Unintuitive messages when starting with a non-existent profile directory

Bug #251630 reported by Henri MICHEL
2
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Mozilla Thunderbird
Expired
Medium
thunderbird (Ubuntu)
Triaged
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: mozilla-thunderbird

Setup
====
 you have a profile referring to a non existing directory (for example if your ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/profiles.ini is as follows:
------------------------------8<-------------------------------
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=3yt5q2x7.default
Default=1

[Profile1]
Name=foobar
IsRelative=1
Path=35l08sbb.nosuchdir
------------------------------8<-------------------------------

And ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/35l08sbb.nosuchdir does not exist

Unexpected behavior 1
==============
If you start thunderbird with:
   $ thunderbird -P foobar
you will get the following warning message window:

>>Thunderbird is already running,but is not responding. To open a new window,you must first
>> close the existing Thunderbird process,or restart your system.
>> OK

Unexpected behavior 2
==============
If you start thunderbird with:
   $ thunderbird -ProfileManager
and explicitely ask for profile "foobar"
You will get the following warning message window:

>> Thunderbird cannot use the profile "foobar" because it is in use.
>> To continue,close the running instance of Thunderbird or choose a different profile.
>> OK

Suggestion
=======
It would be better to say that the directory does not exist !!
This is particularly frustrating, if you happen to have a profile whose directory ends with the space. No idea how the guy who reported the problem to me produced a directory ending with a space but I observed it.

Revision history for this message
In , Omar (omarb-public) wrote :

WFM using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a2pre) Gecko/20070113 Calendar/0.4a1

But I managed to freeze Sunbird: bug 367620

Revision history for this message
In , Damian-publicemail (damian-publicemail) wrote :

What I did was to deny permission (current user), not to make directory as read-only, this is what have you tried?

Omar, we are very happy that you support us, please visit http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:QA_Home and join to #calendar-qa

Revision history for this message
In , Omar (omarb-public) wrote :

(In reply to comment #2)
> What I did was to deny permission (current user), not to make directory as
> read-only, this is what have you tried?

I wasn't sure how you denied permission so I made the profile directory as read-only

> Omar, we are very happy that you support us, please visit
> http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:QA_Home and join to #calendar-qa
>
Thank you- I will :-)

Revision history for this message
In , Damian-publicemail (damian-publicemail) wrote :

(In reply to comment #3)

> I wasn't sure how you denied permission so I made the profile directory as
> read-only
Ok there is one more thing that I haven't mentioned before that helps: I have NTFS file system where I can set permission per each user: Properties of directory, and in third tab (Security or similar) you can allow or deny any permission you wish. I denied all for current user. It's hard to do it with FAT32

Revision history for this message
In , Bugzilla-babylonsounds (bugzilla-babylonsounds) wrote :

Is this a Sunbird-specific behaviour or does this bug also occur in Firefox, Thunderbird or Seamonkey? If yes, then please move this bug to the Core Product - Profile Manager component.

Revision history for this message
In , Damian-publicemail (damian-publicemail) wrote :

good point
yes, the same for firefox

Revision history for this message
Henri MICHEL (henri-j-michel) wrote : non intuitive messages with broken profiles

Binary package hint: mozilla-thunderbird

Setup
====
 you have a profile referring to a non existing directory (for example if your ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/profiles.ini is as follows:
------------------------------8<-------------------------------
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=3yt5q2x7.default
Default=1

[Profile1]
Name=foobar
IsRelative=1
Path=35l08sbb.nosuchdir
------------------------------8<-------------------------------

And ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/35l08sbb.nosuchdir does not exist

Unexpected behavior 1
==============
If you start thunderbird with:
   $ thunderbird -P foobar
you will get the following warning message window:

>>Thunderbird is already running,but is not responding. To open a new window,you must first
>> close the existing Thunderbird process,or restart your system.
>> OK

Unexpected behavior 2
==============
If you start thunderbird with:
   $ thunderbird -ProfileManager
and explicitely ask for profile "foobar"
You will get the following warning message window:

>> Thunderbird cannot use the profile "foobar" because it is in use.
>> To continue,close the running instance of Thunderbird or choose a different profile.
>> OK

Suggestion
=======
It would be better to say that the directory does not exist !!
This is particularly frustrating, if you happen to have a profile whose directory ends with the space. No idea how the guy who reported the problem to me produced a directory ending with a space but I observed it.

Revision history for this message
Joel Goguen (jgoguen) wrote :

Thank you for your bug report. This bug has been reported to the developers of the software. You can track it and make comments at: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=480309

Changed in mozilla-thunderbird:
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Joel Goguen (jgoguen) wrote :

Also changing the bug package to thunderbird, since the mozilla-thunderbird package is now a transitional package to the thunderbird package.

Revision history for this message
In , Bugzilla-standard8 (bugzilla-standard8) wrote :

Making subject more generic and also extending to directory doesn't exist (bug 480309), as I bet its the same issue.

Revision history for this message
In , Bugzilla-standard8 (bugzilla-standard8) wrote :

*** Bug 480309 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Changed in thunderbird:
status: Unknown → Invalid
Joel Goguen (jgoguen)
Changed in thunderbird:
status: Invalid → Unknown
Changed in thunderbird:
status: Unknown → Confirmed
Joel Goguen (jgoguen)
Changed in thunderbird (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Changed in thunderbird:
importance: Unknown → Medium
Changed in thunderbird:
status: Confirmed → Expired
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