251885 - Multiple POP accounts, universal / global inbox errors

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Networking: POP, defect)

Description

[Meaker]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a2) Gecko/20040714
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a2) Gecko/20040714

Multiple POP accounts, universal / global inbox errors

July 2004: The latest version of Mozilla Mail and TB use the Global Inbox mod
that allows these programs to emulate Microsoft's Outlook Express with its
simple "one inbox" format. Great. Read about this mod here:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30057

I have 5 POP accounts, all under one identity. I have set them all to feed into
and out of one set of Local Folders (Inbox/Outbox/Sent etc).

Bugs in this fix: 

1) In Server Settings --> Advanced, the setting for "Include this server when
getting new mail" does not work properly. Activating it after first deactivating
it with multiple accounts results in some servers not getting checked on
individual "Get Mail" requests. If it is deactivated, you should be able to
manually check the server by using the pull-down list under "Get Msgs". This
does not always work. I had to use OE to get mail from some servers after using
this toggle in Mozilla Mail. Conversely, when deactivated, "Get Msgs" should not
check that server, but sometimes does. The implementation is very flaky and
seems untested.

2) When "Get Mail" is activated, the first mail items fetched cause the pop-up
at the bottom of the screen to activate for the first account fetched.
Subsequent accounts fetched do not cause the pop-up to refresh. So if POP #1 has
3 emails, you get a message that "Local Folder has 3 new emails", even if
checking POPs #2-5 result in 100 more emails. Fix: make sure the pop-up is only
activated when all email has been fetched.

3) Since changing all my accounts to feed into the Global Inbox, I always get
popups signalling that new messages have arrived in my "Local" inbox. However, I
had one instance of a pop-up message mentioning the specific POP account's name, eg:

"1 new message for John Smith" or something similar.

However, I could not find this new message anywhere, since John Smith no longer
has any visible folders in my Global Inbox configuration. (All accounts are set
to download email automatically, BTW). What happened to this email, and why did
it trigger a non-standard popup message?

One more omission: why can't we have a better set of icons and options on the
Mail Toolbar? One glaring omission is the "Mark All Read" icon. Instead we have
to use the clumsy "Shift+Ctrl+M" key combo - ugh! Where's the Address Book icon?
Why do we have to have such a clunky, thick Mail Toolbar? Why can't we hide the
icons and just have text (big space saver)? Where the "Folder List" icon that
allows us to hide the folder panel without having to battle to focus our mouse
pointer on the tiny panel toggle handle?


Reproducible: Sometimes
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[David :Bienvenu]

taking. I'll look into these, except, for the purposes of this bug, I'll ignore
your last paragraph since it has nothing to do with the global inbox, as far as
I can tell.

"Activating it after first deactivating it with multiple accounts results in
some servers not getting checked on individual "Get Mail" requests."

I can't really parse this - some steps or elaboration might be useful here...but
I'll play around with it first.

>What happened to this email, and why did
>it trigger a non-standard popup message?

I don't know, but if you turn off deferral of this account, which will make the
account show up in the folder pane, you can look and see if it got put in the
inbox for the account.

Comment 2

[Meaker]

(In reply to comment #1)
> "Activating it after first deactivating it with multiple accounts results in
> some servers not getting checked on individual "Get Mail" requests."
> 
> I can't really parse this - some steps or elaboration might
> be useful here...but I'll play around with it first.

Yes, sorry I was unclear, but I think if you set up multiple email accounts
feeding off different POP servers, and mess around a bit, you'll see the rough
edges soon enough.

> >What happened to this email, and why did
> >it trigger a non-standard popup message?
> 
> I don't know, but if you turn off deferral of this account, which will make the
> account show up in the folder pane, you can look and see if it got put in the
> inbox for the account.

I unhid the account in question and found 2 unread emails in the inbox. So the
question becomes: how did these emails sneak into the deferred inbox and not go
to the Global Inbox like all other emails before and after?

Comment 3

[David :Bienvenu]

you're right - getting mail for just a deferred account did get mail for a
different account, or perhaps all deferred accounts (I'm not sure if the account
in question had new mail, but I do know that it did get mail for a different
deferred account).

Re how your new mail got past the deferred account check, I'm not sure.
Presumably some unusual code path, but I don't know what it could be...

Comment 4

[David :Bienvenu]

Attachment: proposed fix

If we're getting new mail on a deferred server, just get new mail for that
server. Also fix a case where we were creating a transitory empty account when
undeferring a server.

Comment 5

[David :Bienvenu]

issue 1 fixed on trunk and branch. Issue 2 should get its own bug - I'll file one.

