Thunderbird 12 "Connecting to update Server" workaround?

[Godwin]

Hi there

There had been quite a few rapid releases of Thunderbird lately. from 11 to 12 then 12.01.

Thunderbird has "in app" upgrade via the Help -> About Thunderbird. If one is running Thunderbird with normal permissions and sees that there is an update and goes for it; a upgrade box will display, the status bar will keep going around and the status message will be stuck at "Connecting to update Server".

However if one stops that instance and uses gksu to re-run Thunderbird, the update will be sensed, downloaded and installed correctly. Since Thunderbird doesn't issue any logs (well not in /var/log as far as I can see), how should I approach in debugging / reporting a bug error? I also wonder if it is supposed to be a feature not a bug (Firefox doesn't have this issue). However it is rather disconcerting because if you run gksu, your existing user mailbox will not show since it is running as su.

GC

[Zill]

Godwin: IMHO, a user should never run a web browser or mail application as the superuser. As you have pointed out, running Thunderbird as superuser (via the gksudo prefix) means that you have no correlation with your mail obtained when running as a standard user. This is because the profiles for the user and superuser are in different directories, each with different permissions.

Apart from this practical difficulty, running these internet apps as superuser is making your system far more vulnerable and may well result in breakage.

To avoid problems, just ignore any "in app" upgrades and stick to upgrading via the normal repositories.

[richardporteous]

I am get the update available message too. I see that the preferences/advanced/update tab in thunderbird has the update thunderbird checked - I unchecked it and am waiting for updates via update manager.

[Zill]

I am get the update available message too. I see that the preferences/advanced/update tab in thunderbird has the update thunderbird checked - I unchecked it and am waiting for updates via update manager.

A good move!

[Godwin]

The problem is I thought Mozilla themselves have decided to go the way of Google.. that is releasing upgrade at a much faster clip and a lot of these errors are security / stability issues... I would say use in app upgrade when you have reviewed the release notes first eg https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/12.0.1/releasenotes/. Especially with mail clients, you don't get to control who emails you. If there is a security / stability issue that pertains to you.. it might be a good idea to do in app upgrade.

It is a bit unfortunate that Mozilla doesn't have apt source like Google does. I think it is a bit of a balance to wait for the repositories to upgrade every 6 months vs running gksu thunderbird when there is an update... in the end, you might get a pretty big bug and still result in breakage.

Besides you run as Superuser only during the upgrade and revert after the upgrade (you have to anyways because your email settings don't get carried over). I have filed a bugzilla report on this.

Godwin: IMHO, a user should never run a web browser or mail application as the superuser. As you have pointed out, running Thunderbird as superuser (via the gksudo prefix) means that you have no correlation with your mail obtained when running as a standard user. This is because the profiles for the user and superuser are in different directories, each with different permissions.

Apart from this practical difficulty, running these internet apps as superuser is making your system far more vulnerable and may well result in breakage.

To avoid problems, just ignore any "in app" upgrades and stick to upgrading via the normal repositories.

[Zill]

... If there is a security / stability issue that pertains to you.. it might be a good idea to do in app upgrade...

If you really think that you will be targetted via the latest vulnerability then you may have a point! Personally, I am quite happy to wait until an application is upgraded through the official repos. I get less hassle that way.

[Laurynne]

I'm bumping this thread because I have the same issues with the stuck updater window in Thunderbird (UP 5, Thunderbird 14.0), and I'm a bit confused about all of this.

When I installed LMDE a few days ago and looked around my new system, I found Thunderbird, Firefox, and the Flash plugin in /opt, which surprised me because this folder had always been empty on Ubuntu except for my personal stuff (software not available through the repositories etc.). Still, Thunderbird and Firefox show up as installed packages in Synaptic, so they seem to have gotten installed via the repos but they still got placed in /opt? Why is that?

I now unchecked the "Update Thunderbird" box in the Thunderbird settings, like Zill did. Is there anything else I have to do to get updates for Thunderbird and Firefox via the package manager? And what kind of updates will I receive this way: only security updates or also major release updates? (I find it hard to tell which is which with Mozilla's current "big numbers" versioning policy.) I'm asking this because a friend of mine uses Ubuntu 12.04 and he's already on Firefox 16-something whereas my minty Firefox is version 14.0.1.

Helpful insight is greatly appreciated!