Similar Issue here.

Using:

TB 68.3.1 Lightning 68.3.1.1 {e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103} Windows 10

Tried the most common solutions documented on this and other related articles, nothing really helps much. After TB normal start, Lightning stops working. No calendars are listed. I can see the events grayed out. Everything gets read-only.

If I exit TB, Lightning fails to load properly at the next start. The below steps helps me getting it to work again:

1. Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled... 2. Continue with Safe Mode... 3. Exit 4. Start TB

I suspect something goes wrong when the extension is being loaded. I guess the Safe Mode restart cleans something up and the subsequent restart works.

Hi all, Quick info. I updated to 68.4.1 (I hesitated but the release notes mentioned a fix for a bug I'd experienced so decided to go ahead). As usual the calendar was broken after the restart. I got it back by removing Lightning completely, using the add-ons manager, and then adding it back. I noticed that it's important to leave the additional add-ons for Google Calendar active (I'm currently using TbSync with Provider for CalDAV & CardDAV).

@Paulo F. Thanks for the info. After the update described above I took the time to quit TB and check your suggestion. I confirm this works, and thus saves time messing about removing and reinstalling Lightning. It also lends weight to your suggestion that something goes wrong when the extension is being loaded. I guess the Safe Mode restart cleans something up and the subsequent restart works.

The accepted method of connecting a calendar from Google to Thunderbird is to use the caldav protocol directly. This does not access tasks, nor does it use addons.

Add a new calendar to Lightning Select on the network. Select the format caldav Enter your gmail address and the caldav endpoint for Google. being https://apidata.googleusercontent.com/caldav/v2/your-email-address/events

Where you replace your-email-address with your actual email address.

If that works without errors then I guess you have an addon issue.

Thanks Matt for the suggestion. The problem persists. I have removed the two add-ons and configured the caldav directly as suggested. It worked, as expected. I then restarted TB. The calendar is broken, as expected. I am now getting used to using Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled. (RWAOD) This enabled the calendar to function.

It took me quite an additional while to find out how to configure the very useful Public Holidays through CalDAV that you get automatically if you use one of the API add-ons that I've used in the past.

May I now make as clear as I can that this problem does not seem to be related to any add-ons except Lightning itself.

Simple statement of the basic problem this discussion thread is about:

When I restart TB the calendar becomes unusable (data greyed out or not shown at all, buttons don't work ... I've already given all necessary descriptions of the functional problem in this thread). RWAOD or alternatively fully removing and re-installing Lightning allows the calendar to function until the next time TB is restarted.

I must agree with John.thompson that this is purely a lightning problem. I'm using Win 7 Pro, TB & lightning 68.3.1. My calendar was named "Home_New" and I had deleted "Home" several years ago. The only add-on I have other than lightning is "ReFwdFormatter". We are not syncing the calendar with Google or any other calendar program/service. I apologize for the amount of detail below but I'm hoping it will help solve the problem.

There are 3 of us using TB and up until recently I was the only one using Lightning. All of the data is stored on a networked drive so that it is backed up nightly by the IBM i server. The problem originally started sometime after 11/19/2019 which is when I installed TB 60.9.1. It may have been triggered when the other user enabled lightning to try it out. That is my suspicion but I can't be positive. I upgraded TB and lightning to 68.3.1 on January 3 to see if that would help. I did get the calendar back once during this time frame but lost it again and I really don't have the details/time frame. At this point, I had the other user remove Lightning from their profile so now I'm the only one using it. Whenever my "Home_New" calendar disappears, there is an empty "Home" calendar showing. When the "Home_New" reappears, they both show.

Yesterday, I loaded an SQL browser program to see if I could look at any of the SQLite data. It didn't help me so I uninstalled it. I did not try to open TB between the time I installed/deinstalled the SQL browser but of course I did a restart of the pc as part of that install. When I did restart TB afterwards, my "Home_New" calendar was back.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon cleaning up my tasks and updating the calendar. I closed TB and shut down my pc. At that point, I remembered I wanted to do a backup of the entire TB profile so turned my pc back on. I decided to open TB just to check and I was back where I started. No "Home_New" calendar, just the "Home" calendar. I shut down TB and turned loose the backup (just an IE copy of the TB profiles folder).

When I came back in today, the backup had hung up on a file still in use by TB (a profile, I think). I did a retry and it continued. I did have to skip the two temporary files in the calendar data which weren't there by the time the copy got to them (just guessing about this). As all of these files are on the server, they get closed by the system as part of the nightly save.

