Before I knew it, I got a popup from Thunderbird saying it had downloaded the new update and was going to install it either now, or "later". So I had no choice to cancel it... I clicked later and disabled the auto update in the options menu, but to no avail. At the next boot the updater worked and worked and... it launched just fine?
I shut it down, and started it again, and it worked just fine, again?
I tried my own local copy Thunderbird...and it worked fine... so that didn't get broken either...
Someone explain to me what is supposed to go wrong when the auto update auto updates a Thunderbird Portable?
And what to do to clean up the mess if it does go wrong?
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The warning I gave was a courtesy warning that when I allowed it to update (not an automatic update - I decided to accept the yes/no prompt when it was offered), it corrupted my email client to the point it would not run (or update manually).
What I did to fix it was to go Control Panel > Add and Remove Apps and uninstall Thunderbird as a client.
I then reinstalled the previous version's installer to get it back up and running, hoping that all would work. It did. But I was lucky, other times with other apps I have ended up with losing the data associated with the application. That happened to me in an early Thunderbird ver1.
Any update CAN (but not necessarily WILL) break an existing installation.
This is why it's a good thing to not be the "first cab off the rank" with an update. Let others break theirs first
When others report theirs got broken, you know you were better safe than sorry
Richard
Have you noticed editing is always needed for the inevitable typos that weren't there when you hit the "post" button?
If I understand you correctly, you are mostly talking about the official, non-portable Thunderbird?
Or did yours auto-update and install itself as the local one?
Either way I'm wondering if that was a general experience, that auto-updating broke things, or something that happened randomly, and if it did, why...
offtopic:It's a pity you cannot distribute a customized TB, but now that they're doing these "roll your own" Firefoxes and probably TB too, maybe it is allowed to customize it like that and distribute it then?
On Topic: I'd like more advice... should I reinstall another portable THunderbird over it? Should I look for files that got placed somewhere they shouldn't? What kind of problems should I be looking for? :x
I don't know what happened with me, but I left my computer to do something while waiting for Thunderbird Portable to load, but when I came back, I got the message saying that Thunderbird has downloaded and verified a new version (the latest one) and would install next time I started Thunderbird Portable. I panicked because I'd realised that AutoUpdate was on. I clicked Later, but then I restarted Thunderbird Portable and it started updating after showing the Thunderbird Portable splash screen. When it finished, Thunderbird Portable seems to be working.
I then closed that off and loaded up my local install of Thunderbird, but can't find any problems. I went back to the page that was put up about it being released, but I could see no AutoUpdate warning like it does on the Firefox Portable page. This got me wondering whether the AutoUpdate got fixed with Thunderbird Portable. I'm still worried though in case something goes wrong with my local install. I've now got AutoUpdate turned off, so hopefully it won't do it again.
Bradley Eaton
(eltonbrad)
This is a good question. I have always wondered if upgrading a portable app which is being use on a USB stick, would ruin things up (as far as portable standards go)?
[Just like you guys, I got an automatic update]
"Thunderbird 3 Beta 3" got auto updated to "Thunderbird 3 Beta 4" Now what I've come to notice is that the number of unread mail that I've in my Thunderbird client, gets reported to me on WIN XP logon window. The number of unread mail gets displayed under my computer user name.
I have never used Outlook on this computer and this started to happen right after Thunderbird auto-updated itself.
So what happens? Well now you know.
in_vino_veritas,_in_aqua_sanitas.
That shouldn't have happened. Though it is beta software (and shouldn't be used for anything but testing), but that is odd. I'll take a look and see.
In the meantime, you can reset the count with this:
http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/reset_unread_mail_counts/
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I just want to point out that this happened in my main computer. This is the computer I do most of my stuff and on the one I expent much of my computer interacting.
I keep a USB flash drive packed with what I call my "universal apps", Firefox, Thunderbird, etc... the series of software that I need to get my job done across computers and workplace. Anyways, when I'm on my main computer, the flash drive stays plugged in, I even turn-off/restart the PC while it is still plugged in.
Just sharing this info in case that it can be useful.
in_vino_veritas,_in_aqua_sanitas.