Problem with Fixing a bug in Thunderbird Lab

I have been having problem creating a patch with the Fixing a bug in Thunderbird Lab

The coding part is not difficult.  I got it figured out before I have the pre-build trees downloaded.  Basically, all you do is to make a change in a if statement inside a cpp file.

Then my nightmare begin with cvs diff.  I have getting all kind of error messages and nothing seems to fix it.    Here is a recap of what I did and how i fix it.

1. I downloaded the pre-built tree
2. I unzipped it with winzip and put it in the “c:/moz/tb/” directory
3. I made a change to the if statement, so that it check for ‘..’
4. I did a “make” at in the object directory
5. I tested the thunderbird and the fix work
6. I tried to ‘cvs diff -u8p . > labpatch.txt’ and it FAIL!?

I am sure I did everything correctly? what went wrong? Did you spot any problem/error with my steps?

I got this error message such as
$ cvs diff -u8p . > patch.txt
: no such repository
cvs diff: authorization failed: server cvs-mirror.mozilla.org rejected access t for user anonymous
cvs diff: used empty password; try “cvs login” with a real password

Then I tried this
$ cvs login
(Logging in to anonymous@cvs-mirror.mozilla.org)
CVS password:
: no such repository
cvs login: authorization failed: server cvs-mirror.mozilla.org rejected access  for user anonymous

I went out IRC #seneca and asked for help.
I tried this:
$ cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs-mirror.mozilla.org:/cvsroot diff -u8p . > patch.txt

It runs for half and hour and no error message, but it didn’t patch correctly.  The patch.txt file didn’t pick up the change I made.

After that, I did a lot for echo, path, touch, etc.  I tried all the cvs statement. cvs -, $CVSROOT, $CVS, etc.  Then I tried a bunch of stuff that doesn’t make any sense. lol~  I mean … whatever that make it works right?  I tried to reinstall mozilla-build, I tried to reinstall vb complier, I tried a difficult computer.  Nothing worked.

After 6 hours of trying, it is time to try something new.  Since, I am sure that everything I did is correct.  The fact that I am having all these problem doesn’t make any sense.

Suddenly, I come up with a new idea.  Maybe there is a problem with I am decompiling/unzipping the pre-build tree.  I downloaded “Winrar” and did the lab again following the exact steps I had above:

1. I downloaded the pre-built tree
2. I unzipped it with “winrar” and put it in the “c:/moz/tb/” directory
3. I made a change to the if statement, so that it check for ‘..’
4. I did a “make” at in the object directory
5. I tested the thunderbird and the fix work
6. I tried to ‘cvs diff -u8p . > labpatch.txt’ Now it WORK?

6 hours of time well wasted. = =”
Thank for Winzip

Well, whatever that works right?