Now for today (1/ 11/2010).... I started TB and calendar is still missing. I disabled the only add-on other than lightning that I have (ReFwdFormatter) and restarted TB. Same result, no calendar. Next I did a restart in safe mode with add-ons disabled. I then exited TB and restarted it. Same result. Since my calendar has reappeared at least twice, I know the data is still there. I just don't know where or how to retrieve it.

If anyone has any ideas of what I can try to help solve this, let me know. Be glad to do it. Likewise, if you can give me advice on retrieving the calendar data, I would appreciate that too. Thanks.

Thanks for your feedback Gary. I'm sorry that the "Restart with Add-ons Disabled" workaround that's helped some of us, is not helping you. Have you tried completely removing Lightning? In other words: - open Add-ons Manager - click "Remove" on the Lightning Add-on bar (not just disable) - restart TB as requested - return to Add-ons Manager where there will likely still be a trace of Lightning saying it will be completely removed after closing the Manager tab - close the Add-ons Manager tab - exit TB and then launch TB - add Lightning Add-on.

With a bit of luck you may get your "Home_New" calendar showing again.

GaryMfield said

All of the data is stored on a networked drive so that it is backed up nightly by the IBM i server.

And do you see this with data stored on a local disk? While I am not saying what you are doing is not supported. I am seeing lots of folks complaining of profile not loading etc where network drives are concerned. It may have nothing to do with lightning, but in changes to the Mozilla core affecting networked file systems.

I would even stretch this to it may be devices that are connected using IPV6 or IPV4 and IPV6.

Are al these vague issues even related. I do not have a clue. But I would guess some are and some are not.

So lets get back to basics. It is the logical way to diagnose the problem. Do you see this with a local calendar on the local hard drive? Do you only see it when you use he tbsync addon? Do you only see it with networked calendar using CALDAV or a combination of the above.

To other reading other than GaryMfield. Those questions are really aimed a you. Not working is not necessarily a common issue. There are plenty of possible causes.

Did you install Lighting from the add-on site? If so, remove Lightning, reinstall Thunderbird and when the prompt appears on the bottom of Thunderbird install the version that comes with the installation. Only Linux users should be installing Lightning from the addon site, everyone else get a copy as a part of the installation of Thunderbird. It is in the package.

Thanks to both John and Matt for responding.

John: I tried removing and re-installing Lightning per your instructions above. On the first restart and closing the add-on manager, I noticed that the "events and task" tab was still there. I re-opened add-on manager and lightning was still showing. It said there was an update available so I could update, disable or remove. I chose remove a second time and on the restart and ending the add-on manager, lightning was gone. I closed and restarted TB again just for good measure. Used add-on manager to add lightning back in and restarted TB. Same results. Just looks like a new install of lightning with a blank "home" calendar.

Matt: I'm willing to do more testing on this by seeing if I can make it fail on a local drive but I'm concerned about permanently losing the calendar I'm trying to retrieve. My work and personal life are out there and if I can get it retrieved one more time, I'm going to print it out or do something else to make sure I don't lose it again even if I have to re-input it all manually. So far, I haven't been able to get a definitive answer on what files contain the lightning data and whether they can be restored and then lightning been made to recognize them. If I had that information, it would be a lot easier to set up a local calendar and see if I can update and retain it. I could even live with that for a while.

Regarding your network drive comment.... What you say may well be true but just a reminder that we have been running off the networked drive for many years now with no issues. And this might not be the same sort of networked drive you are familiar with. The server is an IBM i (prior generations called AS/400, iSeries). As far as I know, I'm not using tbsync nor caldav unless these are something that happens automatically. You also mentioned that lightning should be installed with what is provided with my TB install. I have had to go to the add-on site every time. Am I missing something that I should be doing differently on the re-install? Or when I removed lightning, did it completely remove it from my system requiring me to go to the add-on site after that?

Thanks again for all of the help.

I'm posting this here in case it will help others who are having the missing calendar issue. If continuing in this thread isn't the proper place for it, please let me know where it should be posted. Thanks.

More info.... I found additional information elsewhere on an old post that describes a little bit of the pref.js file and how it can be modified to retrieve a calendar. Before I give it a try I'm hoping someone can give me a bit more technical information on how it works so I don't make my situation worse. It appears that pref.js is used by TB as well as Lightning so I'm reluctant to replace it from the backup which was a couple of weeks ago. I don't want to lose all my email history.

