Birdtray hard codes a default path

[Syonis]

Birdtray hard codes a default path

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. nix-shell -p birdtray
2. start birdtray

Expected behavior

If you leave it as it is Birdtray tries to start Thunderbird with "/usr/bin/thunderbird"
If you change that to "thunderbird" and launch birdtray it tries to launch "home/user/thunderbird"

Screenshots

Notify maintainers

@Flakebi

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/birdtray-path-of-thunderbird/40319/3

[eclairevoyant]

If you've added thunderbird to environment.systemPackages, then something like /run/current-system/sw/bin/thunderbird should work in the settings.

[Syonis]

Jep, thx. that worked.
Should I than close this issue? Since the reason isn't fixed?

[AndrewKvalheim]

Ideally the package should manage this e.g. via OPT_THUNDERBIRD_CMDLINE.

[eclairevoyant]

Ideally the package should manage this e.g. via OPT_THUNDERBIRD_CMDLINE.

That's only going to set the default, and will become wrong if the thunderbird storepath changes, because the config will not update even if the default does.

[AndrewKvalheim]

I see, you’re pointing out that the default is copied to a stateful configuration file rather than merely used as a fallback.

[eclairevoyant]

Yes, and the copying only happens if the config file doesn't already exist. I'm inclined to say that upstream should consider reading from PATH, or provide the capability to do so.

[dotlambda]

Why don't we patch https://github.com/gyunaev/birdtray/blob/00110c50398cbae4d6da4521ccbf5d7166eac670/src/utils.cpp#L207? Replace the path with lib.getExe pkgs.thunderbird.

[eclairevoyant]

As said above, that will only affect the default path to thunderbird. That would break as soon as thunderbird updates and the config file points to a nonexistent binary.

If any patching were to be done, it would have to be done in src/settings.cpp, but that would break things for users who actually want to point to a binary elsewhere

[ddogfoodd]

What if there was a fork of birdtray for nix users that don't want to customize the binary path and just let nix handle it? Wouldn't that work?

[Sikeen]

what about a check for whether the system is nix or not? would that work?

[Sikeen]

in this case, another if statement in the code

[eclairevoyant]

Now that upstream has made a fix, I've created a PR to pull in that commit. Please give the PR #327363 a test and let me know if it works as expected.

[ddogfoodd]

@eclairevoyant thanks! I am not sure, if it works for me. I can make birdtray start thunderbird and the birdtray log shows an unread message for an inbox as it should. However other than the log and startup, it doesn't seem connected. It shows a red cross as if it was not connected and doesn't show unread counter or quits thunderbird when is quit itself.

[eclairevoyant]

Fair, I don't really use birdtray, so I don't know how it works, just made a best-effort attempt.
If it doesn't work as designed, I can close it out and leave it for someone else to work on.

[OscarCunningham]

@ddogfoodd I just got birdtray working on NixOS myself. I had the issue in this thread, which I fixed by changing /usr/bin/thunderbird to /run/current-system/sw/bin/thunderbird in my birdtray settings. But I also had this issue gyunaev/birdtray#426 with an incompatibility between birdtray and wayland. I started birdtray with the WAYLAND_DISPLAY environment variable disabled, and it worked perfectly.

The reason I mention this is that it sounds like the fix above might actually have worked, but it still seems buggy to you because you're also experiencing the wayland bug.

Also tagging @eclairevoyant .

[eclairevoyant]

Unsubscribing as I don't use birdtray.

[BlueDrink9]

How come it couldn't be patched just by setting OPT_THUNDERBIRD_CMDLINE=/run/current-system/sw/bin/thunderbird? Then it will still work across changes in Thunderbird binary