TEBE Lives! - Tech. Discussion & Bug reports

[spaceShot9]

This post contains technical or other issues related to my TEBE update for Chuck.

Hi Chuck,

I will add points here as I come across/remember them.

1) tebePane.
I was unable to get this working using custom tebeTabType tab. I eventually gave up and got it going using the default contentTab API. It fails silently otherwise. If you can shed any light on that, please do.

There are bound to be others.

[cbaker_admin]

Gary, I am quite happy that someone else has taken the burden of keeping TEBE alive. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure when (or even if) I would be able to update TEBE. FEBE support alone keeps me quite busy and (with my other half dozen or so extensions) it seems I have little spare time anymore.

I installed your beta version on my Tb v11.0. The first time I ran it, it did not complete due to the infamous "Script is busy" problem. I changed my dom.max_chrome_script_run_time in about:config to "0" (zero) and tried the backup again. It completed, but took over 208 seconds. It seems my mail messages file (mailMessages{profileName}.tbu) is nearly 220mb in size. I would imagine other users will come across the same issue. Perhaps it would be wise to include the option to set this value in TEBE options (similar to FEBE Options > Advanced > Miscellaneous > Advanced preferences > Chrome script timeout (seconds)). I checked the code in tebe.js and it seems the hooks are still there. It's just a matter of including the UI in TEBE options.

Another thing I would like to see is having the TEBE options window pane titles be similar to FEBE's (i.e., What to backup, Where to backup, How to backup, etc.). This way, users that are already familiar with FEBE will not have to learn to navigate a different UI for an extension that is essentially the same.

[carbuff76]

Gary, Chuck,

Glad to see TEBE is returning to active duty!

I downloaded the new beta version last night and installed it in T'bird 10. It is running on Win 7 x64 Pro. So far, the only real problem I have hit is the script timeout issue. I have reset the timeout parameter (dom.max_chrome_script_run_time) to 0, but the backup still pops a window up asking to confirm that I still want it to continue. I have a rather large mail file.

When I first installed the new TEBE beta, I installed it into a profile that had the old TEBE beta (20100727) already in it. I thought the new beta would replace it. That did not happen, so I wound up with two add-ons for TEBE. You might want to include an installation note about this. I uninstalled the old TEBE beta and ran the reset for TEBE options. I'm still experiencing the script timeout.

My next thought is to rebuild a T'bird 10 profile from the default profile and just copy over the Mail folder to it and see if that addresses the timeout issue. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks fort bringing TEBE back.

Bill

[cbaker_admin]

I experienced the same timeout problem when I ran the first backup. Changing the dom.max_chrome_script_run_time preference is supposed to be dynamic (i.e., changes are effected in real-time) according to what I've been able to read, but those sources were all talking about Firefox (not Thunderbird).

Anyway, after a Tb restart the backup did complete (but still took over 200 seconds to finish).

[gbrosenberg]

I too am very glad to see that TEBE lives.

Installed yesterday. No problems or delays to report.

So far, I have exercised everything except for message folders backup. My email messages folder is over 700 MB . . . Will give that a try tomorrow.

One enhancement that might be particularly useful in TEBE is an option to backup the structure of the message folders, without or a limited subset of the mail messages.

In any event, thanks for all your good work on TEBE.

Best,
Gerald

[carbuff76]

I am still having trouble with the Unresponsive Script message "Script: chrome;//tebe/content/tebeZip.js:89". I have tried many different configurations of OS (Win 7 x86, Win7 x64, Win 8 Customer Preview), Java 6.31 and 7.3, T'bird 10, 11, and Daily, with and without all extensions, except TEBE, disabled, with no success. Finally, I started T'bird 3.1.20 with, call it Profile A, with TEBE 20100727 and did a full profile backup. The dom.max_chrome variable was set to zero. The backup completed successfully. The .tbu file size is 1.737 GB. I was also able to successfully restore that backup to a brand new profile and use it. So the old beta of TEBE works OK with T'bird 3.1.

I then started T'bird 10.0.2 with that same profile, Profile A, replacing TEBE 20100727 with the latest TEBE beta. I continue to get the Unresponsive Script message. I'm stuck for now trying to isolate the problem. The new TEBE beta works fine for profiles with smallish Local Folders, but I seem to have one that can trip it up at will.

