891314 - Thuderbird starts many processes under Linux

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Bogomil Shopov[:Bogomil]]

How to reproduce:
1. Start Thunderbird
2. Run 'ps -A|grep -i thunderbird' to see the process
Result: ' 2503 ?        00:01:06 thunderbird'
3. Click on a link within a message
4. Run 'ps -A|grep -i thunderbird' again
Result:
'2503 ?        00:01:24 thunderbird
 7164 ?        00:00:00 thunderbird'
5. Run the same query again:
Result:
 2503 ?        00:01:32 thunderbird
 7723 ?        00:00:00 thunderbird

It keeps the original PID and then create new PID's

6. Click on a link within a message again and now:

2503 ?        00:01:45 thunderbird
8379 ?        00:00:00 thunderbird
8387 ?        00:00:00 thunderbird
8391 ?        00:00:00 thunderbird

And keep creating shadow PID's.

I am under Ubuntu

Comment 1

[Bogomil Shopov[:Bogomil]]

After I close the GUI, the result is:
 2503 ?        00:03:27 thunderbird
17629 ?        00:00:00 thunderbird
17633 ?        00:00:00 thunderbird
17640 ?        00:00:00 thunderbird
17645 ?        00:00:00 thunderbird
17649 ?        00:00:00 thunderbird
17651 ?        00:00:00 thunderbird
17653 ?        00:00:00 thunderbird

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

It occurs also in safe mode?

Comment 3

[Bogomil Shopov[:Bogomil]]

Yes, it does. 

Another problem is that after the clicking it doesn't open the link in Firefox (default browser).

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I was unable to find the example from the past year. Pretty sure it was also linux.
Perhaps someone else will remember

Comment 5

[Lucas Finco]

I still have the same issue in windows.  I use the following python code to clean up after closing Thunderbird and Firefox:

#firefox process cleanup
from psutil import Process
for i in range(0,32766):
    try:
        p = Process(i)
        if p.name() == "firefox.exe":
            p.kill()
    except:
        pass

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

> I still have the same issue in windows.  I use the following python code to clean up after closing Thunderbird and Firefox:
Start Windows in safe mode.
Then start Thunderbird in Thunderbird safe mode.
Better? Worse?

Comment 7

[:aceman]

So this problem also exists in Firefox?
May those be threads only? Do they share the same numbers of RAM usage in the ps output?

You say those stay alive also after closing Thunderbird/Firefox?

Comment 8

[tomas.peitl]

I had a similar problem, after clicking any link in Thunderbird, those zombie processes started to pop up.

In my case, for some reason Thunderbird was set as the default browser, and therefore clicking a link invoked Thunderbird again, triggering the endless replication because Thunderbird couldn't handle the (non-sensical) request. Actually, I found out by clicking links in other applications, which also kept starting Thunderbird processes. Could be perhaps the problem in others' cases as well, I for sure did not set Thunderbird as the default browser manually, something must have gone wrong somewhere.

After setting the default browser correctly, the issue disappeared.

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Lucas write "I still use Thunderbird, but haven't experienced this issue in a while."

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

presuming invalid per comment 8.
Thanks Tomas for the comment.