I'm yet to do a bit more research into this but I believe that Thunderbird is basically correct in what it is doing (even though it seems daft at face value)... I can also confirm that Thunderbird has been doing this for a long time and what has changed is the presentation of the gconf errors.
This issue is attributed to the Ubuntu Thunderbird package being compiled with support for GIO. If you use the binary package from mozilla then it does not should a pop up dialog. Thunderbird chooses GIO in preference to GConf if it's available but then GIO actually uses GConf itself to do the lookup. The error handling is configured slightly differently and this results in the pop-ups. I need to do some more tests when I have time and then I'll try to propose a fix. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to thunderbird in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/411358 Title: Thunderbird2 gconf gmt problem 'Bad key or directory name' because of plus symbol (+) Status in Mozilla Thunderbird Mail and News: Confirmed Status in “thunderbird” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: Here is an error message for Thunderbird 2 in Jaunty gnubyexample@k8amd:~$ thunderbird GConf Error: Bad key or directory name: "/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/GMT+02/command": `+' is an invalid character in key/directory names gnubyexample@k8amd:~$ date;uname -a;cat /etc/*version*;dpkg -l | grep underbird Sun Aug 9 14:48:37 BST 2009 Linux k8amd 2.6.28-14-generic #47-Ubuntu SMP Sat Jul 25 00:28:35 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux 5.0 ii enigmail 2:0.95.7-1ubuntu2 Enigmail - GPG support for Thunderbird ii thunderbird 2.0.0.22+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.04.1 mail/news client with RSS and integrated spam filter support ii thunderbird-locale-en-gb 1:2.0.0.14+1-0ubuntu2 Thunderbird English language/region package From reading this extract ( http://osdir.com/ml/os.solaris.opensolaris.desktop/2008-03/msg00020.html ): Subject: Re: GConf/Thunderbird error on Solaris Nevada "Hi Mats,I believe you download the contribute builds of Thunderbird 2, and run it on snv_70. For some reason, the fix is upstreamed to Thunderbird 3 alpha, but not community version of Thunderbird 2. Fixed in snv_68 means the fix was integrated to Thunderbird bundled with snv_68." ...it seems that the fix for this in thunderbird2 might require some manual intervention as although the problem is well know, the fix was only incorporated in the newer thunderbird3. Have just checked the Karmic version at: http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/thunderbird which currently shows that version 2 of thunderbird is planned for Karmic release. As thunderbird3 is at Beta 3 right now I can perhaps see why debian and ubuntu are sticking with Thunderbird2 just now. http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/about/press/archive/2009-07-21-01 However it does seem a shame to ship a new release with this known gconf issue unpatched. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/thunderbird/+bug/411358/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp