Bug#856490: Thunderbird fails to start

[Andrea Stacchiotti]

Thanks Chris, your patch fixed it (the comment in line 198 can stay).

Andrea

On Wed, 8 Mar 2017 09:12:44 + Chris Taylor 
wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 21:48:00 +0100 Andrea Stacchiotti 
>  wrote:
> > Indeed, this "fix" is a nightmare (replying to this bug report has been
> > a nontrivial task).
> >
> > My Thunderbird refuses to start if I have:
> > * Neither .icedove nor .thunderbird
> > * Only .thunderbird
> >
> > And the migration somehow put a .thunderbird inside the .icedove when I
> > put an empty .icedove folder.
> >
> > Sorry for the annoyed tone, but this has made Thunderbird completely
> > non-functional, unless I directly start
> > "/usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird-bin".
> >
> > Package version: 1:45.7.1-2
> >
> >
> 
> I've attached a patch that fixes it, at least for me.
> It appears that the comments at the end of lines 196 and 197 (and 
> possibly 198 so I've removed it too) are breaking the elif, by making it 
> read the next line as a comment too (because of the \ telling it to 
> ignore the newline). Either way, bash doesn't like this syntax, don't do 
> it! :-)
> 
> HTH,
> Chris

Bug#856490: Thunderbird fails to start

[Chris Taylor]

On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 21:48:00 +0100 Andrea Stacchiotti 
 wrote:

Indeed, this "fix" is a nightmare (replying to this bug report has been
a nontrivial task).

My Thunderbird refuses to start if I have:
* Neither .icedove nor .thunderbird
* Only .thunderbird

And the migration somehow put a .thunderbird inside the .icedove when I
put an empty .icedove folder.

Sorry for the annoyed tone, but this has made Thunderbird completely
non-functional, unless I directly start
"/usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird-bin".

Package version: 1:45.7.1-2




I've attached a patch that fixes it, at least for me.
It appears that the comments at the end of lines 196 and 197 (and 
possibly 198 so I've removed it too) are breaking the elif, by making it 
read the next line as a comment too (because of the \ telling it to 
ignore the newline). Either way, bash doesn't like this syntax, don't do 
it! :-)


HTH,
Chris
--- /usr/bin/thunderbird-broken 2017-03-08 09:06:55.057957903 +
+++ /usr/bin/thunderbird2017-03-08 09:07:31.442581553 +
@@ -193,9 +193,9 @@
 # is a state we can't solve on our own !!! The user needs to interact and
 # has probably an old or otherwise used Thunderbird installation. Which one
 # is the correct one to use?
-elif { [ -d "${ID_PROFILE_FOLDER}" ] || [ -L "${ID_PROFILE_FOLDER}" ]; } && \  
 # .icedove exists as folder or symlink
- { [ -d "${TB_PROFILE_FOLDER}" ] || [ -L "${TB_PROFILE_FOLDER}" ]; } && \  
 # .thunderbird exists as folder or symlink
-   [ "$(readlink -e "${TB_PROFILE_FOLDER}")" != "${ID_PROFILE_FOLDER}" ]; 
then  # compare if canonical name of both folders equal
+elif { [ -d "${ID_PROFILE_FOLDER}" ] || [ -L "${ID_PROFILE_FOLDER}" ]; } && \
+ { [ -d "${TB_PROFILE_FOLDER}" ] || [ -L "${TB_PROFILE_FOLDER}" ]; } && \
+   [ "$(readlink -e "${TB_PROFILE_FOLDER}")" != "${ID_PROFILE_FOLDER}" ]; 
then
 
 output_debug "There is already a folder or symlink '${TB_PROFILE_FOLDER}', 
will do nothing."
 output_debug "Please investigate by yourself! Some more information below."

Bug#856490: Thunderbird fails to start

[Andrea Stacchiotti]

Indeed, this "fix" is a nightmare (replying to this bug report has been
a nontrivial task).

My Thunderbird refuses to start if I have:
* Neither .icedove nor .thunderbird
* Only .thunderbird

And the migration somehow put a .thunderbird inside the .icedove when I
put an empty .icedove folder.

Sorry for the annoyed tone, but this has made Thunderbird completely
non-functional, unless I directly start
"/usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird-bin".

Package version: 1:45.7.1-2

Bug#856490: thunderbird fails to start if there is a ~/.icedove/ directory (or symlink)

[Laurent Bigonville]

Hi,

I think that the fix for this bug is actually wrong.

~/.icedove folder is not existing on my machine (the migration has 
already been done) and the wrapper is complaining that it exists and 
that something is wrong.


This is preventing users to start thunderbird from the menu/.desktop file

Could you please fix this?