Specifically, I'm looking for information on exactly how the "calendar.list.sortOrder" record works. Attached is a section of the pref.js file from one of my backups. Note that line 53 "calendar.list.sortOrder" is pointing to the "Home" calendar. Starting at line 66 is the information for the "Home_New" calendar but no "calendar.list.sortOrder" record. I don't really care about "Home" but just curious how all this works and desperately need "Home_New". So questions on what might work to get back the "Home_New" calendar.

1. Could I add another "calendar.list.sortOrder" at line 65.5? Would that keep both calendars?

2. Does "calendar.list.sortOrder" take multiple parameters? ie, could I add the identifier for "Home_New" separated by a comma or ????

3. Could I simply change the "calendar.list.sortOrder" identifier to point to "Home_New"? Based on the information in the old post, this seems the most promising.

4. Other method?

Assuming the answer is yes to any of these, is there anything else I would need to do?

GaryMfield said

I'm posting this here in case it will help others who are having the missing calendar issue. If continuing in this thread isn't the proper place for it, please let me know where it should be posted. Thanks. More info.... I found additional information elsewhere on an old post that describes a little bit of the pref.js file and how it can be modified to retrieve a calendar. Before I give it a try I'm hoping someone can give me a bit more technical information on how it works so I don't make my situation worse. It appears that pref.js is used by TB as well as Lightning so I'm reluctant to replace it from the backup which was a couple of weeks ago. I don't want to lose all my email history. Specifically, I'm looking for information on exactly how the "calendar.list.sortOrder" record works. Attached is a section of the pref.js file from one of my backups. Note that line 53 "calendar.list.sortOrder" is pointing to the "Home" calendar. Starting at line 66 is the information for the "Home_New" calendar but no "calendar.list.sortOrder" record. I don't really care about "Home" but just curious how all this works and desperately need "Home_New". So questions on what might work to get back the "Home_New" calendar. 1. Could I add another "calendar.list.sortOrder" at line 65.5? Would that keep both calendars? 2. Does "calendar.list.sortOrder" take multiple parameters? ie, could I add the identifier for "Home_New" separated by a comma or ???? 3. Could I simply change the "calendar.list.sortOrder" identifier to point to "Home_New"? Based on the information in the old post, this seems the most promising. 4. Other method? Assuming the answer is yes to any of these, is there anything else I would need to do?

And more info.... I'm beginning to believe that the problem occurs when TB/Lightning shuts down and saves the pref.js file. I continued working on this last night doing the following: 1. I added a new calendar called "GMM_Test" and selected "local". Note that when I was all done, I couldn't find any calendar data on my local pc. It may be there but I just couldn't find it. 2. I added 1 event and 1 task to "GMM_Test". 3. I exited TB so that pref.js would be saved. I used IE to verify that it did. 4. I copied pref.js to a backup location and opened it in notepad. The "calendar.list.sortOrder" entry now shows two parameters (separated by a space) which answers one of my previous questions. One points to "Home" and one to "GMM_Test". I can still see the other pref.js records for the calendar (Home_New) that I'm trying to recover. 5. I exited TB, then restarted it without doing anything else. At this point I'm seeing "Home" and "Home_New". "GMM_Test" does not show! 6. I printed everything in my recovered calendar to PDF files just in case. 7. I exited TB and again checked the pref.js file to make sure it still pointed at "Home" and "Home_New" and it did.

At this point, I gave up for the night. When I came in this morning, I still had my recovered calendar.

Here are my thoughts... As I mentioned above, I believe something is going wrong when TB/Lightning saves the pref.js. At first I thought Matt might be right about it being some kind of a problem with the files being stored on a network drive especially since there are 3 of us using TB but I'm the only one using lightning. That may still be part of the problem but the way pref.js acted last night, I think it is more likely a problem of how the file is being updated. I was the only one on the system last night. Everyone else had shut down and gone home.

I have saved all of my test notes and multiple copies of pref.js plus everything is backed up nightly so if I can look at anything else that might help solve this, let me know. I would be glad to do it.

Thanks for all this patient work, I'm glad you got your calendar back. Your comments about something going wrong when *closing* TB lend weight to the conclusions of others, myself included, who have for weeks now been observing that the calendar is lost when restarting TB.

