Unable to dismiss Birthday notifications in Thunderbird - Results in 404

[anders-larsson]

Describe the bug

Since the update to NextCloud 19.0.0 (well hard to say since you're not getting notifications for birthdays that often) I've been unable to dismiss notifications for birthdays in Thunderbird. I can successfully dismiss notifications triggered by other calendars in Nextcloud and therefore it's created here and not in nextcloud/server.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Install Contacts app in NextCloud
2. Add contact and a birthdate
3. Add calendar to Thunderbird https://cloud.mydomain.tld/remote.php/dav/calendars/user/contact_birthdays/
4. Wait until birthday notification occurs
5. Be unable to dismiss notification

Expected behavior
Notifications should be dismissed and no further notifications should be received regarding said birthday.

Actual behavior
Unable to dismiss notification. If closed (closing window instead of dismissing) another notification will pop up again after a while.

Screenshots
If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.

Server configuration

Operating system: Linux

Web server: Nginx

Database: MariaDB

PHP version: 7.3

Nextcloud version: 19.0.0

Contacts version: 3.3.0

Updated from an older Nextcloud or fresh install: 18.0.6

Signing status:

No errors have been found.

List of activated apps:

Enabled:
  - accessibility: 1.5.0
  - activity: 2.12.0
  - admin_audit: 1.9.0
  - bruteforcesettings: 1.6.0
  - calendar: 2.0.3
  - cloud_federation_api: 1.2.0
  - comments: 1.9.0
  - contacts: 3.3.0
  - contactsinteraction: 1.0.0
  - dav: 1.15.0
  - federatedfilesharing: 1.9.0
  - federation: 1.9.0
  - files: 1.14.0
  - files_pdfviewer: 1.8.0
  - files_rightclick: 0.16.0
  - files_sharing: 1.11.0
  - files_trashbin: 1.9.0
  - files_versions: 1.12.0
  - files_videoplayer: 1.8.0
  - firstrunwizard: 2.8.0
  - logreader: 2.4.0
  - lookup_server_connector: 1.7.0
  - nextcloud_announcements: 1.8.0
  - notes: 3.6.0
  - notifications: 2.7.0
  - oauth2: 1.7.0
  - password_policy: 1.9.1
  - phonetrack: 0.6.3
  - photos: 1.1.0
  - privacy: 1.3.0
  - provisioning_api: 1.9.0
  - recommendations: 0.7.0
  - serverinfo: 1.9.0
  - settings: 1.1.0
  - sharebymail: 1.9.0
  - support: 1.2.1
  - survey_client: 1.7.0
  - systemtags: 1.9.0
  - tasks: 0.13.1
  - text: 3.0.1
  - theming: 1.10.0
  - twofactor_backupcodes: 1.8.0
  - twofactor_totp: 4.1.3
  - updatenotification: 1.9.0
  - user_ldap: 1.9.0
  - viewer: 1.3.0
  - workflowengine: 2.1.0
Disabled:
  - encryption
  - files_external

Nextcloud configuration:

{
    "system": {
        "instanceid": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "passwordsalt": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "secret": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "trusted_domains": [
            "cloud.mydomain.tld"
        ],
        "datadirectory": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "overwrite.cli.url": "https:\/\/cloud.mydomain.tld",
        "dbtype": "mysql",
        "version": "19.0.0.12",
        "dbname": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "dbhost": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "dbtableprefix": "oc_",
        "dbuser": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "dbpassword": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "logtimezone": "UTC",
        "installed": true,
        "mail_from_address": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "mail_smtpmode": "smtp",
        "mail_domain": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "theme": "",
        "loglevel": 2,
        "maintenance": false,
        "memcache.local": "\\OC\\Memcache\\APCu",
        "memcache.locking": "\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis",
        "redis": {
            "host": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
            "port": 6379,
            "password": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
            "timeout": 1.5
        },
        "updater.release.channel": "stable",
        "mail_smtpauthtype": "LOGIN",
        "mail_smtpauth": 1,
        "mail_smtphost": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "mail_smtpport": "587",
        "mail_smtpname": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "mail_smtppassword": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "mail_smtpsecure": "tls",
        "mysql.utf8mb4": true,
        "ldapIgnoreNamingRules": false,
        "ldapProviderFactory": "OCA\\User_LDAP\\LDAPProviderFactory"
    }
}