Regards,

Laurent Bigonville

Bug#856490: thunderbird fails to start if there is a ~/.icedove/ directory (or symlink)

[Debian/GNU]

On 03/01/2017 04:50 PM, Carsten Schoenert wrote:
> Hello IOhannes,
> 
> On Wed, Mar 01, 2017 at 03:56:37PM +0100, IOhannes m zmölnig wrote:
>  
>> However, I'm rather unhappy with the currect state of the migration from the 
>> old
>> ~/.icedove/ profile to the new ~/.thunderbird/ profile.
> 
> we know. There are other bug reports that are also complaining about the
> current behavior.

thanks for confirmation.
i was pretty sure that there were other reports sharing my sentiments,
but i admit that i didn't feel like wading through the 200+ open tickets
in detail (i see know that that's the total count of bugs from the
src:icedove package; the bug-count for thunderbird is much lower).
the only obvious related issue was

> 
>> My ~/.icedove/ profile is about 3.5 GB in size. i have no desire to have a
>> *copy* of that directory lying around on my harddisk.
>> one reason are the security implications.
>> another reason is, that it takes ages.
> 
> The security reason I can not really share, there is no real difference
> to the real profile and if some person has access to your home it
> doesn't matter what folder he is "using". A waste of space may be a
> valid issue in some cases.

the security issue is about hiding sensitive data in a stale directory
(which makes it harder to purge sensitive data from within the
application). but anyhow.


> My profile is also about 3GB, to say it takes ages to copy is a relative
> thing. The copy takes about 4-5 seconds. 

lucky you.
it definitely took longer here: after finding no cancel button in the
dialog, and "kill -KILL"ing the zenity process, i had time to discover
that there was still a `cp` process running, finding its PID and killing
that.
after having done that (and i'm sure that took longer that 4-5 seconds),
the copy had finished just about 20%.

> And even if it takes more time
> for copying the folder I would't say that is critical for a migration.

agreed.

> 
> We had some reasons in the past to decide we want to copy the old folder
> as we expected to see much more problems with the switch. But yeah, more
> or less nothing was happen! So the concerns are not valid any longer and
> we can do symlinking now as we know what to fix after the adoption.
> 
> So anyway, the next upload will do trying to symlink ~/.thunderbird to
> ~/.icedove instead of copying the folder into a new folder.

cool.

> Booth symlink constellations are working by the next version Christoph
> is preparing. So as long ~/.thunderbird is pointing to ~/.icedove, or
>  ~/.icedove is pointing to ~/.thunderbird the script will start Thunderbird.
> 
> I've written the new (and final) behavior of the wrapper script into the
> Debian wiki. It should be expanded and correct by every user who has
> found something.
> 
>  https://wiki.debian.org/Thunderbird
> 


thanks for the quick response and the fixes.

gfmards
IOhannes




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Bug#856490: thunderbird fails to start if there is a ~/.icedove/ directory (or symlink)

[Carsten Schoenert]

Hello IOhannes,

On Wed, Mar 01, 2017 at 03:56:37PM +0100, IOhannes m zmölnig wrote:
 
> However, I'm rather unhappy with the currect state of the migration from the 
> old
> ~/.icedove/ profile to the new ~/.thunderbird/ profile.

we know. There are other bug reports that are also complaining about the
current behavior.

> My ~/.icedove/ profile is about 3.5 GB in size. i have no desire to have a
> *copy* of that directory lying around on my harddisk.
> one reason are the security implications.
> another reason is, that it takes ages.

The security reason I can not really share, there is no real difference
to the real profile and if some person has access to your home it
doesn't matter what folder he is "using". A waste of space may be a
valid issue in some cases.
My profile is also about 3GB, to say it takes ages to copy is a relative
thing. The copy takes about 4-5 seconds. And even if it takes more time
for copying the folder I would't say that is critical for a migration.

We had some reasons in the past to decide we want to copy the old folder
as we expected to see much more problems with the switch. But yeah, more
or less nothing was happen! So the concerns are not valid any longer and
we can do symlinking now as we know what to fix after the adoption.

So anyway, the next upload will do trying to symlink ~/.thunderbird to
~/.icedove instead of copying the folder into a new folder.

> it would be *very* helpful if the popup that informs me of the migration, 
> would
> have an option to [Cancel] the operation (the current state reminds me of 
> those
> famous w32 dialogs: "Do you really want to destroy the world? [OK]").
> it's obviously easy to just Ctrl-C the process when starting thunderbird from
> the cmdline, but it's hard to stop when starting via a GUI launcher.
> of course i first killed the dialog window, but that was *only* the dialog
> window and killing it would immediately start the copy process.
> 
> 
> somewhat contradictory, i also would like to be able to use my old ~/.icedove/
> directory around, as my homedirectory is on an NFS mount, shared by multiple
> computers (some of them using icedove, some being upgraded to thunderbird).

That will be possible with the next version. For sharing Icedove and
Thunderbird versions, please not that booth binaries will write the used
version into various files within your profile. This can break some
extensions.

