99221 - Autoconfig creation of e-mail accounts, interaction with migration

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core :: Preferences: Backend, defect)

Description

[lrg]

This is a rather complicated problem.  It is possible through the use of 
autoconfig to setup a users email account information.  The problem is with the 
method by which we set up the user's account.  

Each email account has a specific identification number (eg. 1 2 or 3 etc.).  In 
order for autoconfig to create the user's account, it must be able to specify 
the number of the account being created.  This shouldn't be much of a problem 
for a clean installation, however when this feature is used in conjunction with 
previous mail data (say from a migration), then the possibility for a severe 
problem occurs; Migration will translate over the user's account information and 
assign it appropriate ID numbers.  After the migration has completed then 
autoconfig will effectively over-write the prefs that are written, and set the 
preferences to what are defined on the autoconfig server, effectively causing 
the info to be lost.

A possible solution that i see for this, is to check autoconfig prior to 
migration, bring in any folders that are specified there, and then migrate the 
folders from the old account, assigning those folders a numerical id other than 
those given by autoconfig.

I have created a .jsc file that can be used to view this behavior, it is located 
at:
http://eclient.mcom.com/qa/factory/autoconfig/webmail/webmail.jsc
in order to use this you need to configure your browser to use autoconfig.
Download 
http://eclient.mcom.com/qa/factory/autoconfig/webmail/netscape.cfg
and put it into your netscape6 program directory
http://eclient.mcom.com/qa/factory/autoconfig/webmail/all-ns.js 
and put it into your netscape6/defaults/prefs directory.
(of course you should back up any existing versions of these files.)

Comment 1

[lrg]

Reassigning to mitesh

Comment 2

[lrg]

I am closing this bug as invalid, i realized that i needed to include 
preferences for the creation of a new mail folder.  It looks like the preference 
file (which is populated with autoconfig values) is used prior to migration, and 
 migration behaves as i hoped, so there isn't really a problem here.

Comment 3

[lrg]

Upon further testing i think that this bug actually does exist.

What happens is on the initial load everything looks like it was migrated over 
properly, however, on subsequent loads the data that was migrated is over 
written.  

My understanding of the preference lay out for mail/news may be inadequete, if 
there is a better method for using autoconfig to create a mail account than the 
one that i am using, please tell me.

In addition to this problem, it seems that the migration in conjunction with 
autoconfig occasionally doesn't work correctly.  The nestcp6 process must be 
killed in the task manager (on windows) And then the application must be 
restarted.  

Comment 4

[lrg]

Some of the additional problems that i am seeing are:

Multiple creation of the imap folders that are being specified by AutoConfig.

Migration doesn't complete on it's own (user must kill process).

Interestingly the prefs file still shows the information on the migrated mail 
folder, it just doesn't seem to be accessed properly.
These are the account server preferences, note that they are numerically 
inconsistant.

user_pref("mail.account.account1.identities", "id2");
user_pref("mail.account.account1.server", "server2");
user_pref("mail.account.account2.server", "server3");
user_pref("mail.account.account3.identities", "id3");
user_pref("mail.account.account3.server", "server4");
user_pref("mail.accountmanager.accounts", "account1,account2,account3");
user_pref("mail.accountmanager.defaultaccount", "account1");
user_pref("mail.accountmanager.localfoldersserver", "server3");

Changing the values to be consistant:

user_pref("mail.account.account1.identities", "id1");
user_pref("mail.account.account1.server", "server1");
user_pref("mail.account.account1.identities", "id2");
user_pref("mail.account.account2.server", "server2");
user_pref("mail.account.account3.identities", "id3");
user_pref("mail.account.account3.server", "server3");
user_pref("mail.accountmanager.accounts", "account1,account2,account3");
user_pref("mail.accountmanager.defaultaccount", "account1");
user_pref("mail.accountmanager.localfoldersserver", "server3");

Makes everything function correctly, aside from the lack of entrys for an 
"account4" which should be the news server.

Comment 5

[tao]

mitesh is no longer with us. reassigning to default module owner. bug 113387
tracks the original list of mitesh bugs

Comment 6

[Jeff Hooker]

removed jhooker from cc: list

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

all email addresses in this bug are dead