TestDays, Status, and Timezones Oh My!

[Clint Talbert]

In our last QA Chat, we decided to revive our old tradition of blogging
about the test day results. So, on our last testday we had really great
participation from a whole host of folks, and four of these intrepid
individuals burned through our Litmus tests[1], running 313 tests.
Overall, 6 new bugs were found. Congratulations to thetux for taking the
cup with a whopping 210 tests run!!

We are continuing to push on toward the 0.8 release candidate. In that
vein, I'd like to make a special plea for testing. We are about to check
in the code that will update the timezone database. Once that happens,
we need you to do two things:

* TEST: We could really use your help in testing this. You know your own
time zone far better than we do, so make sure your calendar switches
into and out of summer time (or doesn't switch at all) at the
appropriate dates for this year.

* BACKUP:If you have been running the 0.8 nightly builds, then you MUST
backup your local (non-network) calendars (export them to ICS) BEFORE
upgrading to a build with this change in it. The details are in
bugzilla[2], but if you are running some of the 0.8pre builds, then this
change might break your calendar when you update to the latest nightly.

**What if I am running 0.7 (or earlier)?**

In that case, you are fine. You should be able to upgrade to 0.8 with no
problems. Of course, it is always a good idea to periodically backup
your calendars anyway. This issue occurs because we don't support
upgrades between nightly versions, only between released versions of the
software.

That said, we know a number of early adopters have already made the
switch to 0.8pre builds and we want them to be aware of this potential
issue.

[1]:https://litmus.mozilla.org/testday_report.cgi?testday_id=86&include_admin=on
[2]:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=410931#c25

[Pete]

Clint Talbert wrote:
> * BACKUP:If you have been running the 0.8 nightly builds, then you MUST
> backup your local (non-network) calendars (export them to ICS) BEFORE
> upgrading to a build with this change in it. The details are in
> bugzilla[2], but if you are running some of the 0.8pre builds, then this
> change might break your calendar when you update to the latest nightly.

Does this affect people who never explicitly set timezones when creating
events and who have never accepted invites or imported events from other
people? My OS' and Lightning's timezones are always the same
("America/New York").

[Marcel Berteler]

Clint Talbert wrote the following on 2008/02/17 09:43:
>
> * BACKUP:If you have been running the 0.8 nightly builds, then you MUST
> backup your local (non-network) calendars (export them to ICS) BEFORE
> upgrading to a build with this change in it. The details are in
> bugzilla[2], but if you are running some of the 0.8pre builds, then this
> change might break your calendar when you update to the latest nightly.
>

> [1]:https://litmus.mozilla.org/testday_report.cgi?testday_id=86&include_admin=on
>
> [2]:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=410931#c25

Clint, on Bugzilla [2] you say the following:

"So, the point here is that for some users on some builds of our
nightlies, the timezone upgrade will fail. It will cause the
application to throw and it will no longer startup properly. "

So my question before I upgrade to a nightly with this fix in:

I have backed-up my calendars, but what should I do when the above
described scenario occurs? Can I still startup Thunderbird? If so,
should I un-install Calendar, re-install it and create new calendars and
import my backups?
If TB does not start at all, what do I do than?

Warning people is great, but without telling them what can be done to
fix the problem if it occurs is not really helpfull. (or maybe it is
just me and all other nightly testers already know how to recover from
such a problem.)

Marcel

[Clint Talbert]

I think it has to do with importing events. So, the answer is no, it
shouldn't affect you.

Clint

[Clint Talbert]

Marcel Berteler wrote:
> So my question before I upgrade to a nightly with this fix in:
>
> I have backed-up my calendars, but what should I do when the above
> described scenario occurs? Can I still startup Thunderbird? If so,
> should I un-install Calendar, re-install it and create new calendars and
> import my backups?
> If TB does not start at all, what do I do than?

TB and SB will start. The calendars just won't load. So, delete the
local calendars (network calendars aren't affected) and reimport them
from the backup that you made.

>
> Warning people is great, but without telling them what can be done to
> fix the problem if it occurs is not really helpfull. (or maybe it is
> just me and all other nightly testers already know how to recover from
> such a problem.)

Very true. Sorry for the oversight.

Clint

[Marcel Berteler]

Clint Talbert wrote the following on 2008/02/19 05:10:
> Very true. Sorry for the oversight.

Thanks for the quick update. It seems like it is less of an issue that i
thought it would be. When you mentioned 'will not start not properly' I
expected the worst. Happy to hear it is 'just' the calendar.

Marcel

[Marcel Berteler]

Just updated from 20080215 to 20080218 nightly and all my calendars
started like usual. No strange things happened.

Thanks for the warning anyway. It could have turned out different.

marcel

[Clint Talbert]

Glad it worked ok. I'm starting to think it wasn't as big an issue as I
first thought also.

Clint