try to terminate Tb?
Does your problem occur with Tb's -safe-mode? (thunderbird.exe -safe-mode)

Comment 2

[john]

AH!.   I forgot had authorized an update.   When I restarted TBird manually, it kicked in the update cycle.  The -update- did not go as I would expect.  

That might explain something, but points to a possible update bug in Win8???   That raises two questions: why did the update cycle stop? why didn't the background process close when I closed the TBird window?   The move to 17.0.7 was the first update on this Win8 machine.
 

To you other questions, I can add this:

When I noticed that TBird was located in the background process section of task manager, the TBird window was not closed, and I had not requested that it close.

At the time that I noticed it, before closing the Tbird window, I seem to recall that the listed background process was not consuming any CPU cycles.  

However, -after- I closed the TBird window, there was no CPU activity on that TBird background process.   That condition, nothing happening, lasted a minute or two.   At that point, I forced the process to close.

Comment 3

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to john ruskin from comment #2)

Oh, problem when auto update, instead of ordinal termination of Tb.
(how can we know it by your report of comment #0...)

> That raises two questions:
> why did the update cycle stop?
> why didn't the background process close when I closed the TBird window?

Background process is perhaps "windowless process for update of Tb" which is perhaps needed to control "termination of Tb for update" and "restart of Tb for update". (Sorry for my wrong guess on "background process" in previous comment.)
And, it's simply that something wrong happened in "update process", "termination of Tb for update", "restart of Tb for update", ..., in your environment.
It may be Tb's bug. It may be Tb's bug or add-on bug which was triggered by other add-on, other Tb's bug, something wrong such as network error, .... It may be problem due to interfere by anti-virus software, interfere by personal firewall software, ....

> When I noticed that TBird was located in the background process section of task manager, 
> the TBird window was not closed, and I had not requested that it close.

It sounds; (1) Update process started and background process was kicked. (2) Something wrong ocuured during update process. (3) Tb's update process may hade been waiting end of some events. Then Tb didn't/couldn't go ahead to "terminate Tb for update" step.
 
> At the time that I noticed it, before closing the Tbird window,
> I seem to recall that the listed background process was not consuming any CPU cycles.
> However, -after- I closed the TBird window,
> there was no CPU activity on that TBird background process.
> That condition, nothing happening, lasted a minute or two.  

All of these indicate that status of "update process" was "Wait" or "Hang" or "Freeze".

> At that point, I forced the process to close.

Good choice.

After that, was "auto update" executed by next restart of Tb? Or you did manual "update of Tb"? In any case, was retry of "update of Tb" successful? Or it was unsuccessful too, like comment #0?
"Updato Tb 17.0.7" from which version of Tb?

Comment 4

[john]

On the restart after the forced closing of that background process, the update installed without further intervention by me.

I had gone from 17.0.6 to 17.0.7

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Can you reproduce when using current version? (or beta from http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/channel/ )
If not, please close the bug report.

Comment 6

[john]

Not a current version problem; and not encountered in subsequent version updates.   
Closing - marking resolved/wontfix