One workaround observed by Paulo F. is to then launch TB in "safe mode" which may put things right again, temporarily. This also points to something going wrong when exiting TB (rather than when starting).

In your case you've been able to get your 'real' calendar back by adding another one that you've now 'lost' but that doesn't matter.

I would add that these problems began around TB 68 in my case. I sincerely hope the developers can get to the bottom of this, or provide a tool for cleaning up profiles.

It was mentioned in another thread that the TbSync add-on might affect the ability for prefs.js to save settings. Also, prefs.js could have become corrupted for other reasons. Short of creating a new profile, perhaps a custom user.js would help retain settings that aren't saved.

Thanks sfhowes, I'll look into it at the weekend. When things started to go wrong I was using the "Provider for Google Calendar", then I moved to TbSync with the Provider for CalDAV and CardDAV. I'm no longer using TbSync or any of 'em, I've gone "full CalDAV" but I guess there's likely something nasty left in the prefs.js.

For this to be diagnosed properly on Windows, then starting in Windows safe mode with networking is required. I have seen at least one mention of Norton's virus in this thread and in all honesty, none of these windows security products are actually much better than the malware they purport to protect us from.

The issue you are all experiencing may be an issue writing a file, it may be something else. The question is why is it only you folks. There should be millions of others here with the same issues. Thunderbird has millions of users and some 80% use the calendar. So this is an edge issue. it is certainly not mainstream. Using safe mode removes a whole pantheon of startup programs, including anti virus and it is why it is recommended.

Once in safe mode create a new profile and add an IMAP mail account and your remote calendar to it. Restart Thunderbird. Does it work correctly or not over multiple restarts. This is the foundation point. For Thunderbird.

Matt, you make a valid point. However, because I'm on a business computer (even though behind a firewall), I'm reluctant to shut down my anti-virus software. I don't currently have a pc at my house but that should change in the next few months. Maybe then I can revisit and give this a try. Thanks for your input.

Matt, thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately I rather think there are probably a number of users affected by this. Many will not find a way to this forum and still fewer will actually contribute a report. A number of those reporting problems do not use AVs or have tried Windows Safe Mode to no avail. See this thread for example (well, you've seen it already ;-))) Or this http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=3055157 Sounds familiar. Or this https://github.com/kewisch/gdata-provider/issues/33 Also very familiar. What's more it's cross-platform, there are Mac users, Linux, Windows, and various versions of each. TB 68 seems to have wreaked quite a lot of havoc one way or another. I'm perfectly happy to believe that if I create a new profile TB will behave itself, whether in safe mode or not. That's really not the problem from the point of view of most users, who don't expect to have to reconfigure everything, every time there's an update of TB. I'll have a go at the w/e.

File a bug then. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/home Or see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1609539 Or https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1592342 Or https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1592407 Or https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1577356

Two things to report.

A. Behaviour after a Windows update. Windows requested a reboot as usual for the update. Before the reboot, I exited TB normally, then rebooted for the Windows update. After the reboot, TB launched normally with the calendar working. However after exiting TB I'm back to having to use Help > Restart with add-ons disabled as before. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

B. As promised I created a new profile and configured an IMAP account with CalDAV calendar (plus the default "Home" calendar). All works perfectly and supports multiple restarts. This was what I was expecting, as I have no doubt of the proper functioning of a fresh install and configuration of TB.

For me a solution might be to create a clean profile, reconfigure all accounts. However I am reluctant to do this as I do not use IMAP and I have a lot in local folders. How would I transfer them to the new profile? TB is my main e-mail environment. Another problem for me would be getting back the "Home" calendar data. I suppose I could do that using an export from the old profile. But is there any way of recovering "Home" (local) calendar data from an old profile, for use in a new profile, if you can't manage to get the calendar to work at all in the old profile? I think others have this problem.

Any ideas welcome.

Local folders, whether they be in the Mail/<popaccount> subfolders or Mail/Local Folders can be transferred to another profile by simply copying the mbox files, the large ones with no extension, into Mail/Local Folders of the target profile, while TB is closed. Ignore the like-named .msf index files, as they will be recreated when TB restarts. The ImportExportTools NG add-on may be useful if you have a complex directory structure, but the manual method is straightforward.

If the Home calendar doesn't work in the old profile, try exporting it to ics format and importing into a new profile, to at least possibly view the data.