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myrlin

Member

Registered: 2010-06-11

Posts: 297

[SOLVED] Thunderbird (Lanikai)/Extensions Problems (Enigmail etc)

Following the installation of Enigmail (and some other add-ons,eg, British-English dictionary), Thunderbird does its automatic restart OK, but then will not restart again as an ordinary user. It will restart in safe mode, and disabling the add-ons allow it to restart normally again.

Everything works perfectly as "root", so I guess it must be a permissioning problem, but I can't track it down.

I have started Thunderbird from the console, but no messages whatsoever are displayed. I have "Googled" and found many reports of similar behaviour, but in slightly different circumstances, and no real solutions.

I have run strace, but, not being a programmer, I can't find anything obvious in the output.

I have spent many, many hours on this, and it is driving me crazy, so any help anyone can give would be VERY welcome.

Many thanks in advance

Last edited by myrlin (2010-10-03 14:15:26)

tum

Member

Registered: 2010-05-18

Posts: 40

Re: [SOLVED] Thunderbird (Lanikai)/Extensions Problems (Enigmail etc)

1: You can try to move .thunderbird(dir) from your $HOME to another place and restart thunderbird (and reinstall add-ons).
2: Try to start thunderbird with:
    -P <profile>        Start with <profile>. (or)
    -ProfileManager    Start with ProfileManager.

I have not problem with Enigmail.
thunderbird: 3.1.4-2
enigmail: 1.1.2
lightning: 1.0b2

myrlin

Member

Registered: 2010-06-11

Posts: 297

Re: [SOLVED] Thunderbird (Lanikai)/Extensions Problems (Enigmail etc)

Thanks for your help, Tum.

I have tried all your suggestions, but without success. Sometime ago, I even did a complete re-install of Thunderbird, but all to no avail.

The fact that everything works properly when I log in as root makes me believe that it is not a structural problem (corrupted package, symlink problem as described in the Ubuntu forums, etc),

I just don't know what to do next.

tum

Member

Registered: 2010-05-18

Posts: 40

Re: [SOLVED] Thunderbird (Lanikai)/Extensions Problems (Enigmail etc)

1. You can check rights in your $HOME/.thunderbird .
2. Add/(login to) new user and try thunderbird .

Can you paste some infos ?
"uname -r" ,
"pacman -Qi thunderbird" ,
enigmail version and how did you install add-on .

myrlin

Member

Registered: 2010-06-11

Posts: 297

Re: [SOLVED] Thunderbird (Lanikai)/Extensions Problems (Enigmail etc)

Thank you for sticking with me on this, Tum.

Here is some information:

Machine: EeePC 901 Netbook
Desktop: KMod3 (from Elvaka)

Output from "uname -r":
2.6.35-ARCH

Output from "pacman -Qi thunderbird"

Name           : thunderbird
Version        : 3.1.4-2
URL            : http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird
Licences       : MPL  GPL
Groups         : None
Provides       : None
Depends On     : gtk2>=2.20.1  gcc-libs  mozilla-common  nss>=3.12.8  libxt
                 shared-mime-info  alsa-lib>=1.0.23  dbus-glib>=0.82
Optional Deps  : libcanberra: for sound support
Required By    : thunderbird-uk
Conflicts With : None
Replaces       : None
Installed Size : 33892.00 K
Packager       : Jan de Groot <jgc@archlinux.org>
Architecture   : i686
Build Date     : Tue 28 Sep 2010 15:32:59 BST
Install Date   : Wed 29 Sep 2010 17:12:05 BST
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
Install Script : No
Description    : Standalone Mail/News reader

Enigmail Version: 1.1.2 installed from Mozilla add-ons (tools>add-ons)

I have tried the direct install, and downloading the file, then installing manually.

I have set rights to $HOME/.thunderbird to anyone can do anything - same result

I have even tried setting the rights to /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.1 to anyone can do anything - same result

I have tried a different user - same result

I have also tried a complete clean out and re-install of Thunderbird (again), but with the same results (root still works fine).

Hope this helps.

Thanks again for your help.
EDIT: I think I may have an insight to this. I adopted a slightly unusual approach to partitioning, which I described here.
As you will see, /home is a symlink to /media/sdb1/home. This looks suspiciously like the symlinks / Thunderbird bug described by Ubuntu users on their forum.
I will investigate further, and report back.
Thanks again for taking the time to help me.

Last edited by myrlin (2010-10-01 15:31:21)

myrlin

Member

Registered: 2010-06-11

Posts: 297

Re: [SOLVED] Thunderbird (Lanikai)/Extensions Problems (Enigmail etc)

The problem was caused by a well-documented and long-standing bug in Thunderbird which means that it is unable to handle symlinks in paths to configuration information. This causes it to crash on start-up if an extension is registered which uses such a path.

My unconventional system configuration (link to details given in my previous post) uses a symlink from /home in the root directory to the actual /home directory on the secondary SSD on my netbook. Hence, Thunderbird crashes!

This  workaround worked for me:

1. BACK UP ALL MESSAGES/CONTACTS ETC BEFORE STARTING!!!

2. Thunderbird should have created a Default User folder in /home/username/.thunderbird. This will be called something like "12abcdef. Default User".

3. Open a terminal (as user), and start Thunderbird using the command "thunderbird -P". This will open the profile creation screen.

4. Select Create User. This should start the Create New Profile wizard. Use "Choose Folder" to select the absolute path to the location in 1. In my case /media/sdb1/home/myrlin/.thunderbird/12abcdef.Default User. (I actually deleted the existing Default User profile before doing this, so the wizard created a new default profile, but this might be a bit risky!)

5. Select the new user profile, and start Thunderbird. Everything now works fine (for me, at least!)

Finally, I would like to thank "Tum" for all the support and advice he has given me in hunting this problem down and fixing it.

(N.B. Edited to include more detail)

Last edited by myrlin (2010-10-03 16:00:32)

itti

Member

Registered: 2007-06-01

Posts: 77

Re: [SOLVED] Thunderbird (Lanikai)/Extensions Problems (Enigmail etc)

Thanks for finding out about this symlink problem. I have the same behaviour with thunderbird when enigmail is installed. I will change my thunderbird profile so that a symlink free path is used.

myrlin

Member

Registered: 2010-06-11

Posts: 297

Re: [SOLVED] Thunderbird (Lanikai)/Extensions Problems (Enigmail etc)

Pleased I could help.