Comment 6

[Markus Faßbender]

> 3) Since changing all my accounts to feed into the Global Inbox, I always get
> popups signalling that new messages have arrived in my "Local" inbox. However, I
> had one instance of a pop-up message mentioning the specific POP account's
name, eg:
> 
> "1 new message for John Smith" or something similar.
> 
> However, I could not find this new message anywhere, since John Smith no longer
> has any visible folders in my Global Inbox configuration. (All accounts are set
> to download email automatically, BTW). What happened to this email, and why did

I can reproduce this bug on TB 0.8 and TB 0.9 (20041103).
I had two separate account A and B. Then in TB 0.8 I move the B account to the
inbox of the A account. Mails are checked every 10 minutes automatically. Now I
get a popup when B get's a new mail but I couldn't see that mail !!! Now I get
every 10 minutes that message :(

When I use the "Get Mail"-Button and download mails for B-account than TB
download the mail correct.

Comment 7

[Markus Faßbender]

David, can you reproduce this bug with my description in comment #6 ? Several
people in our forum (DE) have the same problem. Also if they create a new
profile in TB 0.9 . It has something to do with the automatic check for mails.

Or should I fill a separate bug for this issue ?

Comment 8

[David :Bienvenu]

Markus, can you attach or e-mail me your prefs.js? I assume this is still
happening with 1.0?

Comment 9

[Markus Faßbender]

(In reply to comment #8)
> Markus, can you attach or e-mail me your prefs.js? I assume this is still
> happening with 1.0?

I want to reproduce the problem on a new profile to send you the data and found
out, that's not a bug but some confusions with the default settings of new
accounts in tb. I will test this on monday again and write back.

Comment 10

[Markus Faßbender]

Hello David,

for my case it was a configuration confusion with the default account settings
of tb.

For the FIRST account you create in tb the following server-settings are set by
default:

[x] check for new messages at startup
[x] check for new messages every [10] minutes
[x] automatically download new messages

For the second and all other new accounts the server-settings are set by default:

[ ] check for new messages at startup
[x] check for new messages every [10] minutes
[ ] automatically download new messages

So if you create a new account without looking at the settings you wonder why
the new mails aren't downloaded. 

I think tb should use the same settings (like the first account) for all accounts.

Should I fill a bug ?

Comment 11

[Markus Faßbender]

I filled a new bug 277408 for the problem mentioned in comment #10

Comment 12

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #0)
> 2) When "Get Mail" is activated, the first mail items fetched cause the
> pop-up at the bottom of the screen to activate for the first account fetched.
> Subsequent accounts fetched do not cause the pop-up to refresh. So if POP #1
> has 3 emails, you get a message that "Local Folder has 3 new emails", even if
> checking POPs #2-5 result in 100 more emails. Fix: make sure the pop-up is
> only activated when all email has been fetched.

This is unrelated to global inbox, it happens for all account types: The first account that receives mail issues an alert, and no subsequent alerts are issued while any account has 'New' status: bug 145982 and bug 210148.  ('New' status for a deferred account is placed on the deferee -- that is, on Local Folders for the Global Inbox case.)


(In reply to comment #6)
> > 3) Since changing all my accounts to feed into the Global Inbox, I always
> > get popups signalling that new messages have arrived in my "Local" inbox.
> > However, I had one instance of a pop-up message mentioning the specific
> > POP account's name, eg:
> > 
> > "1 new message for John Smith" or something similar.
> > 
> > However, I could not find this new message anywhere, since John Smith no
> > longer has any visible folders in my Global Inbox configuration. (All
> > accounts are set to download email automatically, BTW). [...]
> 
> I can reproduce this bug on TB 0.8 and TB 0.9 (20041103).
> I had two separate account A and B. Then in TB 0.8 I move the B account to
> the inbox of the A account. Mails are checked every 10 minutes
> automatically. Now I get a popup when B get's a new mail but I couldn't see
> that mail !!! Now I get every 10 minutes that message :(

I'm unable to reproduce this.  It's not clear to me if comment 10 was intended as a followup to this problem: did you discover that the problem was that the deferred account had 'Automatically download new messages' turned off?  That might explain the symptom, in an earlier version.

I tested this case using TB 2a1-0831, and when the new message arrived at the deferred account, the popup alert didn't display at all -- this may have changed because the popup format is now different, previewing text from the new messages, which of course it can't do if the message hasn't been downloaded.  The tray icon displayed; and the tooltip for the tray icon showed "1 new message in <deferred account>".

Markus, are you running with a 2a1 build yet?  I'm curious what symptoms you're seeing here now, if any.