Xfce4-mailwatch-plugin crashes randomly

[Thomas Danhorn]

Binary package hint: xfce4-mailwatch-plugin

In Xubuntu 9.10 (karmic, amd-64), the xfce4-mailwatch-plugin (version 1.1.0-2, but also the jaunty version 1.1.0-0) crashes and disappears from the panel in random intervals. The only way to restore it is to add it to the panel again, which is unpleasant if one has several mail boxes with custom settings that need to be configured each time (the previous panel config files are there, but are not used by a newly added plugin). This happened on both my desktop machine and my laptop, in karmic and also in jaunty (just as described here for jaunty: http://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5822 ).
The latest crash happened when I tried to check the mailwatch properties (the window and the panel icon just disappeared), but normally I don't touch it and it still disappears once in a while.

Here are the last 3 lines of dmesg from my laptop, immediately after the crash when I checked the properties:
[86822.064624] generic-usb 0003:413C:3012.0004: input,hidraw1: USB HID v1.11 Mouse [Dell Dell USB Optical Mouse] on usb-0000:00:1d.0-1/input0
[86824.740243] eth2: no IPv6 routers present
[91019.292597] xfce4-mailwatch[13685] general protection ip:4100ee sp:7faf14749338 error:0 in xfce4-mailwatch-plugin[400000+1f000]

[tim71 (from-kentta)]

I have a fresh installation of Ubuntu 9.04 and I am running into same problem repeatedly - sporadically whole mailwatcher plugin just disappears from the panel and will not reappear after loging out from session and then logging back in. Restarting of the panel or reloading the xfdesktop will not help either. I can add the plugin back again, but all configuration is lost and has to be done again. I have used XFCE4.4 for some years before that and never had a problem with mail watcher with same mailboxes in the configuration as now - one gmail mailbox and few IMAPS mailboxes.

All I found in the logs for the last time disappearing was:

xfce4-mailwatch[7909] general protection ip:41039e sp:7f39e1353328 error:0 in xfce4-mailwatch-plugin[400000+1f000]

[tim71 (from-kentta)]

I forgot to mention that the version of mailwatch-plugin is 1.1.0

[Hugues Chabot (hugues.chabot)]

This bug also affetcs me since I upgraded to Xubuntu 9.04. However, with my current configuration (Xubuntu 9.10 on amd64), the bug systematically happens during startup (after login). I can see the mailwatch icon appears in the panel for a second and then it disappears.

I also filled this bug report which shows all the dependencies installed on my computer (since it can also be a Xubuntu specific bug): <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfce4-mailwatch-plugin/+bug/487080>

[Hugues Chabot (hugues.chabot)]

While investigating how to reproduce it, I correlated this bug with a mail server malfunction which I observed by receiving a 'Server Unavailable' when using the web-based mail client.

It seems like an unexpected response from the server cause MailWatch plugin to crash. Unfortunatly, I am not able to provide an example of that (since the defunct mail server is now working correctly) but MailWatch crash systematically everytime the mail server was malfunctioning. Now that the mail server is up and running again, MailWatch doesn't disappear from the panel anymore.

The configuration of the problematic mailbox.

[mailbox1]
host=********
username=********
password=********
auth_type=0
server_directory=
use_standard_port=1
nonstandard_port=0
timeout=600
n_newmail_boxes=1
newmail_box_0=INBOX

Sample of /var/log/messages

...
xfce4-mailwatch[28870] general protection ip:4100ee sp:7ffbadcf7338 error:0 in xfce4-mailwatch-plugin[400000+1f000]
...

[Wolput (wolput)]

This bug affects me too.
I am using xfce version 4.7.0 (git version) on Debian/Sid, PC AMD64, kernel 2.6.32, xfce4-mailwatch-plugin v.1.1.0.

Quite often the mailwatcher plugin just disappears from the panel and will not reappear after loging out from session and then logging back in. Restarting of the panel will not help either. I can add the plugin back again, but all configuration is lost and has to be done again.
I'm sorry I don't know how to reproduce the bug.

/var/log/messages:
Dec 30 13:20:11 debian kernel: [98.437218] xfce4-mailwatch[4693] general protection ip:416d2d sp:7f784b0f8798 error:0 in xfce4-mailwatch-plugin[400000+1f000]

[Grant Edwards (grant-edwards)]

I've been working around this bug for a long time.

Mailwatch segfaults and disssapears once or twice a day --
taking it's configuration down the drain with it.

I finally wrote a shellscript that stops the panel, repairs
both the panel and mailwatch config files, and restarts the
panel.

It's sort of a PITA to have to do this all the time...

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here.

This bug has been reported to the developers of the software. You can track it and make comments at: http://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5822

Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

[Thomas Danhorn (tdanhorn)]

While this may be related to bug #487080, I don't consider it necessarily a duplicate, because the description of said bug states that the plugin disappears systematically after *every* login. In my case it can be seemingly stable for for weeks and then typically disappears in the middle of a login session, rather than at the beginning. In the discussion at the XFCE Bugzilla (see link in description) there is a hypothesis that an expected mail server response leads to the crash. If that is in fact the case, some mail servers might "shoot down" at the first request (after login), whereas others might do it only sporadically. But until this has been shown for 487080, I would treat these as separate bugs.

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

Yeah, no problem, I acted a bit too fast. Even if I still think both may be related (or even crash at the same code), it's difficult to know without any backtrace. I've a running instance for a few hours now to try to get one, but so far I've been unable to reproduce unfortunately...

[Landry-o (landry-o)]

Mass-reassign all bugs from florian@ to goodies-dev@, thanks for the maintenance work! (and sorry for the bugmail spam..)

[Wolput (wolput)]

This bug can be closed,
fixed in verion xfce4-mailwatch-plugin-1.2.0

[Landry-o (landry-o)]

Thanks!

[Thaddaeus Tintenfisch (thad-fisch-deactivatedaccount)]

Should be fixed in version 1.2.0 (Xubuntu 14.04 and up).