Thunderbird donation screen - how to suppress it
Hello dear Mozilla (or should I say Thunderbird) crew and community,
Some months ago, in December 2022 I think, under Windows 10, my Firefox webbrowser got started whenever I started Thunderbird, showing a request for donation screen. Having enjoyed the benefits of Thunderbird for a long time, I thought it was reasonable to donate. I hoped the screen would disappear after this, but it didn't. I have searched for solutions to get rid of it, because it slows down TB whenever I want to look into my emails. But sofar, without success. The only things I DID find were that I can get rid of the screen under Linux (as a normal user). Under Windows I can start TB 'as Administrator' and then remove the URL (see below) from the settings. But as I recall it, it reappeared after a couple of restarts of TB even in this case. And starting TB as Administrator gives me no access to my emails which are stored under my user account. Removing the URL, by the way, can not be done through the normal settings screens. I had to go to the "hamburger" menu icon and then select Settings, scroll all the way down and then click on the Configuration Editor button. There I found these three related parameters and their values:
app.donation.eoy.url = https//www.thunderbird.net/thunderbird/102.0/eoy/ app.donation.version = 1 app.donation.eoy.version.viewed = 1
My questions:
1) Why can't I remove the URL for the "end-of-year" donation screen as a normal Windows user?
Every time I delete it, it's back the next time I start TB. (for God's sake, it's almost April by now and I DID donate at year's end ;-)
2) The file 'prefs.js' in my user mail profile/directory seems to hold part of my settings, but it states "DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE". Could I define a 'user.js' file to actually circumvent my inability to remove the URL through the Configuration Editor? 3) Or even better: what IS the right way to remove the donation screen in my situation; or put differently: is this an error (f.e. with user rights) in the Windows version of TB not present in the Linux version?
Thank you in advance for your help or suggestions,
Steijn van Essen From i8088 to i7-980X in 25 years and still waiting …
Izabrano rješenje
It is a well known with shared profiles across Linux and Windows that many things go wrong. Unfortunately many Thunderbird settings are stored as absolute paths and they do not transition well from Linux to Windows and back.
Why your file ownership was switched to root, I have no idea, but if I was guessing I would be thinking a bug in Samba is more likely than just about anything, or the files being copied by the root user.
Thunderbird runs entirely in the user space, with no elevated privileges. I therefore can not see the access required to actually make the changes on Linux existing. Samba however it is pretty much what it does, managed files and permissions.
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Try disabling the start page in tools>settings>general. I think it's the topmost option.
Thank you, David, for your swift reply.
However, the option '(show) Thunderbird startpage' under 'Settings > General' has already been disabled (by me, some time ago). Any suggestions?! Should I enable it and then disable it again?!
Steijn
Well, that worked for me, so do try it.
Hello forum readers,
After a couple of days of troubleshooting I think I found the culprit:
Being in the midst of a long migration process from Windows to Linux on the desktop I have Thunderbird installed on some Windows and Linux machines. They all are configured to use the same mailpath (to my Samba server) and I also have the same user accounts and groups defined, both under Windows and Linux. I have worked for four months now with this setup and it basically works fine: I can handle my emails on Windows in the morning and continue under Linux in the afternoon. But sometimes things go sideways.
Windows Explorer gave me the first clue: if I request the file properties for specific files in my mailpath some of them are different when it comes to file ownership and modbits (access rights). Files created under Windows are all owned by my personal user account, but some of the files created under Linux are - for some obscure reason - owned by root. Maybe some of the processes forked by TB under Linux run with root privilege(?!) If anyone would like to comment on this, please don't hesitate to do so. I run Debian Linux with Xfce on my desktops, by the way.
Logging into a shell on my Samba server I saw also differences in modbits for a couple of files in root of the the mail directory. These files, including 'prefs.js', turned out NOT to be writable for my user account anymore (only for root). As long as I simply handle my emails under Windows this restriction does not hurt. But when I want (or need) to change my settings (that is where 'prefs.js' comes into play) I find that I can adjust them but they will be lost the moment I restart TB.
Long story short: after changing file ownership from root to <userid> for a total of just 6 files and 1 directory and changing some of their modbits I was able to make everything work for TB, both under Windows and Linux. This includes adding new mailaccounts for my new provider and getting rid of the TB nagscreen (kindly asking for a donation). For the latter I went into 'Settings > Configuration Editor' and removed the URL defined in the 'app.donation.eoy.url' field. So @David, I think this is a better way of doing it, rather than disabling (or removing) the start page. No need for that, I think. But, of course, thank you once more for your willlingness to help me out.
Gr, Steijn van Essen From i8088 to i7-980X in 25 years and still waiting … But not for much longer: when Windows is gone, Intel will be next (in favor of ARM on Raspberry Pi).
Izmjenjeno od strane Steijn van Essen
Odabrano rješenje
It is a well known with shared profiles across Linux and Windows that many things go wrong. Unfortunately many Thunderbird settings are stored as absolute paths and they do not transition well from Linux to Windows and back.
Why your file ownership was switched to root, I have no idea, but if I was guessing I would be thinking a bug in Samba is more likely than just about anything, or the files being copied by the root user.
Thunderbird runs entirely in the user space, with no elevated privileges. I therefore can not see the access required to actually make the changes on Linux existing. Samba however it is pretty much what it does, managed files and permissions.
@Matt,
I'm pleased (and relieved) to read that TB is assumed to be (and most like IS) entirely running in user space. That's what I hope decently developed software to do (at least when it comes to simple tasks like writing an office document, playing a video or audio file, or handling emails). And therefore, giving it a second thought, I might have tried logging on to TB once using the root account when I ran out of options to get rid of the donation screen. Can't remember for sure, but this seems a more likely explanation than TB switching to elevated privileges all by itself. Having said this, my mixed OS TB setup has worked flawless (apart from the settings issues) for four moths and seems to work even better now. Simply installed TB both under Windows and Linux, put (under Windows) my mail directory (and profiles) on a Samba share/NAS, copied/synchronized my settings in profile.ini from the Windows desktop to the Linux desktop and then, by magic, I could also handle my email under Linux.
@Matt & @David,
Thank you once more for helping me out with this problem (digesting your suggestions and having given it a second thought, I most likely created myself).
Gr, Steijn van Essen From i8088 to i7-980X in 25 years and still waiting … But not for much longer: when Windows is gone, Intel will be next (in favor of ARM on Raspberry Pi).