How to downgrade Thunderbird 52 to 45 including Lightning - problems with attachments and printing.
Due to the serious problems with attachments and printing in release 52 I am facing the need to downgrade Thunderbird from release 52.0.1 to release 45.8 for about 100 Windows users, partly on Windows 7 Professional PCs and partly on Windows Server 2008 R2 Terminal Servers. I'm using OPSI for software distribution.
When testing the process on a pilot installation, the downgrade worked fine uninstalling release 52 before installing release 45. But when I started the downgraded Thunderbird release 45.8 it emitted a message saying that the installed version of Lightning was incompatible. I was able uninstall Lightning manually and reinstall the correct version. This is however not something I am looking forward to doing for a hundred users.
It seems that Lightning comes with Thunderbird but installs itself in each user profile, where it remains even when Thunderbird is uninstalled. I assume it is automatically upgraded there after a Thunderbird upgrade, but not downgraded accordingly when reverting to a lower Thunderbird release.
Is this analysis correct? If so, how can I as an administrator fix the user profiles that now contain a Lightning release that is too high to run with Thunderbird 45, preferably without requiring the cooperation of every affected user? Can I delete the incompatible Lightning release from the profiles and will Thunderbird then automatically install the correct one the next time it runs, and what exactly would I have to delete? Can I script the process of deleting the incompatible Lightning release and installing the compatible one, so I could add that process to our user logon scripts?
If my analysis is incorrect, what else could cause the behaviour I am observing, ie. where does the incompatible Lightning release hide?
Thanks for any hints.
Променено на от Wayne Mery
Всички отговори (9)
Does https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1357032#c0 describe your print issue? And does the workaround there allow printing?
Also, please test a beta build to see if the print issue also occurs there? Download from http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/channel/
Also, several attachment issues (but not all) are fixed 52.1.0 which came out yesterday. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/52.1.0/releasenotes/
Is 52.1.0 better for you with respect to attachments?
Wayne Mery said
Does https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1357032#c0 describe your print issue?
Yes.
And does the workaround there allow printing?
I haven't tested that yet.
Wayne Mery said
Also, several attachment issues (but not all) are fixed 52.1.0 which came out yesterday. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/52.1.0/releasenotes/ Is 52.1.0 better for you with respect to attachments?
I excluded 52.1.0 so far because its release notes list the printing and attachment issues as still unresolved. Will schedule a test tomorrow.
Anyway I'll have to undo the rollout of release 52.0.1 so that my users are able to work normally again while I'm looking a definitive solution. I would therefore appreciate an answer to my original question.
tilmanschmidt said
... Is this analysis correct? If so, how can I as an administrator fix the user profiles that now contain a Lightning release that is too high to run with Thunderbird 45, preferably without requiring the cooperation of every affected user? Can I delete the incompatible Lightning release from the profiles and will Thunderbird then automatically install the correct one the next time it runs, and what exactly would I have to delete? Can I script the process of deleting the incompatible Lightning release and installing the compatible one, so I could add that process to our user logon scripts
You would need to delete the lightning addon in the extensions directory - extensions\{e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103} This does not affect user data. reference: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Uninstalling_add-ons#Uninstalling_manually
You will of course want to test this process before unleashing it on the masses.
Please post your results
Ok, so we tested deleting the Lightning addon directory from a user profile and then starting the downgraded Thunderbird on it. Alas, this did not reinstall the downgraded Lightning addon. As users were clamoring more and more loudly for working mail and calendar access we opted for a radical approach:
- Users running Thunderbird on a PC of their own (fat client) get to keep TB52. They have sufficient diskspace to set IMAP folders to "make available on this computer" so are not affected by the attachment problem. They are advised not to use the printing function for the time being.
- Users running Thunderbird on a terminal server (via thin client) are downgraded to TB45 and their profiles are deleted to avoid the Lightning downgrade problem. Yes, they are unhappy about that, but it's better than having corrupted attachments or no calendar, and they shouldn't have stored anything locally, anyway. (Making IMAP folders available locally for them is not an option since we have some pretty big shared IMAP folders and having a copy of those for every user would simply kill our disk space on the terminal servers.)
What precisely is the printing problem? Is it blank pages? Is the paper size defaulting to letter, and can you change it to A4?
Also, 52.1.1 is out, which solves some attachment issues.