Bill

UPDATE: I have been using the Full Profile backup in all these attempts. I just ran some selective backups and the message folder backup worked! The only problem I'm having now is backing up the address books. I'll look into it further. gbrosenberg's post triggered the selective backup idea. Thanks.

[carbuff76]

Useful TEBE additions

In doing Selective TEBE backups, I noticed that only the Personal Address Book is backed up. It would be nice to have the option to back up some, or all the address books (abook_1.mab to abook_n.mab) in a profile. Failing that, using the FEBE approach of backing up the full profile AND some selected items would be helpful.

[spaceShot9]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the feedback, suggestions and positive comments. It sounds like the only problem people are having so far is the timeout issue. Given the learning curve and the amount of work undertaken, I'm very pleased with that and happy that you're finding it useful. I haven't seen this myself, probably because I don't keep a lot of mail around, but I will look into Chuck's suggested solution. To respond to the other points made:

Bill, I'm glad it's generally behaving. I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned it but the reason the old version isn't replaced will be, I'm sure, because I've updated the naming to Chuck's more recent conventions. That would cause the new version to be treated as a different entity. So it is worth noting that you will need to uninstall the old add-on manually. I'll give some thought to an installation prompt to make that more obvious.

Re: the timeout, that is a huge .tbu you're generating. There were significant changes between versions of TEBE preceding mine and mine. I'll have a look through and see if I can see anything that is specifically doing that.

Gerald, thanks for the suggestion. It sounds like the user-defined backup facility that FEBE offers might be the way to provide what you're after. I haven't looked at that yet in any detail but I see that it allows you to choose which files and folders you want to backup. It would also be consistent with FEBE, which is something I'd like to retain. How does that sound?

carbuff76, thanks for the suggestion. I did notice that. One solution, and perhaps the original expectation, is to have all of your address books under the main Personal Address Book item. I agree that we should probably have the capability to back any of them up at will. I think that the basic option should really back up any address books in the current profile, given that it's named "Backup address books". I'll add that to the list. The user-defined backup option would also provide the possibility of selecting specific address books and other items. How would that suit?

Thanks,

Gary.

[spaceShot9]

Attached is a new version which adds the script timeout option. For now, until I rework the GUI layout, you'll find it on the Options tab, bottom right. Please report your mileage. I'm unable to test it's effectiveness in resolving the timeout issue because I don't experience it but I can confirm that it makes the correct configuration adjustments.

I've also restored the welcome page and added a note regarding manually removing previous versions.

Chuck, I've just used a local file for the welcome page for now but if you want to put one online to parallel the FEBE page, I'll link to that.

I've made things simpler by renaming the xpi, rather than zipping it, to get it onto the BB. You just need to rename it by removing the ".zip", now.

Cheers.

UPDATE:
2012/04/19 After a discussion with Chuck we've decided to keep the releases in the main TEBE Lives! thread, so I've moved the file here.

[spaceShot9]

A new version is available in the main thread here.

What we need now is some of you folks to install it and let it do it's thing. I have done a fair amount of testing so there will hopefully be no major issues but there are bound to be bugs and factors that I haven't been able to test. Please provide feedback here so we can work towards a release.

Other items:

• Gerald, having re-read your original post I now see you were suggesting the ability to back up the folder structure without the contents. I imagine that that would be possible but I'm curious to know why you'd do it. I can't readily think of a reason, myself.
• carbuff76, you now have the ability to create user-defined backups, which provides one option for backing up those other address books. I will still look at an option for all address books, though, as I think that would be useful. Does anyone else have any input on this?

Chuck,

• Do you want to set up an online welcome page for TEBE or stick with the local version?
• The box.net info page linked from the options dialogue and the help entry is dead (same in FEBE, understandably). Should we repair it or remove it?

Have fun.

[cbaker_admin]

Thanks for the update Gary!

