227472 - I get 11 empty unread messages with no subject or sender every time I switch mail folders

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(MailNews Core :: Database, defect)

Description

[Steve Chase]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6a) Gecko/20031030
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6a) Gecko/20031030

I get 11 empty unread messages with no subject or sender every time I switch
mail folders. The messages are dated 12/31/1969 7:00 PM. If I delete them, they
come back if I switch mail folders or restart mozilla. This has been happening
for several months. I don't know what the cause could be. I updated my version
of mozilla a while back which may have caused problems.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start mozilla.
2. Go to Inbox
3. See 11 empty messages dated 12/31/1969 7:00 PM
4. Delete empty messages
5. Switch to Trash folder
6. Switch back to Inbox and empty messages reappear

Actual Results:  
Repeated every time.

Expected Results:  
Never shown empty messages. Removed them permanently.

Comment 1

[David :Bienvenu]

Are these IMAP or POP3/Local folders? I thought I'd fixed it so these messages
could at least be deleted. Can you send me the .msf files for the folders with
the empty messages so I can figure out why they can't be deleted?

Comment 2

[David :Bienvenu]

ok, I see why the deletes are failing - the message headers aren't in any
thread, so the delete code fails trying to remove them from their thread. So I
need to just remove them, period.

Comment 3

[David :Bienvenu]

hmm, we are removing them in the code, but it seems not to be working. Will
investigate more when I get a chance. You can just remove the .msf files in
question and that will fix the problem for you.

Comment 4

[Josh Draper]

I have the same problem, but it's just one unread message in one of my accounts
instead of 11.  Mine is dated 12/31/1969 6:00PM.  If I delete the .msf file, I
lose any e-mail in that folder, correct?

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007

Comment 5

[David :Bienvenu]

No, deleting the .msf file won't lose any e-mail.

Comment 6

[David :Bienvenu]

Attachment: proposed fix

this patch will remove ghost messages.

Comment 7

[David :Bienvenu]

one problem this patch doesn't address is the potentially incorrect unread and
total counts for the folder due to these empty messages. I'm not sure if we
should try to adjust the unread+total counts here, or just worry about fixing
them elsewhere...

Comment 8

[David :Bienvenu]

fix checked in. The phantom messages should disappear when you open the folder
(depending on your folder, it may take a few times for them to all disappear)

Comment 9

[Jason Bassford]

Why haven't the approval flags been set?

Comment 10

[David :Bienvenu]

fixed on m4 branch

Comment 11

[David :Bienvenu]

Comment on attachment 138649 [details] [diff] [review]
proposed fix

this is checked in on the branch but not the trunk...

Comment 12

[David :Bienvenu]

re-opening - shouldn't have marked fixed since the fix wasn't checked into the
trunk.

Comment 13

[David :Bienvenu]

fixed - empty unread messages should disappear when you open the folder or the
thread, but it might take a few attempts.