Thunderbird Calendars Nightmare in Windows or Ubuntu
Thunderbird Calendars Nightmare in Windows or Ubuntu, the Lightning BUGGY plug in.
First off I would like to congratulate the Mozzila boys for all their free software, specially Firefox "rules". But, for the past year I have been trying to run a stable email and calendar sharing solution with Thunderbird. My requirements are not complicated:
1. Windows machines running Outlook or Thunderbird
2. Ubuntu machines running Thunderbird
3. Shared Ical calendars, network, http Google or http groupdav
Untill now it's been mission impossible and I'm sorry to say, Thunderbird is not an email client for a more professional use. If it's basic use, email client and one private calendar hosted in the client, then I guess it works most of the time.
Thunderbird current version 2.0.0.23, Version 3.0 beta 3 and beta 4... How long have we been in version 2???? way to long. After downloading the Lightning 0.8, 0.9 and pre 1.0 plug in we can start adding and testing network and http(s) calendars:
a) Basically you immediately find this bug in all calendars. MODIFICATION_FAILED which means that after you added the calendar and it shows all the events, if you try to add, change or delete an event you get bumped with this error message and the calendar turns to read-only mode. Therefore renders the calendars useless in the client.
b) Another bug is related to https hosted calendars. In these cases we need to add a (signed or not) security certificate from the server. Thunderbird keeps forgeting or does not store the certificate, so each time you start Thunderbird you get this annoying and time consuming certificate pop-op. After you accept the certificate you get the error message :) MODIFICATION_FAILED. This bug seems to be fixed in beta versions 3.0
c) It's very hard to add a network calendar file://, the browse button is non existent which means you have to memorize the address. Another problem is that it does not accept other type or network paths like smb:// or just \\ or user@ip
d) Event reminders keep popping up and crashing, this means you can't snooze or dismiss the reminder, the pop up window just crashes. This problem gets fixed by updating the lightning plug in to an intermediate version. But right now I'm using Thunderbird version 3.0 beta 4 with lightning plug in version 1.0 pre and the problem returned :) uffffffffff. e) Event reminders keep popping up after you dismiss them or snoozed them. Basically each time Thunderbird checks the calendar remotely 5 or 10 minutes, the reminder will pop up regardless if you select dismiss or snooze for a day.
UBUNTU 9.10 Karmic Koala How to upgrade Thunderbird in Ububtu form version 2 to version 3.0 Beta 3 and Beta 4:
a. Backup you version 2 configuration "profile"
$sudo cp -r ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/ ~/thunderbird_backup
b. Download Thunderbird version 3.0 Beta 3 or Beta 4. If you download beta 3 you can use the Check for updates to download beta 4 (Help »»» Check for Updates...)
$wget -O - http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/3.0b3/linux-i686/en-US/thunderbird-3.0b3.tar.bz2 | tar xj -C ~
c. Run Thunderbird for the first time by
$cd /home/your user name/thunderbird
~/thunderbird$ ./thunderbird
d. Restore your version 2 profile into version 3
Edit the the new profile.ini file in /home/your user name/.thunderbird
modify the PATH line:
xxxxxx.default to the path of the profile you want to restore, in this case the backup I did previously Path=/home/your user name/thunderbird_backup/xxxxxxx.default
In profile.ini also change:
IsRelative=1 to IsRelative=0.
Save the profile.ini
How to Install lignhtning 1.0 pre and google pre:
You will also notice that most of your previously installed plug ins will not work with the latest beat versions, also if you use the ad-dons feature you wont find them available to download. To solve this you will need to manually download them from the ftp mozzila site:
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/
select pub folder »»» calendar folder »»» lightning folder »»» nightly folder »»» latest-com«1.9.1 »»» next select the folder according to your operating system »»» inside your op. sys. folder you will find the lightning.xpi and gdata-provider.xpi (google connector)
Also useful is the Lightning Nightly Updater, this ad-don can be use directly from Thunderbird »»» Help »»» Check for Latest Lightning Nightly Builds ...