I've installed the latest and run it through its paces. Here's what I've found so far:

• Setting the option to run the backup asynchronously is much, much, faster (as would be expected). A full and selected backup together take about 5 seconds to finish as opposed to nearly 100 seconds before. I did notice, however, that Thunderbird remains unresponsive for several seconds (maybe a minute or so) after the results page is displayed. This is because the backup is finishing up in the background, I'm sure. FEBE doesn't seem to do this but I don't think there is anything we can do about it. Just an observation that others may notice also.
• The TEBE icon in the statusbar continues to blink forever after a scheduled backup performs unless a manual backup or restart occurs. It is only supposed to blink for one minute just prior to the scheduled backup. The 'backup is imminent' sound effect does not play during this anomalous blinking though.
• The full profile backup file should have the '.tbu' extension. Now it creates a file named profileTb{profileName}.fbu. As a result, TEBE cannot find the file during a full profile restore attempt.
• In Where to backup > List/Reports > View backup history the links in the "Location (link if available)" and "Report?" columns do not work. They are displayed as links but do not appear to open anywhere. Also, in the same report, the "Run type" column lists only "Scheduled" and "(Unknown)". The "Unknown" is most likely a reference to a manually performed backup and should display "Manual".
• The reports Where to backup > Backup destination directory > View backup destination directory and Where to backup > List/Reports >View last backup directory should open separately in new tabs. There are also no report titles in the tab header.
• The TEBE User-defined backup list data is stored in a file named tebeUserDefinedBuData.json and should always exist. You should probably check for this file when opening the options dialog and create it if necessary.

As for the welcome page, let's leave it as a local file for now. As we get closer to the stable release, I'll create an online version. The link will be "http://softwarebychuck.com/tebe/Welcome%20pages/TEBEwelcome.html".

How do you want to handle the localization? I can submit the files to BabelZilla.org whenever you think we're ready. Or, if you are already are a member there, you might want to submit them yourself.

Let's remove the box.net link. They abruptly discontinued their affiliate program awhile back and I'm not too anxious to steer traffic their way now. I'm actually thinking about adding Dropbox interfacing in a future FEBE release.

I see you've added yourself as a contributor in install.rdf. That's good. I was going to suggest you do that if you hadn't already.

[spaceShot9]

Thanks for the update Gary!

No problem. It's nice to have the bulk of the work done, anyway.

I've installed the latest and run it through its paces. Here's what I've found so far:

I'll look at those points, thanks.

Thanks for the update Gary!
As for the welcome page, let's leave it as a local file for now. As we get closer to the stable release, I'll create an online version. The link will be "http://softwarebychuck.com/tebe/Welcome%20pages/TEBEwelcome.html".

OK.

How do you want to handle the localization? I can submit the files to BabelZilla.org whenever you think we're ready. Or, if you are already are a member there, you might want to submit them yourself.

I was intending to build most of it by using the existing strings. The rest can go to Babalzilla.

Let's remove the box.net link. They abruptly discontinued their affiliate program awhile back and I'm not too anxious to steer traffic their way now. I'm actually thinking about adding Dropbox interfacing in a future FEBE release.

OK. Dropbox would be good. It seems pretty popular and I use it myself.

I see you've added yourself as a contributor in install.rdf. That's good. I was going to suggest you do that if you hadn't already.

Yes, I slipped that in.

Cheers.

[cbaker_admin]

A quick comment on the localizations.

I don't know how much you know about BabelZilla, but they only require a complete en-US locale. All other translations are created by the volunteer translators over there. I was unsure by your last post if your intention was to create the locales yourself with english strings. You would think that if we were to use the already translated locales from FEBE, it would simplify things. Unfortunately, although FEBE and TEBE are very similar, they are not exactly the same. The translators assigned to FEBE may or may not assign themselves to TEBE. The results being that any unassigned partial localizations may never get finished and I always try to release only 100% complete translations.

[Joe Sewell]

I am so glad to see this!!!

I have to ask, though: is Thunderbird 3.x still supported? I'm on a PowerMac G4 that will *not* run anything past OS X 10.4, which sticks me at TB/FF 3.x.

If nothing else, I'd love to see a version of TEBE that will let me do both full & selective backups in one operation.

[cbaker_admin]

Unfortunately, this newest version of TEBE will not work with Tb 3.x. When Fx went from 3.x to 4.x there were major changes to the code. Same thing happened with post Tb 3.x. The older TEBE release (TEBEbeta(20100727_120000) will still work for you though it will no longer be supported.

The new TEBE does, however, have the option to perform both a full and selective backup during the same run.