Lightning 1.0beta1 release candidate is available

After all the trouble that we went through to prepare the Lightning and Sunbird builds for 1.0 beta1 (see Philipp’s posts here and here, we have finally succeeded (at least on the Lightning front).

Candidate builds for Lightning 1.0 beta1 in 37 languages are available as of now for:

A corresponding build of the Google Calendar Provider is also available at those locations.

To install these builds in Thunderbird 3, please follow these steps:

  1. Download the build for your operating system to a folder on your hard disk
    UPDATE: Please make sure, that you right-click on the links above and choose “Save Link as…”. Otherwise Firefox will try to install Lightning and you will get an error message like “Lightning 1.0b1 could not be installed because it is not compatible with Firefox.”
  2. Open Thunderbird, then open its add-on manager via Tools –> Add-ons (or the corresponding entry in your language)
  3. Click on the “Install…” button on the lower left and navigate for the lightning.xpi file that you just downloaded.
  4. Restart Thunderbird after the add-on installation has been performed. Voila!

What is missing right now are two things:

  • Linux builds for the x86-64 platform. We need someone from the community to provide those to us. Please contact our lead developer Philipp Kewisch (contact details are available here) if you can help out.
  • Sunbird builds. We still have problems with those but hope tho have those fixed before Christmas. Watch this space for more information.

Please tell us what you think of these candidate builds and file bugs in Bugzilla as you go.

69 comments

  1. I am still getting the following error when I try to install Lightening …
    “Lightning 1.0b1 could not be installed because it is not compatible with Firefox 3.5.6.”

  2. Terry, I posted an update into the entry above, that should make things clearer. You need to download the .xpi file to your hard disk, not just left-click on it in Firefox.

  3. Simon;
    When I right-click & choose save here, the file is not an xpi ready to download but a 5-line .part file. Opening it up in a text-editor, it looks to have the correct ftp addy and file name for the xpi. -fyi

  4. You could make Lightning and for Firefox?

  5. The Google Calendar Provider from the above link (0.6b1) “requires additional items”. It apparently does not recognize the RC of lightning as valid.

  6. Great work, thanks!!

  7. Thanks for all the great work!

  8. I have made a Linux x86_64 lightning.xpi file available on my server at:
    http://www.wg9s.com/mozilla/lightning/linux-x86_64/

  9. I assume the lightning-all.xpi is the version containing all localization, and the lightning.xpi in the en-US folder is the English only version, right?
    – Markus

  10. This is what I’ve been waiting for!
    Now, I can change to TB3. Thanks.

  11. Fritz Heinrichmeyer

    For me also the Google Calendar Provider from the above link (with locales) “requires additional items”, that means it does not work.
    The en-US version, from the same location works here (currently linux i686).

  12. Thank you!
    Does this mean that I will not need “Lightning Nightly Updater” any more???
    How will “Lightning 1.0 beta1” be updated?

  13. Great work! Works like a charm in Thunderbird 3.0!

  14. Hi!
    Will the installed release candidate automatically update to a final version, or will I have to install the final release manually?
    Thanks a lot for working so hard on this on christmas times.
    Bernhard

  15. I have an error “An error was encountered preparing the calendar located at moz-profile-calendar:// for use. It will not be available.”
    I cannot create events or tasks
    What can I do to fix this?
    thanks

  16. works here.. thank you. I can’t export calendars.. any sync to external mobile devices planed? :)

  17. Hi,
    fantastic work!
    so close to the 1.0.
    Thank you so much. Enjoy your holidays.
    Pat.

  18. No Sunbird, it seems to take the last position, should we shout louder.
    Please do not let it suffer because of the lake of coordination between people when it comes down to TB and Lightning.

  19. Hi,
    I had success with installing Lightning 1.0b1 on TB3 (Shredder – build by Ubuntu Mozilla Daily Build Team) on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic. But installing gdata-provider gives me:
    “Provider for Google Calendar 0.6pre could not be installed because it is not compatible with Shredder 3.0.1pre.”
    Any ideas how to solve this?
    Regards,
    Cunami
    P.S. Lightning itself works very well with TB3, didn’t experienced any problems so far!

