200212 - Filters on IMAP mail stop working, apparenlty ehen encountering nulls in a Subject line

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(MailNews Core :: Filters, defect)

Description

[Bernie]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02 (Compact)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02 (Compact)

This problem has been occuring at random intervals on two different systems,
using two different versions of Windows.  Accessing an IMAP mail server, we have
filters setup to minimize spam.  Filters delete spam and move the rest of the
mail to a local folder.  When the problem occurs no mail is moved to the lcoal
folder, and no mail is visible on the IMAP account either.  Netscape does play
the sound as if there were mail there, and a message flashes at the bottom of
the window that it is laoding message 1 of n, but no messages, or only 1, are
loaded.  

Turning off all message filters allows all the messages to be viewed on the IMAP
server, and then tunring the filters back on allows things to process normally
in subseequent sessions.

By debugging from the mail sevrer side, it appears that the problem starts when
a spam message with ASCII nulls in the Subject line is encountered by the
filters.   To resotre functionality it is necessary to turn off all filters, so
that the problem messsages become visible anc can be deleted.  But it appears
that the problem will recur the next time someone sends a message with nulls.

I cannot create such a problem message to test, but the random nature of the
problem and the trace and alysiss of the mail when the probel m recurred today
seem like the nulls may be the cause.  Deleting the problem messsages at the
server side alone did not fix the problem, so it appears that filter processing
was messed up.  Closing Netscape and reinitializing it after the problem
messages were removed from the IMAP mail queue did eliminate the problem.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create mail message filters to delete or move messages depending on subject
content
2.  We suspect that a message with ASCII nulls in the subject line is the cause
of the problem
3.  Read the mail from an IMAP server
4.  If the problem exists you will not see any new mail

Actual Results:  
You do not see any new mail.  You do hear NS sound a tone indicating that mail
is present.  You can see a message flash by that NS is tyring to download 1 of n
messages.

Expected Results:  
Properly deelted or moved the messages.

Comment 1

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.