Client configuration

Browser: Thunderbird

Operating system: Linux

CardDAV-clients: Thunderbird

Logs

Web server error log

192.168.13.1 - user [01/Jul/2020:21:32:03 +0200] "PUT /remote.php/dav/calendars/user/contact_birthdays/Contacts-C732AB46-1370-0001-D333-13306C101B82.vcf.ics HTTP/2.0" 404 869 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.9.0 Lightning/68.9.0" "-"

Nextcloud log

data/nextcloud.log

Log is almost 100MB in size. Nothing is added to it when this happens though.

Browser log

How to access your browser console (Click to expand)

Chrome

• Press either CTRL + SHIFT + J to open the “console” tab of the Developer Tools.
• Alternative method:
  1. Press either CTRL + SHIFT + I or F12 to open the Developer Tools.
  2. Click the “console” tab.

Safari

• Press CTRL + ALT + I to open the Web Inspector.
• See Chrome’s step 2. (Chrome and Safari have pretty much identical dev tools.)

IE9

1. Press F12 to open the developer tools.
2. Click the “console” tab.

Firefox

• Press CTRL + SHIFT + K to open the Web console (COMMAND + SHIFT + K on Macs).
• or, if Firebug is installed (recommended):
  1. Press F12 to open Firebug.
  2. Click on the “console” tab.

Opera

1. Press CTRL + SHIFT + I to open Dragonfly.
2. Click on the “console” tab.

Logs from Thunderbird debug console:

Lightning: CalDAV: Unexpected status modifying item to Birthdays: 404
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Mozilla.org/NONSGML Mozilla Calendar V1.1//EN
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
LAST-MODIFIED:20200701T193203Z
DTSTAMP:20200701T193203Z
UID:C732AB46-1390-0001-7845-1B301B901C56
SUMMARY: Firstname Lastname (*1990)
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY
X-MOZ-LASTACK:20200701T193203Z
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:19900622
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:19900623
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
X-NEXTCLOUD-BC-FIELD-TYPE:BDAY
X-NEXTCLOUD-BC-UNKNOWN-YEAR:0
X-NEXTCLOUD-BC-YEAR:1990
X-MOZ-GENERATION:1
BEGIN:VALARM
ACTION:DISPLAY
TRIGGER;VALUE=DURATION:PT0S
DESCRIPTION: Firstname Lastname (*1990)
X-LIC-ERROR;X-LIC-ERRORTYPE=PARAMETER-VALUE-PARSE-ERROR:Got a VALUE parameter with an illegal type for property: VALUE=DURATION
END:VALARM
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

[skjnldsv]

cc @georgehrke

[georgehrke]

Moving to the server

[georgehrke]

@anders-larsson Any chance you could provide us with the exact request thunderbird tries to send to the server? (With wireshark or similar?)

[anders-larsson]

Using the Developer tools in Thunderbird I can see the complete request sent.

Thanks for your help.

{
  "log": {
    "version": "1.2",
    "creator": {
      "name": "Thunderbird",
      "version": "68.10.0"
    },
    "browser": {
      "name": "Thunderbird",
      "version": "68.10.0"
    },
    "pages": [
      {
        "startedDateTime": "2020-07-14T14:08:02.178+02:00",
        "id": "page_2",
        "pageTimings": {
          "onContentLoad": -1,
          "onLoad": -1
        }
      }
    ],
    "entries": [
      {
        "pageref": "page_2",
        "startedDateTime": "2020-07-14T14:08:02.178+02:00",
        "request": {
          "bodySize": 747,
          "method": "PUT",
          "url": "https://cloud.domain.tld/remote.php/dav/calendars/user/contact_birthdays/Contacts-BDB2E634-0770-479B-9074-F2DC82D146B8.vcf.ics",
          "httpVersion": "HTTP/2.0",
          "headers": [
            {
              "name": "Host",
              "value": "cloud.domain.tld"
            },
            {
              "name": "User-Agent",
              "value": "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.10.0 Lightning/68.10.0"
            },
            {
              "name": "Accept",
              "value": "text/xml"
            },
            {
              "name": "Accept-Language",
              "value": "en-GB,en;q=0.5"
            },
            {
              "name": "Accept-Encoding",
              "value": "gzip, deflate, br"
            },
            {
              "name": "Accept-Charset",
              "value": "utf-8,*;q=0.1"
            },
            {
              "name": "Content-Type",
              "value": "text/calendar; charset=utf-8"
            },
            {
              "name": "Content-Length",
              "value": "751"
            },
            {
              "name": "If-Match",
              "value": "\"<hidden>\""
            },
            {
              "name": "Authorization",
              "value": "Basic <hidden>"
            },
            {
              "name": "Connection",
              "value": "keep-alive"
            },
            {
              "name": "Pragma",
              "value": "no-cache"
            },
            {
              "name": "Cache-Control",
              "value": "no-cache"
            },
            {
              "name": "TE",
              "value": "Trailers"
            }
          ],
          "cookies": [],
          "queryString": [],
          "headersSize": 620,
          "postData": {
            "mimeType": "text/calendar; charset=utf-8",
            "params": [],
            "text": "BEGIN:VCALENDAR\r\nPRODID:-//Mozilla.org/NONSGML Mozilla Calendar V1.1//EN\r\nVERSION:2.0\r\nBEGIN:VEVENT\r\nLAST-MODIFIED:20200714T120802Z\r\nDTSTAMP:20200714T120802Z\r\nUID:29b41597-0e5a-4f9e-9c75-e855e516f24d\r\nSUMMARY:🎂 Firstname Lastname (2020)\r\nRRULE:FREQ=YEARLY\r\nX-MOZ-LASTACK:20200714T120802Z\r\nDTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200714\r\nDTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200715\r\nTRANSP:TRANSPARENT\r\nX-NEXTCLOUD-BC-FIELD-TYPE:BDAY\r\nX-NEXTCLOUD-BC-UNKNOWN-YEAR:0\r\nX-NEXTCLOUD-BC-YEAR:2020\r\nX-MOZ-GENERATION:1\r\nBEGIN:VALARM\r\nACTION:DISPLAY\r\nTRIGGER;VALUE=DURATION:PT0S\r\nDESCRIPTION:🎂 Firstname Lastname (2020)\r\nX-LIC-ERROR;X-LIC-ERRORTYPE=PARAMETER-VALUE-PARSE-ERROR:Got a VALUE parame\r\n ter with an illegal type for property: VALUE=DURATION\r\nEND:VALARM\r\nEND:VEVENT\r\nEND:VCALENDAR\r\n"
          }
        },
        "response": {
          "status": 404,
          "statusText": "Not Found",
          "httpVersion": "HTTP/2.0",
          "headers": [
            {
              "name": "server",
              "value": "nginx"
            },
            {
              "name": "date",
              "value": "Tue, 14 Jul 2020 12:08:02 GMT"
            },
            {
              "name": "content-type",
              "value": "text/html; charset=UTF-8"
            },
            {
              "name": "location",
              "value": "https://cloud.domain.tld/apps/files/"
            },
            {
              "name": "expires",
              "value": "Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT"
            },
            {
              "name": "cache-control",
              "value": "no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate"
            },
            {
              "name": "pragma",
              "value": "no-cache"
            },
            {
              "name": "set-cookie",
              "value": "oc_sessionPassphrase=<hidden>; path=/; secure; HttpOnly; SameSite=Lax"
            },
            {
              "name": "content-security-policy",
              "value": "default-src 'self'; script-src 'self' 'nonce-<hidden>='; style-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'; frame-src *; img-src * data: blob:; font-src 'self' data:; media-src *; connect-src *; object-src 'none'; base-uri 'self';"
            },
            {
              "name": "set-cookie",
              "value": "__Host-nc_sameSiteCookielax=true; path=/; httponly;secure; expires=Fri, 31-Dec-2100 23:59:59 GMT; SameSite=lax"
            },
            {
              "name": "set-cookie",
              "value": "__Host-nc_sameSiteCookiestrict=true; path=/; httponly;secure; expires=Fri, 31-Dec-2100 23:59:59 GMT; SameSite=strict"
            },
            {
              "name": "set-cookie",
              "value": "<hidden>; path=/; secure; HttpOnly; SameSite=Lax"
            },
            {
              "name": "X-Firefox-Spdy",
              "value": "h2"
            }
          ],
          "cookies": [
            {
              "name": "oc_sessionPassphrase",
              "value": "<hidden>"
            },
            {
              "name": "__Host-nc_sameSiteCookielax",
              "value": "true"
            },
            {
              "name": "__Host-nc_sameSiteCookiestrict",
              "value": "true"
            },
            {
              "name": "<hidden>",
              "value": "<hidden>"
            }
          ],
          "content": {
            "mimeType": "text/html; charset=UTF-8",
            "size": 0,
            "text": ""
          },
          "redirectURL": "https://cloud.domain.tld/apps/files/",
          "headersSize": 1165,
          "bodySize": 2536
        },
        "cache": {},
        "timings": {
          "blocked": 0,
          "dns": 0,
          "connect": 0,
          "ssl": 0,
          "send": 0,
          "wait": 117,
          "receive": 0
        },
        "time": 117,
        "_securityState": "secure",
        "serverIPAddress": "<hidden>",
        "connection": "443"
      }
    ]
  }
}

