71068 - filters disappear

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(MailNews Core :: Filters, defect)

Description

[Gagan]

I use a lot of filters and they are typically stored on my home directory which 
is NFS mounted. Every now and then NFS would blink and cause these filters to 
completely disappear. I am wondering if the architecture requires the filters 
file to always be actively open (just a suspicion) and if we could do without 
that. 

For me filters is really critical functionality and losing them is why I won't 
eat dogfood...

Comment 1

[laurel]

to gayatrib, cc bienvenu

Comment 2

[gayatrib]

will discuss with putterman and david about this one.

Comment 3

[scottputterman]

reassigning to naving

Comment 4

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

mass re-assign.

Comment 5

[eric]

I use alot of filters and the same is happening with me. 
I am not useing nfs homes or any other /home/user remotemounting options. 
I can watch the file be overwritten as I start tb up. 
If I chmod it to root.root and give it --------- permissions, thunderbird will
remove it and write a fresh blankone to it. This is very scary behavior.
Thunderbird runs as root? whats going on that tb can overwrite a root.root 0
permission file being started as a normal user?!!!!!

} eric {$ls
total 196
drwxr-xr-x    3 eric     eric         4096 Dec 16 22:17 .
drwxr-xr-x    4 eric     eric         4096 Dec 16 17:43 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 eric     eric       175813 Dec 16 22:20 INBOX.msf
drwxr-xr-x    2 eric     eric         4096 Dec 16 22:05 INBOX.sbd
-rw-r--r--    1 eric     eric          573 Dec 16 22:00 filterlog.html
-rw-r--r--    1 eric     eric           25 Dec 16 22:17 msgFilterRules.dat
(/home/eric/.thunderbird/default/dof6qduf.slt/ImapMail/mail.opelousas.org)[dominia]
} eric {$cp ~/tmp/msgFilterRules.dat~ ./msgFilterRules.dat 
(/home/eric/.thunderbird/default/dof6qduf.slt/ImapMail/mail.opelousas.org)[dominia]
} eric {$ls
total 196
drwxr-xr-x    3 eric     eric         4096 Dec 16 22:17 .
drwxr-xr-x    4 eric     eric         4096 Dec 16 17:43 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 eric     eric       175813 Dec 16 22:20 INBOX.msf
drwxr-xr-x    2 eric     eric         4096 Dec 16 22:05 INBOX.sbd
-rw-r--r--    1 eric     eric          573 Dec 16 22:00 filterlog.html
-rw-r--r--    1 eric     eric          198 Dec 16 22:20 msgFilterRules.dat
(/home/eric/.thunderbird/default/dof6qduf.slt/ImapMail/mail.opelousas.org)[dominia]
} eric {$sudo chown root.root msgFilterRules.dat ; sudo chmod 000
msgFilterRules.dat 
(/home/eric/.thunderbird/default/dof6qduf.slt/ImapMail/mail.opelousas.org)[dominia]
} eric {$ls
total 196
drwxr-xr-x    3 eric     eric         4096 Dec 16 22:17 .
drwxr-xr-x    4 eric     eric         4096 Dec 16 17:43 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 eric     eric       175813 Dec 16 22:20 INBOX.msf
drwxr-xr-x    2 eric     eric         4096 Dec 16 22:05 INBOX.sbd
-rw-r--r--    1 eric     eric          573 Dec 16 22:00 filterlog.html
----------    1 root     root          198 Dec 16 22:20 msgFilterRules.dat
(/home/eric/.thunderbird/default/dof6qduf.slt/ImapMail/mail.opelousas.org)[dominia]
} eric {$thunderbird & 

(/home/eric/.thunderbird/default/dof6qduf.slt/ImapMail/mail.opelousas.org)[dominia]
} eric {$ls
total 196
drwxr-xr-x    3 eric     eric         4096 Dec 16 22:21 .
drwxr-xr-x    4 eric     eric         4096 Dec 16 17:43 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 eric     eric       175813 Dec 16 22:20 INBOX.msf
drwxr-xr-x    2 eric     eric         4096 Dec 16 22:05 INBOX.sbd
-rw-r--r--    1 eric     eric          573 Dec 16 22:00 filterlog.html
-rw-r--r--    1 eric     eric           25 Dec 16 22:21 msgFilterRules.dat
(/home/eric/.thunderbird/default/dof6qduf.slt/ImapMail/mail.opelousas.org)[dominia]
} eric {$

Comment 6

[David :Bienvenu]

No, tbird doesn't run as root, afaik.  I don't know what's going on at the file
system level. You might try the same chown test and then try editing the file
with an editor and see if you can change it that way.

So, let me get this straight -

1. thunderbird starts up; You have no filters.
2. You add a filter and shut down thunderbird.
3. You start up thunderbird and the filter is removed, and the filter file is blank.

My guess is that there was an error reading the filter file and somehow that
causes us to crunch it.

Comment 7

[Dan Engel]

I don't know if this is related, but I've just finished tracking down a problem
with filters getting lost.  The problem was so bizarre as to make me think it
had something to do with Mozilla running on a Reiser filesystem.

Here is what would reproduce it.  For step #4, you should have the background
that I'm using FVWM.  When I select the window menu, the "Close" option has
"<Alt>F4" next to it, indicating that that's the key combination for closing a
window.  That's the stroke I was using in step 4 below.

Here are the steps I used to reproduce it:

1. Start Mozilla
2. Open Message Filters
3. Make modifications to the filters (add, delete, whatever)
4. Close the window using Alt-F4
5. Quit Mozilla
6. Start Mozilla
7. Open Message Filters

All changes in #3 were lost.  Didn't matter what I did, or how long I waited
until quitting Mozilla, all were lost.

What I eventually figured out is that my assumption in #4 (that Alt-F4 closed
the window) was wrong.  Looking at the .fvwmrc file, I saw that it was actually
iconifying the window instead.  When I bound a key combo to actually close the
window (Delete, in FVWM parlance), things got better:

1. Start Mozilla
2. Open Message Filters
3. Make modifications to the filters (add, delete, whatever)
4. Close the window using true window close keystroke
5. Quit Mozilla
6. Start Mozilla
7. Open Message Filters

Now, the mods in step 3 were saved.  Which led me to this:

If the Message Filters window is not explicitly closed before shutting down
Mozilla, then changes to the filters don't get saved to the config file.

Is there some chance that this is the same problem?  Maybe not, but I thought
I'd lend the insight, FWIW.

Incidentally, moving the code that saves the filters from the "onClose" event to
the "onUnload" event seems to solve my problem.

Comment 8

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

sorry for the spam.  making bugzilla reflect reality as I'm not working on these bugs.  filter on FOOBARCHEESE to remove these in bulk.

Comment 9

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Filter on "Nobody_NScomTLD_20080620"

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Do you still see this problem using latest version?

WFM Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1b3pre) Gecko/20090228 Shredder/3.0b3pre

Comment 11

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

RESO INCO due to lack of response to last question. If you feel this change was made in error, please respond to the bug with your reasons why.