Starting today, Thunderbird only gets as far as showing a startup icon. I’m on Fedora-39Beta and everything is up-to-date. I can’t give the Thunderbird version as I can’t start it, but it was what came with Fedora-39Beta. I have of course posted a query on the Thunderbird website.
I have just found that VLC does the same (added to title) with both the RPM and Flatpak packages. It shows an extra startup icon titled “Privacy and Network Acces…” which also doesn’t start anything.
Because it happens with 2 applications and with both RPM and Flatpak packages, I suspect this is a Fedora thing rather than Thunderbird or VLC.
This is what the Thunderbird Fedora Flathub Selection does when run in a terminal:
chris@desktop:~130$ flatpak run org.mozilla.Thunderbird
Gtk-Message: 13:09:21.218: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 13:09:21.219: Failed to load module "pk-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 13:09:21.221: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 13:09:21.221: Failed to load module "pk-gtk-module"
ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment.
ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment.
(No Thunderbird RPM package available.)
This is what the VLC Fedora Flathub Selection does when run in a terminal:
chris@desktop:~$ flatpak run org.videolan.VLC
VLC media player 3.0.19 Vetinari (revision 3.0.19-0-g32b50de2a28)
[00005603eeef2710] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
Gtk-Message: 13:03:26.359: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 13:03:26.360: Failed to load module "pk-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 13:03:26.360: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 13:03:26.361: Failed to load module "pk-gtk-module"
qt.qpa.qgnomeplatform: Could not find color scheme ""
Qt: Session management error: Could not open network socket
[00005603eef8e2c0] main playlist: playlist is empty
** (vlc.bin:2): WARNING **: 13:03:54.791: atk-bridge: get_device_events_reply: unknown signature
This is what the VLC RPM package does when run in a terminal:
chris@desktop:~$ vlc
VLC media player 3.0.19 Vetinari (revision )
[0000564b0184f520] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
[0000564b018eb1c0] main playlist: playlist is empty
Thunderbird (rpm) works fine in my F39 beta VM, I installed it using sudo dnf install thunderbird
Transaction ID : 5
Begin time : Thu 21 Sep 2023 10:47:45 AM CEST
Begin rpmdb : e938e83ba4818042ea1084ad672079a6a6abbdef787f1c7dbf5f7e215836b2c6
End time : Thu 21 Sep 2023 10:47:53 AM CEST (8 seconds)
End rpmdb : cad217e5e8b6c7dc8872602fc908fac30abe860d165ecd0d9bd5236cc06b0e84
Return-Code : Success
Releasever : 39
Command Line : install thunderbird
Comment :
Packages Altered:
Install thunderbird-115.0.1-1.fc39.x86_64 @fedora
Install thunderbird-librnp-rnp-115.0.1-1.fc39.x86_64 @fedora
current version, I am running is from updates-testing repo, rpm -qa thunderbird shows:
Gtk-Message: 13:09:21.218: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
and it doesn’t affect functionality either.)
It didn’t occur to me to try a terminal to install Thunderbird, I’ve tried that and I’ve just realised that the RPM appears in Software as a separate entry the the 3 Flatpak ones and I’ve tried that. They both get stuck on the icon which has a message “Account Setup - Mozilla Thunderbird” which opens a tab in Firefox which asks for a donation. If you now have to pay for it, I’ll switch to a different email client or just use webmail.
This was the message when installing in a terminal:
Thunderbird still doesn’t work. I’ve had a look at the VLC stuff and it looks like a few hours work to have any understanding of what I’d be doing. I don’t want to dabble without understanding.
There are other things I need to do, so I’ll wait until Fedora-39 is released and if they aren’t fixed in that I’ll find alternative packages, revert to Fedora-38, go back to Ubuntu or try something else.
Thanks for your help.
Interestingly I’ve just noticed that VLC shows an extra startup icon titled “Privacy and Network Access”. I’ve not seen this before, it seems both applications are starting extra processes, one to do with an account and one to do with privacy. Perhaps this is a new thing that isn’t working properly.
I tried opening a VLC account to pursue this, but I couldn’t work out how to do it and they called me a spammer, so I’ve given up on that and am using Dragon Player which is a much tidier application and it does all I need.
There were no replies after 4 days on the Thunderbird forum. I’ll switch to the Evolution mail client which comes with Fedora so is probably better supported.