[JPustkuchen]

Exactly the same problem here with the birthday reminder and

X-LIC-ERROR;X-LIC-ERRORTYPE=PARAMETER-VALUE-PARSE-ERROR:Got a VALUE parameter with an illegal type for property: VALUE=DURATION

Can't close the reminders in TB 68.12.0 with NC 19.0.2

Also see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1846423

[LukeLR]

I'm affected by this bug as well. Nextcloud is v20.0, Thunderbird is 68.12.0. My first guess was this is caused because the birthday calendar is read-only (only contains birthdays of contacts) but Thunderbird tries to write to it in order to mark the reminders as "dismissed"? Because dismissing other reminders seems to work. Thanks for reading!

[Hoeze]

Just hit the same bug. TB 68.12.0 and nextcloud 18.0.1

[skjnldsv]

duplicate of #17915

[clonejo]

A workaround for some people may be to disable reminders on that birthday calendar within Thunderbird.

[GeGeFe]

Me too affected for this bug in Thunderbird 91.6.1 (64-bits) and Ubuntu 20.04.

[aslmx]

This also affects Thunderbird 102.0b3 (64-bit) (Linux).
Had to disable reminders and hope not to forget a birthday now ;)

[gaetleba]

I encountered this bug yesterday with NC 24.0.1 and thunderbird 103.0b2. I just found out that setting the birthday calendar as read-only in thunderbird seems to be a workaround in my case.

[cieska]

I do have the same problem for ages. And still persists in the current newest version of thunderbird and NC25. Luckily I do not have too many birthdays listed.

[wunschadresse]

duplicate of #17915

is it really? I cannot argue from a technical point of view, but from user-experience this feels different.

this thread is also hoping for answers: https://help.nextcloud.com/t/thunderbird-notifications-cannot-be-closed/138034

[LukeLR]

I agree, I don't think this is a duplicate. @skjnldsv could you please elaborate, why you think it is? Maybe we're missing something.