  20. Thank you so much and a merry christmas :)

  21. Thx for the good work, but i found one little error!
    The Tab Calender has no Title in the localization version!

  22. I am having the same problem as Craig. I’m running Windows 7. I right click on the Windows link. Select ‘Save link as’ and I also download a .part file. Any suggestions?

  23. “An error was encountered preparing the calendar located at moz-profile-calendar:// for use. It will not be available.”
    Whenever I open thunderbird, this error pops up.

  24. I found the solution how to fix “An error was encountered preparing the calendar located at moz-profile-calendar:// for use. It will not be available.”.
    Open your profile folder, find local.sqlite located in calendar-data directory, delete this file and restart thunerbird. Then everything goes fine but the downside is that you will lose all of you previous calendar data.

  25. I haven’t had any problems with the build so far but I only use local calenders which is, likely, less problematic anyway.

  26. You people are amazing. Working so hard at this time of year. You are an inspiration to the spirit of sharing and giving. This is what Christmas is all about. The really great things is that you have the same attitude 365 days a year:)
    WELL DONE

  27. Thanks for the hard work on this. I have a question though, there is a second file in the nightly builds download section named gdata-provider.xpi. What is this file, and do we need to install it as well?

  28. Bravo pour ce travail. Tout fonctionne du premier coup même la synchronisation avec Google.

  29. Ricardo,
    The gdata-provider.xpi file is, I believe, for Google Calendar provisioning. If you don’t use Google Calendar, you can ignore this file.

  30. I appreciate all of the work that has gone into this build. This project has matured so much it is exciting to see where it will go.
    There is a bug with recurring tasks that has been outstanding for a really long time and it prevents many users of Outlook from switching. It has gained some traction and a solution is outlined in Bug 373775 but it just never seems to get the attention it should.
    I have wanted to badly to switch from Outlook completely but this one item seems to kill any chance of that happening. Is there any way to get some movement in this bug and when do you think that might happen?

  31. Thanks! installed on WinXp, seems to be running smoothly.

  32. The new beta is missing some features from v.2 that was used with thunderbird v.2. Mainly calendar toolbar icons and the small calendar that use to appear under the mail accounts when reading mail (at the bottom left of thunderbird under the mail folders listing).

  33. I know much of the work for 1.0 has been around getting it to work with Thunderbird 3.0, but is it still compatible with Thunderbird 2.x?
    Just curious if 1.0 requires an upgrade to Thunderbird 3.0 or not.

  34. You don’t realise how much you use something until you can no longer use it!
    Keep up the good work.

  35. @Caleb: The 1.0 release of Lightning is not compatible with Thunderbird 2.0.
    @James: The new version of Lightning uses the ‘Today Pane’ rather than placing a mini-calendar under the mail folder list; not as compact, but I’m guessing it had something to do with the new TB3.0 window arrangement. The calendar toolbar items are now re-organized: the calendar and task access are placed along the tab bar (under the Search bar); the New Event and New Task icons are now options under the Write toolbar icon.

  36. How can I put a calendar icon in the status bar

  37. Hey you are amazing, thanks for this useful tool.
    For Craig and Andy, I have W7, I installed “lightning.xpi”, that is in the “en-US”, folder, and it functioned.

  38. I cannot create new event nor new task. The New Event/New task dialog window just does not apper, no matter what I try. (From the menu, by right-clicking (context menu) in the calendar, by typing into the tasks text-box..) I am using Thunderbird 3.0 and Lightning 1.0b1.

  39. I cannot create new event nor new task. The New Event/New task dialog window just does not apper, no matter what I try. (From the menu, by right-clicking (context menu) in the calendar, by typing into the tasks text-box..) I am using Thunderbird 3.0, Lightning 1.0b1, WinXP Pro 32b.

  40. Big thanks to Bill Gianopoulos for the X86_64 fix! Everything is finally back to normal in my calendar. Just to clarify, there is more than one .xpi file and the one in Bill’s post didn’t work for me. I used the one from http://www.wg9s.com/mozilla/lightning/releases/1.0b1rc1/linux-x86_64/ which works on my system. My config:
    Fedora 11 64-bit (2.6.30.10-105.fc11.x86_64)
    Thunderbird 3.0 (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091209 Fedora/3.0-3.fc11 Lightning/1.0b1 Thunderbird/3.0)
    Hope that helps somebody.

  41. I have the same problem as Cunami : on Ubuntu Karmic, I can load Lightning, but trying to load the gdata-provider gives me
    “Provider for Google Calendar 0.6pre could not be installed because it is not compatible with Shredder 3.0.1pre.”
    I have noticed that the Last Modified date on the Linux gdata-provider is 12/9/2009, whereas for OS X and Windows it is 12/14/2009 (along with all of the Lightning xpis.)
    Help!
    Thanks for you great work – B

  42. I have the same problem as Melkor: I cannot write any new event! I can delete the old, but there is no chance to add anything.
    I am using Windows 7 32b, Thunderbird 3.0, Lightning 1.0b1

  43. Thunderbird 3.0 + Lightning 1.0b1 is go !
    -Windows 7 32bit
    Thank you team :)

  44. Installed Thunderbird 3.0 + Lightning 1.0b1 on Vista 32 bit and everything works fine. Thank you for your hard work. Very much appreciated.

  45. Installed Lighting-all.xpi on Win-XP, seems to work
    great! Thank you very much! It also remembered my old
    info from Lightning 0.9. Looks good!

  46. Installed on Seamonkey 2.01. Works good.

  47. Greetings. We’ve been using TB + Lightning 0.9 a lot, and I guinea-pigged myself onto TB + Lightning 1.0b1. Unfortunately, it no longer displays any events from my calendars (which are CalDAV). There’s no errors or anything. What’s even stranger – if I create a new event, it actually successfully posts to the server and shows up on the calendar, at least until I restart TB at which point everything goes away.
    Have people had luck with CalDAV?

  48. Hi to all.
    I already install and use under Vista Home TB3 with lightning 1.0b2pre available for Wi-Li-Ma here:
    http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/calendar/lightning/nightly/latest-comm-1.9.1/
    Regards
    Michele

  49. Hi
    I cannot create tasks! have everyone the same problem?
    system: win7 64bit
    regards

  50. Hi
    I cannot create tasks! have everyone the same problem?
    system: win7 64bit
    regards

  51. hi
    an can not create tasks, have somebody the same problem?
    win7 64bit
    regards/jörg

  52. I have installed Lightning 1.0b2pre and Provider for Google Calendar 0.6b2pre in TB3. I can read Google Calendars from TB3 but I cannot write to them. Any suggestions?

  53. Just downloaded the latest nightly build for lightning for TB3. Everything appears to work very well. Entered calender events. Invited participants. Created tasks. The instructions for saving the XPI to your hardrive, then navigating to the xpi from the TB Add-on Install button are critical to the successful installation.

  54. Just downloaded the latest nightly build for lightning for TB3. Everything appears to work very well. Entered calender events. Invited participants. Created tasks. The instructions for saving the XPI to your hardrive, then navigating to the xpi from the TB Add-on Install button are critical to the successful installation.
    Win 7 64 bit

  55. I installed the Lightning 1.0b1, using Windows 7 32b, Thunderbird 3.0, and I had the same problem as Melkor: I couldn’t write any new event! I could delete the old, but there was no chance to add anything.
    The only thing I could do is create a new profile, registering the E-Mail accounts again, installing the adddons again, exporting and reimportinf the Adress books (one by one!) again and then copying the Mail-Folders of the old profile one by one into the new profile. Than it worked!
    There must have been something wrong in the old profile, the only thing is that reinstalling everything is a lot of time….
    If you find another solution, it could be better!

  56. Thanks for Lighting 1.0b1. I just installed it on Vista Home Basic SP2. It seems to be working fine All my events remain in my calendar.
    Cliff
    Vista 32 SP2

  57. Thanks so much for providing this Beta so quickly, otherwise I’d have regreted my change to 3.0 awfully much. There is one bug that’s “bugging” me very much though, too. Everytime I start TB3, due to lightning I have to put in my masterpasswort twice. And it is definitely caused by lightning.
    Any suggestions as to how to change that?

  58. Thanks so much for providing this Beta so quickly, otherwise I’d have regreted my change to 3.0 awfully much. There is one bug that’s “bugging” me very much though, too. Everytime I start TB3, due to lightning I have to put in my masterpasswort twice. And it is definitely caused by lightning.
    Any suggestions as to how to change that?

  59. Thanks so much for providing this Beta so quickly, otherwise I’d have regreted my change to 3.0 awfully much. There is one bug that’s “bugging” me very much though, too. Everytime I start TB3, due to lightning I have to put in my masterpasswort twice. And it is definitely caused by lightning.
    Any suggestions as to how to change that?

  60. I found the build at:
    http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/calendar/lightning/nightly/latest-comm-1.9.1/win32-xpi/
    Installed in Thunderbird 3 – works in a new tab.
    I can enter new events and it imported the old ones.

  61. Thank you for these. I installed them both but I can’t download from my google calender. I get
    Warning: There has been an error reading data for calendar: Racing and other sports events. However, this error is believed to be minor, so the program will attempt to continue. Error code: 0x804b000e. Description: null
    and
    Warning: There has been an error reading data for calendar: Work. However, this error is believed to be minor, so the program will attempt to continue. Error code: READ_FAILED. Description:
    Can anyone help please?
    I am running windows xp on a networked computer with Chrome as the browser.
    Thank you
    Oliver

  62. Matthias Schneider

    Same problem as Melkor and Jamie: I can not create new events. The new event dialog never appears.
    I’m running Win7 with Thunderbird 3.0, Lightning 1.0b1 and Google Provider 0.6b1.
    Matthias

  63. @Matthias:
    Check your default alarm settings in the Lightning preference dialog. If they are enabled but not correctly configured (e.g. missing value or unit) this might cause this issue.
    Or if the dialog appears but shows only a title bar just resize it until the content is completely visible.

  64. @ssitter
    Thank you very much. I had missing units in default alarm settings. I changed it and now creating new events and tasks is working fine….great

  65. Tommy Jørgensen

    Would have preferred separate buttons for adding a new event, instead of having to click twice on the write-arrow…
    Also, when does offline google-calendar support get here?
    Otherwise an excellent update!!

  66. Hi all,
    I’m so delighted to see this page related to Lightning building with Thunderbird.
    my question is:
    – I have translated the lightning.xpi to my language (khmer). After i installed (tools -> add-ons -> install…) the calendar menus still in English Language.
    Could you kindly guide me the right steps?
    Looking forward to hearing from you.
    Piseth

  67. Maybe someone here can answer this. I installed Thunderbird 3.0.1 for Windows on Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit). It’s working fine except that e-mails containing .ics (MIME type text/calendar) attachments aren’t showing up in the message window anywhere. I can do a View Source of course and see the encoded attachment, but Thunderbird doesn’t show me the attachment itself in the normal message view window (not even as a simple ‘can-save-to-disk’ attachment).
    Do I have to install Lightning 1.0beta1 into Thunderbird 3.0.1 in order for it to grok these .ics calendar attachments?

  68. Has anyone found a lighting that works with windows 7 64 bit? 64 bit version of thunderbird 3.0 Thank you

  69. Muchas Gracias SSITTER, es como vos decís, hay que definir los tiempos de las alarmas para los eventos y tareas, y realizado eso, todo anda muy bien.