Thunderbird profile manager trouble with constant updates
I've been using Thunderbird successfully in a multi-user environment for many years, but recently have been running into the same issue over and over.
First some background on our use case. We have 12 team members that use 20 or so different computers at any given time to access email. In order to accomplish this, we use profile manager of course and house all of the profiles on a central server. Each team members profile is configured on each computer and they select from the list. Sorry far, so good. Works great, everyone happy.
Recently I get weekly, sometimes daily, screen captures of the error message "You have launched an older version of Thunderbird....a newer version may have made changes to your profile which is no longer compatible..." This is easily solved by updating Thunderbird on the offending computer, but with users roaming between computers and some computers not being used for a few days it's a constant battle. Profiles and application instances in all states of version control hell.
The only solution I can think of would be to turn off automatic updates and do them manually. This is a clunky solution and I'd rather find a better way.
So, first: Why now? And second: are there really fundamental changes to the profiles on each release?
Help
All Replies (6)
You can't mix profile usage with multiple versions of Thunderbird. If all computers are on version 78 you should have no trouble. If you have a mix of 68 and 78 it won't work.
That makes sense, but this is a weekly occurrence. I don't believe we have any still on 68.
It seems like it is happening with each monthly +.1 release. I'm seeing weekly issues mainly because of the way users migrate computers. (If a user doesn't use email on a particular computer when an update occurs, it throws this error the next time it's used) So with the monthly releases apparently causing this error message, my only path forward is to stop automatic upgrades and manually update 20 computers. That's why I'm wondering if the profiles are really being updated to such an extent that they are no longer usable forward or backward in each 78.X release or if it's just a bug.
Foggy brain here.
In addition to the version check there is also an instance check against , i.e. where startup checks where it is running from, described at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/dedicated-profile-thunderbird-installation
If you run the same install (same computer), against the same profile, and the install updates, then there should be no problem. If you run a different install/different computer, against that profile, then I think you will get the error you are seeing.
That would sort of explain what I am seeing but not entirely. The article you linked seems to be referring to 68, which I did not see this problem with, ever. While it's not surprising that 78 would work differently, I don't understand how it works seamlessly when all of the computers are running the same 78.X release, but not with the .X is mixed. (I think this must be what is happening) As I mentioned, I have all profiles stored on a server and the clients connect to that rather than storing them locally. If they are all on the same release, I can login to any profile from any computer without issue.
I have seen a user sometimes forget they were logged in on another computer and be able to start Thunderbird on another computer (it usually gives a different error) but not be able to send email. Not sure how that can happen, maybe it's in-between updates.
I'm sure I am in the minority on how we use Thunderbird and profile manager, but it worked really well for us up until now. It's not ideal, but I guess I'll have to stop the automatic update for now. It would be great if Thunderbird updated before/while profile manager was launched, that would certainly give some relief in this particular case.
Thanks for your help.
You will see the same error running 78.0.1 on a profile that has been opened in 78.1. If you start Profile Manager like this: Winkey+R, thunderbird.exe -p --allow-downgrade you can bypass the error. This shouldn't cause serious, if any, issues with profiles opened in the 78 branch, but it wouldn't be advisable for opening a 78 profile with 68. Separate profiles for the 68 and 78 branches should avoid most migration and backward compatibility problems.
That would be the ticket. I'll give it a shot and report back.
Thank you for your help.