> i see little merit in insisting on ~/.icedove/ not being there.
> afaik, ~/.icedove/ and ~/.thunderbird/ are practically identical, and could be
> shared between icedove and thunderbird clients, if it wasn't for thunderbird
> refusing to start if there is an ~/.icedove/ (even it is just a symlink to
> ~/.thunderbird/).
> 
> so please allow me to have both ~/.icedoce and ~/.thunderbird folders, side by
> side (without having to ressort to calling /usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird
> instead of /usr/bin/thunderbird)

Booth symlink constellations are working by the next version Christoph
is preparing. So as long ~/.thunderbird is pointing to ~/.icedove, or
 ~/.icedove is pointing to ~/.thunderbird the script will start Thunderbird.

I've written the new (and final) behavior of the wrapper script into the
Debian wiki. It should be expanded and correct by every user who has
found something.

 https://wiki.debian.org/Thunderbird

Regards
Carsten

Bug#856490: thunderbird fails to start if there is a ~/.icedove/ directory (or symlink)

[Debian/GNU]

Package: thunderbird
Version: 1:45.7.1-1
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

thanks for bringing back the unbranded thunderbird.

However, I'm rather unhappy with the currect state of the migration from the old
~/.icedove/ profile to the new ~/.thunderbird/ profile.

My ~/.icedove/ profile is about 3.5 GB in size. i have no desire to have a
*copy* of that directory lying around on my harddisk.
one reason are the security implications.
another reason is, that it takes ages.

it would be *very* helpful if the popup that informs me of the migration, would
have an option to [Cancel] the operation (the current state reminds me of those
famous w32 dialogs: "Do you really want to destroy the world? [OK]").
it's obviously easy to just Ctrl-C the process when starting thunderbird from
the cmdline, but it's hard to stop when starting via a GUI launcher.
of course i first killed the dialog window, but that was *only* the dialog
window and killing it would immediately start the copy process.


somewhat contradictory, i also would like to be able to use my old ~/.icedove/
directory around, as my homedirectory is on an NFS mount, shared by multiple
computers (some of them using icedove, some being upgraded to thunderbird).

i see little merit in insisting on ~/.icedove/ not being there.
afaik, ~/.icedove/ and ~/.thunderbird/ are practically identical, and could be
shared between icedove and thunderbird clients, if it wasn't for thunderbird
refusing to start if there is an ~/.icedove/ (even it is just a symlink to
~/.thunderbird/).

so please allow me to have both ~/.icedoce and ~/.thunderbird folders, side by
side (without having to ressort to calling /usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird
instead of /usr/bin/thunderbird)


gmfadr
IOhannes


PS: i think that #855330 suggests something similar.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 9.0
  APT prefers unstable-debug
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'testing-debug'), (500, 
'stable-updates'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.8.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_AT.utf8, LC_CTYPE=de_AT.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages thunderbird depends on:
ii  debianutils   4.8.1
ii  fontconfig2.11.0-6.7+b1
ii  libasound21.1.3-5
ii  libatk1.0-0   2.22.0-1
ii  libc6 2.24-9
ii  libcairo2 1.14.8-1
ii  libdbus-1-3   1.10.16-1
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2  0.108-2
ii  libevent-2.0-52.0.21-stable-3
ii  libffi6   3.2.1-6
ii  libfontconfig12.11.0-6.7+b1
ii  libfreetype6  2.6.3-3+b2
ii  libgcc1   1:6.3.0-8
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-02.36.5-2
ii  libglib2.0-0  2.50.3-1
ii  libgtk2.0-0   2.24.31-2
ii  libhunspell-1.4-0 1.4.1-2+b1
ii  libicu57  57.1-5
ii  libnspr4  2:4.12-6
ii  libnss3   2:3.26.2-1
ii  libpango-1.0-01.40.4-1
ii  libpangocairo-1.0-0   1.40.4-1
ii  libpangoft2-1.0-0 1.40.4-1
ii  libpixman-1-0 0.34.0-1
ii  libsqlite3-0  3.16.2-3
ii  libstartup-notification0  0.12-4
ii  libstdc++66.3.0-8
ii  libvpx4   1.6.1-2
ii  libx11-6  2:1.6.4-3
ii  libxcomposite11:0.4.4-2
ii  libxdamage1   1:1.1.4-2+b1
ii  libxext6  2:1.3.3-1
ii  libxfixes31:5.0.3-1
ii  libxrender1   1:0.9.10-1
ii  libxt61:1.1.5-1
ii  psmisc22.21-2.1+b1
ii  zlib1g1:1.2.8.dfsg-5

Versions of packages thunderbird recommends:
ii  hunspell-de-at [hunspell-dictionary]  20161207-1
ii  hunspell-en-us [hunspell-dictionary]  20070829-7
ii  lightning 1:45.7.1-1

Versions of packages thunderbird suggests:
pn  apparmor  
pn  fonts-lyx 
ii  libgssapi-krb5-2  1.15-1

-- no debconf information