…

On 1. Feb 2023, at 08:07, wunschadresse ***@***.***> wrote:  duplicate of #17915 is it really? I cannot argue from a technical point of view, but from user-experience this feels different. this thread is also hoping for answers: https://help.nextcloud.com/t/thunderbird-notifications-cannot-be-closed/138034 — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you commented.

[jamespoore]

This should be re-opened, it is a valid issue.

Had to set the calendar to read only as suggested above.

[Folaht]

I second this.

[anders-larsson]

Wish I would be able to re-open it but I'm unable to do so.

Maybe @skjnldsv can help?

[dnno]

I have the same problem, though not only with the birthday calendar, but also with a regular calender hosted in nextcloud. Notifications just won't go away. Thunderbird 115 and Nextcloud 25.0.8

[cieska]

I have sorted this out somehow. But I can't remember how. hmmmm... Maybe, I removed the sync, and then, re-added it? Can someone confirm?

[markc]

Same problem for contact_birthdays. I cannot dismiss notifications with Nextcloud 27.0.2 and Thunderbird 115.1.1 and in fact they are still popping up the next day.

[hbarthel]

Same problem here with contact birthdays. I cannot dismiss notifications with Nextcloud 26.0.6. and Thunderbird 115.2.0.

[rollyfx]

Same here, with contacts birthdays (Nextcloud 27.0.1 & Thunderbird 102.15.1)

[kassi]

Same here, Nextcloud 27.1.1, Thunderbird 115.3.3 (Win).
I see a request being made to the server as
PUT /remote.php/dav/calendars/<name>/contact_birthdays/contacts-XXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXX.vcf.ics which results in a 404.
XXX looks like a UUID.

[spalinger]

Same here,
Nextcloud 27.1.3, Thunderbird 115.4.2.

[AnneWielis]

Same here. Thunderbird 115.7.0 (Windows), Nextcloud 24.0.8

[Routhinator]

Still affecting Thunderbird 115.6.0 (64-bit Linux) and Nextcloud 28.0.3 😞

[cieska]

If I remember it right... Need to remove it from sync with the client, and re-ad it again? maybe...?

[resoli]

Same here: TB 115.9.0 (64-bit Linux) and Nextcloud 28.0.4

[simonmicro]

Hey. I don't know if this can be fixed, or if this is really more something for the Thunderbird team.

Workaround

Set your calendar in Thunderbird to "Read Only". This resolves the problem locally.

...why?

...Thunderbird modifies the event information to store the "dismissed" state (useful if you have multiple Thunderbird instances looking at the same calendar, as this dismisses them all). As this obviously does not work with read-only implementations, the GUI of Thunderbird gets stuck. I do not think the Nextcloud extension can really fix this, as - by design - the birthday reminders are meant to be read-only, hence cannot be modified in any way. Lifting this restriction would cause a lot of additional work: Especially if people start deleting them (and they subsequently reappear).

I think this is more a Thunderbird issue, where they should handle the "cannot update remote" errors also for dismissal-problems: They already implemented this handling for desynchronization problems (modified local state, but remote changed since last pull), but this was seemingly not added to the dismissal button of the reminder dialog.

(I assume the 404 is caused by no route being installed for the "PUT"-method of HTTP, maybe Thunderbird behaves better if an 403/401 response is being sent)

[resoli]

@simonmicro Many thanks. I can confirm that setting the calendar read only in TB solves the issue of reiterated requests to dismiss. The alert notifications is thrown a single time.

[IreNox]

I have the same problem but with eM Client on Windows. Unfortunately it has no option to set it read only nor can I disable reminders. I would really appreciate if you could fix this on server side.

[Routhinator]

Yeah the workaround is clear, but Nextcloud should fix the metadata on this calendar so Thunderbird does that automatically as it does for other readonly calendars, removing this UX problem entirely.