0.5 release status update

We know, that all of you are waiting anxiously for the new release and since we’re a little bit behind schedule, I thought I would give you an update on this.

At the moment we have two outstanding blocker bugs, which hinder the release of our first release candidate (RC1). Those bugs are:

  • Bug 377641 – Outlook does not read iTIP/iMIP invitation because of missing UID
  • Bug 372287 – Sunbird crashes on open in Mac OS X 10.3

Right now, we know what went wrong with bug 377641 and hope to have a fix for this today. The status of bug 372287 is still unclear to us, since we are still trying to build Sunbird from a Mac OS X 10.3 box, which would allow us to diagnose the problem. Therefore we have decided two things:

  1. We will release RC1 for Linux and Windows once bug 377641 has been fixed. That will give most of you the chance to pound on those builds and identify potential last-minute blockers, while we are trying to fix the Mac OS X 10.3 bug.
  2. If no other blockers arise from RC1, we will release 0.5 once bug 377641 gets fixed. If new blockers rise, we will likely release a 2nd release candidate (RC2).

26 comments

  1. Hi,
    I’m just testing the latest version of Lightning o.5pre 2007042304 and I cannot accept or even decline invitation of event (to be precise update to event) sent by Outlook 2002 (from Exchange mail account) :(((
    Something is wrong … I click on accept or decline buttons and they do not react!!!
    Is it going to be fixed??
    Thank you in advance for your answer!
    CU
    wabik

  2. bug 377641 notes there are some problems still. Could you describe exactly what you were doing as a comment to that bug? Did you decline a change of an event you previously approved? Which version of TB were you using?

  3. Will you be including an Intel Mac build when the RC is released? Some of us are really anxious to use even beta versions but the build are all PPC.

  4. Calendar sharing (icalx.com) has made sunbird a killer app. Now, unlike MS exchange, I can share my calendar with anyone, not just users of exchange.
    However I would like to enable automatic posting and retrieval of calendars.
    Where can I go to make similar suggestions for sunbird?
    RW

  5. automatic publishing and retrieval of calendars would make it a killer app!!!!

  6. I guess with auto-publish and retrieval you mean reloading of remote calendars? This is in versin 0.5pre already, so whishes fulfilled :-)

  7. @bvdbos
    The issue is that I imported calendar from Outlook 2003 to TB and Lightning and yesterday I just got an update (change of date of event) to invitation that I had set in Outlook. Nothing I can do with this either accept or decline …

  8. Ok I have prepare a simple test for the bug (Outlook 2003). I have to point out that previous one concerned Outlook 2002
    1. Prepare event in Outlook
    2. Accept event in Lightning 0.5pre 2007042304
    3. Send Update to event from Outlook 2003
    4. Receive update and try to update your event …
    Then there will be a message that event already exist. And nothing is happening … No update :(
    And additional issue still … why acept and decline buttons do not disappear when accepted or declined … only warning message appears?

  9. @Jon
    We currently produce Universal builds of Sunbird, so I must assume you’re referring to Lightning. RC1 when released will have support for both PPC and Intel Macs. This support isn’t as automatic as we would like and requires a bit of manual work, so nightlies don’t have it.
    As a workaround you can use the PPC Lightning nightlies on an Intel Mac by checking the “Open in Rosetta” box on Thunderbird’s Get Info pane.

  10. I finally have Sunbird compiling on a Mac OS X 10.3 box, so if we can reproduce the bug with this build, we can hopefully get a fix quickly.

  11. Where can I submit feature requests? The biggest problem I’ve encountered with Sunbird is trying to subscribe to a calendar that is hosted on an IIS server (version http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=172417
    It indicates that IIS 6 supposedly fixes this bug, but that doesn’t help in some situations. Is is realistic for the Sunbird/Lightning project to change how it handles digest authentication to make this work, or would that be a step backward?

  12. Sorry, my previous comment got munged. Here it is again:
    Where can I submit feature requests? The biggest problem I’ve encountered with Sunbird is trying to subscribe to a calendar that is hosted on an IIS server (version less than 6) Firefox (and therefore Sunbird, I assume) supports digest authentication, but IIS doesn’t like the headers that they send. I found more info here: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=172417
    It indicates that IIS 6 supposedly fixes this bug, but that doesn’t help in some situations. Is is realistic for the Sunbird/Lightning project to change how it handles digest authentication to make this work, or would that be a step backward?

  13. Thanks for the info. I did try to run Thunderbird under Rosetta which then caused the program to crash on startup.
    I’ll look forward to the RC. Thanks for your hard work.

  14. Hello,
    I have also problems with outlook meetings and lightning.
    Are there known limitations on your side?
    Do you need a detailed bug report or some example invitation from different outlook versions?
    With kind regards
    S. Hofmann

  15. Charlie,
    feature requests can be submitted at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org. But before doing that I would advise you to do 2 things first:
    1. Search in Bugzilla, whether the request has already been filed.
    2. Discuss your request in the mozilla.support.calendar newsgroup first.

  16. Hofy,
    There are some other bugs regarding Outlook,
    e.g. Bug 377641 and Bug 377761. Does one of this bugs matches your issue?

  17. lightning 0.5 really seemes to be a killer!
    Any idea about when support for offline calendar (with google cal provider) will be likely?
    Otherwise I also hope that the google cal provider will support recuring events in the future.
    I know this already is known issues, so I guess this is only some feedback about prioritising in my eyes :)
    thanks again.

  18. I’ve been checking every day to see if the RC1 is out yet. I don’t want to build lightning because my email is mission critical.
    Please please hurry…I despise Outlook and I desperately need an integrated calendar.
    Keep up the good work!

  19. Any chance of an update or announcement somewhere of what went on at the the face to face meeting? Any changes to the roadmap etc?
    Lightning’s great now and it’d be nice to see where it’s headed…
    Cheers

  20. I’m also checking this blog on a daily basis (sometimes multiple times/day), waiting for an update/announcement of the release.
    Much anticipation here!

  21. @ petenz
    You can find notes about the Hamburg meeting at the end of this webpage:
    http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Hamburg_F2F_Meeting

  22. Ugghhh!! I was all excited to download the lightning extension, official RC1 be damned! But then I went to Nev’s link and tried to install…and got an error message that lightning 0.6a1 isn’t compatible with Thunderbird 2.0 and requires Thunderbird 3.01a! :(
    I’ve become a regular calendar junkie, been hitting the blog several times a day hoping for good news.
    (Patience? What’s that? I need my calendar crack now!!! :P)

  23. Try the nightly development build link from the weblog’s Main page. That should be close to the RC version, and I’m running it successfully now.

  24. crimsondryad

    Any idea yet when the RC1 will be out? I went to the nightly build page. Call me lazy, but it’s too much work to build it, and regardless this is my production email…I really don’t want to risk a bug.

  25. I understand that Lightning will automatically refresh a subscribed on-line WEBDav calendar file. However, it does not appear to automatically upload changes to a local calendar file to the webdav server. This is a feature that is critical to anyone who travels with a computer and is not always conneted to the internet.
    Using the webdav online file as your “original” file means you can’t see it if you’re not online, so I’m hoping someone can come up with an add-on that periodically re-publishes your calendar to a webdav server.
    Thanks.