520478 - Email messages disappear when drag and dropped from inbox to selected folder - compact related [pop]

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Chris Watson]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: 2.0.0.23 (20090812)

More than 20 times I have lost email messages when moving them from the inbox folder to the selected destination folder.  The cursor has taken the little envelope shape (not the circle w/a line) before releasing the left mouse button.  The inbox counter decreases, but the destination counter does not increase.  I think this has something to do with Thunderbird compacting folders at the time of moving the message, but I cannot confirm that.  Most of the time moving a document works fine, but occasionally messages just plain disappear.  The "Undo Move Message" selection from Edit does not restore the message and searching for the message does not find it - they're just plain gone.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Unable to reproduce
2.
3.



No error messages or other problems appear.  No crashes, everything else will work fine.  No discernible pattern seems to exist except for a possible linke to folder compaction when moving a message.

Comment 1

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

POP3(Or "Local Folders")? IMAP?
Is the "destination folder" owned by same account as Inbox(move source folder)?
If POP3(or "Local Folders"), do you use Global Inbox?
If IMAP, do you enable "offline use" for folders?

What is you operation for "move mail from Inbox to selected destination folder"?
Move of single mail only? Move of multiple mails? If multiple, very many mails?
  A. Select a mail(or some mails) at thread pane(message list pane),
     i.   Drag & Drop selected mails
     ii.  "Move to" or "Move to ... Again" of context menu  
     iii. Message/Move
  B. "Run filter on folder" with rules of action=move to folder
  C. Move to Junk by "mark As Junk"
I assume A-i, because you say "before releasing the left mouse button", and move of single mail or a few to several mails, not very many mails.

> The inbox counter decreases, but the destination counter does not increase.
> I think this has something to do with Thunderbird compacting folders at the time of moving the message, but I cannot confirm that.

As seen in Dependency tree for Bug 498274, phenomenon is "copied but not deleted by move operation" in many cases, if interfere with auto-compact. Read Bug 498274 Comment #2, and check whether auto-compact is relevant to your problem or not. 

There are many option settings relevant to automatic mail deletion(mail purging). And next phenomenon relates to it is known.
  1. User requests Tb to delete(purge) read mails via Retention Policy or
     some other settings.
  2. A mail is marked as Junk by filter, and is moved to Junk with unread status.
  3. User manually executes "Unmark Junk" because it's not spam mail.
     Mail is marked as read, because user took action on the mail.
     Note: If Tb 3, mail is moved back to Inbox(new feature of Tb 3).
  4. Tb deletes(purges) the mail according to user's request of 1.
  5. User opens bug of "my mail is lost!" at B.M.O.
Similar phenomenon to above? What is your setting relates to mail purging?

If POP3, mail data is saved in local mail folder file of "Unix Mbox" format(search Google for it, please). And "deleted status" of mail is held in MSG_FLAG_EXPUNGED bit of data in X-Mozilla-Status: header.
( See http://www.eyrich-net.org/mozilla/X-Mozilla-Status.html?en )
If POP3 and if problem will happen again, check X-Mozilla-Status: header for deleted mail form Inbox. And check whther the mail is copied to destination folder or not.
  If mail data is held in destination folder, mail is moved and the mail is
  deleted at destination folder.
  If mail data is not held in destination folder, mail is not copied.
  The mail is deleted at Inbox.

Comment 2

[Chris Watson]

POP3
"destination folder" owned by same account as Inbox.
Not certain what "Global Inbox" is - mail arrives in folder labeled Inbox just below email account name.
Never use or enable "offline use".

Yes, A.i. Movement is single emails only when this has happened: Drag and Drop, normally email moves to destination, but not always.

After reviewing Bug 498272 changed setting per instructions w/Config Editor:
Mail.Purge.Ask=True now set.

Will see if problem "goes away" or repeats.

Second part - "next phenomenon" does not seem to be relevant.

Since POP3, will check X-Mozilla-Status if problem reoccurs.  BUT, if the email is gone, how can I locate it to check the header?  The missing emails are missing, nowhere to be found.

Comment 3

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to comment #2)
> if the email is gone, how can I locate it to check the header?

Use text editor. As I wrote, file to keep mail data is Unix Mbox format file.
  (A mail in Unix Mbox file)
   "From - ..." line = separator of mail 
   X-Mozilla-Status: ....           <= Added by Tb
                     0000=Alive/Unread,   0001=Alive/Read,  
                     0008=Deleted/Unread, 0009=Deleted/Read  
   X-Mozilla-Status2: .... ....     <= Added by Tb 
   X-Mozilla-Keys: ...              <= Added by Tb
   mai-data-line-1
                 |
   mai-data-line-N
If file(file named "Inbox" instead of "Inbox.msf" if folder of "Inbox") is too big, split the file by tool and check content by text editor.

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Chris do you still see this?  does reindex of folder help the message appear?

Comment 5

[Chris Watson]

The suggested workaround, DO NOT turn on automatic compacting, seems to have fixed this, BUT, automatic compacting should be made to work properly.  I have not tried the automatic thing since I don't (call me a wimp, but I don't want to lose any more emails) want to "mess with success."

I have noticed that the counters sometimes don't update - respond 'YES' to update, it seems to work, but the counter doesn't update UNTIL you select the destination folder, then the correct count shows.  There's still SOMETHING going on.

Warning - Venting about to occur!
As a user (I started w/a first gen IBM PC w/dual floppy drives about 1985), I've gotten a LITTLE tired of ALL the suppliers screwing us over with hardware/software that we have to screw with.  Sorry to vent, but I really don't know how "Ma & Pa Kettle" (it's an old movie reference - I'm an old guy now), ordinary folks, cope when they buy a PC from Best Buy, Dell, or whomever, and start getting error messages and "do you want to upgrade" ****.  T-bird is way better than Outlook, but these problems still drive me nuts.

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Chris do you still see this?  does reindex of folder help the message appear?

actually, I think my question was intended to mean is the situation improved when using v3.x, but unfortunately I didn't say that.

can you try v3.1 http://getthunderbird.com/ and report results?  I'm not saying it will be improved, but before comparing this to other bug reports I'd like to know how it behaves for you using the most current version. Also, some people have reported improve results if tb is started without add-ons, eg via safe-mode https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Chris, does this still reproduce using version 3.1?

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Chris is going to update this in a couple wekeks

Comment 9

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

RESOLVED INCOMPLETE due to lack of response to last question. If you feel this change is in error, please respond to this bug with your reasons why.