Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Tasks not creating/not showing on calendar

  • 7 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 522 views
  • Last reply by Mark Foley

more options

I have recently installed Thunderbird 38.5.1 with Lightning 4.0.5.1 on 2 Windows 7 computers in our office. On computer A, I can create a task and it shows up in my Today pane, but nothing shows up on the calendar itself. Events do work OK.

On computer B, I get the New Task: dialog, but after filling it out and clicking "Save and Close", nothing happens. The dialog simply stays on the screen unless I close it [x]. Likewise I cannot create events on this computer. Same thing, dialog doesn't close after clicking "Save and Close". As far as I can tell, both computers are set up the same.

need help! Show stopper!

I have recently installed Thunderbird 38.5.1 with Lightning 4.0.5.1 on 2 Windows 7 computers in our office. On computer A, I can create a task and it shows up in my Today pane, but nothing shows up on the calendar itself. Events do work OK. On computer B, I get the New Task: dialog, but after filling it out and clicking "Save and Close", nothing happens. The dialog simply stays on the screen unless I close it [x]. Likewise I cannot create events on this computer. Same thing, dialog doesn't close after clicking "Save and Close". As far as I can tell, both computers are set up the same. need help! Show stopper!

Chosen solution

Being impatient, I just went ahead and uninstalled Thunderbird, deleted the ...\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird folder (uninstall does not do this which I think is a bad thing), and reinstalled Thunderbird -- keeping profile on local computer this time instead of on the AD/DC server.

I added a new calendar, but still no Calendar tab and View > Calendar was still grayed out. After more playing I found I had to do: Events and Tasks > Calendar, then the calendar and Calendar tab showed!!! View > Calendars still grayed out. If this selection in non-functioning it should be removed! Highly confusing. If this is common behavior (your experience?) perhaps I should post another bugzilla -- unless you have a logical explanation.

I can now add tasks. I'm going to assume the problem adding tasks had something to do with the profile being on the server rather than local (although my computer A has no problem with the profile on the server; on the other hand the computer A user has very little mail). I experienced this server problem with Outlook too and moved the Outlook profile data to a traditional Samba shared drive other than AD/DC redirected folders and had no further Outlook problems. I will probably try the same with Thunderbird later, but I'll make sure all the kinks are worked out with a "normal" configuration first.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (7)

more options

tasks are tasks, not calendar entries. or events.

more options

Hey Matt! Looks like you're singlehandedly answering all my issues. Thanks for hanging in there. Your time is appreciated.

So, given that "task are ... not calendar entries", Tbird on my computer A is working as designed. I guess I'm just used to the Outlook paradigm where tasks do also show on the calendar. No big, just need to get used to a new way of doing things.

Computer B, however, is a problem. Any idea why I cannot create new tasks or events? Is there some setting I can check? Something to download or repair? Closing and restarting Thunderbird does not help.

more options

Now I have a little more time...

Been working on.http://thunderbirdtweaks.blogspot.com.au/2016/01/outlookcom-office365-imap-subscribed.html

I really have no idea what is wrong with your second install. some suggestions are.

Remove and reinstall the Lightning add-on.

From the help menu select troubleshooting information Click the show profile button Close Thunderbird delete the calendar-data folder from the profile in explorer and recreate the calendars after a restart of Thunderbird and a reinstall of lightning.

more options

Sorry, these must all be simple-minded questions, but I'm having loads of trouble. I did as you suggested, even moving the profile back to the actual local computer. Removed lightning, removed calendar data folder, reinstalled lightning.

View > Calendar is grayed out, can't view. Still true even after adding a new calendar.

Interestingly, The 'Today Pane' fills with events from a previously subscribed calendar (which I can't see because 'View > Calendar' is grayed out).

On Events and Tasks > Publish Calendar, both the original personal calendar and the subscribed calendar show in the 'Select Calendar' dialog. I can see neither calendar anywhere.

Events and Tasks > Unsubscribe Selected Calendar, is grayed out, even though there is a subscribed calendar and the Today Pane shows its events.

Do I just need to uninstall Thunderbird and start over?

more options

Chosen Solution

Being impatient, I just went ahead and uninstalled Thunderbird, deleted the ...\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird folder (uninstall does not do this which I think is a bad thing), and reinstalled Thunderbird -- keeping profile on local computer this time instead of on the AD/DC server.

I added a new calendar, but still no Calendar tab and View > Calendar was still grayed out. After more playing I found I had to do: Events and Tasks > Calendar, then the calendar and Calendar tab showed!!! View > Calendars still grayed out. If this selection in non-functioning it should be removed! Highly confusing. If this is common behavior (your experience?) perhaps I should post another bugzilla -- unless you have a logical explanation.

I can now add tasks. I'm going to assume the problem adding tasks had something to do with the profile being on the server rather than local (although my computer A has no problem with the profile on the server; on the other hand the computer A user has very little mail). I experienced this server problem with Outlook too and moved the Outlook profile data to a traditional Samba shared drive other than AD/DC redirected folders and had no further Outlook problems. I will probably try the same with Thunderbird later, but I'll make sure all the kinks are worked out with a "normal" configuration first.

more options

MarkFoley said

Being impatient, I just went ahead and uninstalled Thunderbird, deleted the ...\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird folder (uninstall does not do this which I think is a bad thing), and reinstalled Thunderbird -- keeping profile on local computer this time instead of on the AD/DC server.

This is a bet each way. You dislike it, others applaud the fact the data does not disappear with the application.

I added a new calendar, but still no Calendar tab and View > Calendar was still grayed out. After more playing I found I had to do: Events and Tasks > Calendar, then the calendar and Calendar tab showed!!! View > Calendars still grayed out. If this selection in non-functioning it should be removed! Highly confusing. If this is common behavior (your experience?) perhaps I should post another bugzilla -- unless you have a logical explanation.

Open a calendar tab and you see it becomes active and provides different views of the active calendar. Perhaps a bug should exist to make the entry invisible, not unavailable. Calendar integration does I think need more work.

I can now add tasks. I'm going to assume the problem adding tasks had something to do with the profile being on the server rather than local (although my computer A has no problem with the profile on the server;

But are they both using the same profile? Might be a file contention. Thunderbird has no idea of file locking etc that comes with a shared profile.

more options

Matt said

MarkFoley said
Being impatient, I just went ahead and uninstalled Thunderbird, deleted the ...\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird folder (uninstall does not do this which I think is a bad thing), and reinstalled Thunderbird -- keeping profile on local computer this time instead of on the AD/DC server.

This is a bet each way. You dislike it, others applaud the fact the data does not disappear with the application.

Not so much a dislike, really, we just need a user's profile to be available no matter what workstation in the office he/she is working on. In our environment, if the domain controller is down, there no mail happening anyway. I'll experiment with putting the profile on a standard Samba share later -- after we've tested everything. Like I said, it was also a problem with Outlook putting the .pst file on the AD/DC and I had to put it on the samba share to get Outlook to work. Dunno why. The Samba people say that an AD/DC is NOT a Samba share - but I have no elaboration on that.

I added a new calendar, but still no Calendar tab and View > Calendar was still grayed out. After more playing I found I had to do: Events and Tasks > Calendar, then the calendar and Calendar tab showed!!! View > Calendars still grayed out. If this selection is non-functioning it should be removed! Highly confusing. If this is common behavior (your experience?) perhaps I should post another bugzilla -- unless you have a logical explanation.

Open a calendar tab and you see it becomes active and provides different views of the active calendar. Perhaps a bug should exist to make the entry invisible, not unavailable. Calendar integration does I think need more work.

Yes, you are right. If you open (click on) the calendar tab, View > Calendar becomes active (not grayed). If you don't click on the calendar tab, even if there is one, it is grayed out. I would say this behavior is highly confusing. Enough so that I gave up and reinstalled Thunderbird; only after doing so did I figure out how to see my calendar using "Events and Tasks". Furthermore, if VIew > Calendar is only visible if you open the Calendar tab, of what use is it? The calendar is already visible so you don't need to click on View > Calendar! In my opinion, the most intuitive operation is that View > Calendar should enable the Calendar tab and switch to it. That's what I expected to happen anyway.

I can now add tasks. I'm going to assume the problem adding tasks had something to do with the profile being on the server rather than local (although my computer A has no problem with the profile on the server.

But are they both using the same profile? Might be a file contention. Thunderbird has no idea of file locking etc that comes with a shared profile.

No, they are not using the same profile. They are different users and the profiles were in different directories on the server. The only/main point of different I can identify is that User A has 545 emails and user B has nearly 23,000.

Like I said, best to get all the features working and understood before getting fancy. I'll try moving the profiles to a shared drive ... later -- in a month or so. This is an experimental replacement for Outlook so profiles accessible on a shared drive are not yet a priority.

Thanks for you help.

Modified by Mark Foley