284312 - Annoying error dialog when collapsing a folder with a selected sub-folder

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Robert Walsh]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041111 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041111 Firefox/1.0

My IMAP server (dovecot) allows nested folders.  I get an error dialog if I try
the following:

Suppose I have a folder 'X' with a sub-folder 'Y'.  I expand 'X' so that 'Y' is
visible and select 'Y'.  I then collapse 'X'.  Now thunderbird attempts to
select folder 'X' (since 'Y' is no longer visible and cannot remain selected.) 
My IMAP server tells thunderbird that 'X' doesn't exist.  Since the only
contents of 'X' is a single sub-folder, I'm guessing that dovecot doesn't
consider it an actual folder that can be selected.

I'm not certain whether this is the correct behavior by dovecot or not, but it
is pretty annoying to be reminded of this every single time I do it.  I use
nested folders a lot and keep them collapsed to save on screen real-estate, so I
have to click through this dialog a lot of times.  I do not see this problem
with evolution.

Note that if I select the folder myself (instead of going through the collapse
technique I just described) I also get the same error message.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Robert Walsh]

Oops - I forgot the mention the symptom: when dovecot tells thunderbird that the
folder doesn't exist, I get a message from thunderbird saying "The current
command did not succeed.  The mail server responded: Mailbox isn't selectable: X'

My suggestion is to not display this if you know the folder contains sub-folders.

Comment 2

[David :Bienvenu]

it could be that dovecot doesn't support folders that can contain messages and
have sub-folders. If so, try telling us that - tools | account settings | imap
server | advanced - uncheck "server supports folders..."

An imap protocol log would tell us if the dovecot server is actually telling us
that the folder is /NOSELECT. My guess is that it's not.

http://www.mozilla.org/quality/mailnews/mail-troubleshoot.html#imap

Comment 3

[Robert Walsh]

Attachment: Log of imap transactions

I tried turning that option off, but it made no difference.  Attached is the
IMAP log.  You can see on line 2913 the error message (the top-level folder
containing all the sub-folders is called "linux".)

Comment 4

[David :Bienvenu]

from that log, the server isn't telling us in the LSUB response that the folders
are /NOSELECT. Technically, I think they only have to tell us that in the LIST
response but most servers give the same set of flags from LSUB as LIST, or at
least the important ones. You could try switching off subscription in the same
advanced server settings, and see if the server returns the /NOSELECT flag from
LIST. Or maybe just bringing up the subscribe UI will cause us to set the
/NOSELECT flag in the db...

Comment 5

[Robert Walsh]

Well that's an improvement, but only soft of.  I unselected the subscription
option, quit and re-entered thunderbird and voila, a big violin.  The top-level
folders are now all grayed out and unselectable, and I no longer receive this
error message.

However, I now get every single folder in the locations where IMAP looks,
including ones that have nothing to do with mail.  I know that's what the option
is for, but it seems the option and the behavior are only slightly related.  For
some reason, thunderbird gets the knowledge of selectability of the folder when
this option is not set, but should be getting it all the time.

Also, for some reason I haven't figured out yet, unsetting this option effected
the sub-folders of a second account I have configured.  I didn't touch the
settings for that second account, but it had the almost exact same behavior:
top-level folders that contained only sub-folders are greyed out.  The weird
thing is that they now remain that way even after turning the option back on
again for the first account, quitting and re-entering the program.

Comment 6

[Joseph Brennan]

Same bug with a Cyrus server.  The server responds like this

b lsub "" "%"
* LSUB () "." "sent-mail"
* LSUB () "." "stuff"
* LSUB (\Noselect \HasChildren) "." "~ Public Folders"

Two Tbird users configured to show only subscribed folders report that it tried to open "~ Public
Folders"  despite the \Noselect, giving the error "Invalid mailbox name".

Does Tbird actually implement the \Noselect tag at all?   If not then there is no mystery here.

Interesting note:  For the user whose output is shown above, "~ Public Folders" is not, in fact,
subscribed, but rather two sub-folders in it are subscribed.  Is this confusing?

Comment 7

[salzrat]

Same bug with uw imap server (and under Windows, btw).

Normally, this doesn't occur because TBird doesn't allow you to subscribe to
NoSelect folders. So one way to fix this is to unsubscribe the NoSelect folder,
TBird will know about the directory structure.

However, other clients might need the folders subscribed to show the directory
structure (I have this problem with Squirrelmail, for example), so you can only
work with one of the clients without problems.

Finally, the uw imap server doesn't report the NoSelect flag in LSUB, only in
LIST, so checking for the flag only in LSUB is not sufficient.

Comment 8

[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/
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Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 9

[salzrat]

I found out how to fix the problem with uw imap:

In uw imap, subscribed folders are listed in the .mailboxlist file. 

TBird does allow subscribing folders that have subfolders. However, they need to
be listed with a trailing slash (like "Mail/Private/"), whereas without the
trailing slash (like "Mail/Private") TBird thinks it's a message-only folder and
gives the error reported originally.

If you only use TBird, the problem never occurs. If, however, you also use other
mail programs that subscribe folders but don't put the trailing slash, then you
will see the error.

(In reply to comment #7)
> Same bug with uw imap server (and under Windows, btw).

Comment 10

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

Reporter, does the issue still occur with the latest supported 2.0.0.x / Shredder trunk nightlies?

(1.5.0.x is now end-of-life and the latest supported Thunderbird version 2 is 2.0.0.16)

Comment 11

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

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

Comment 12

[Patrick Schoenbach]

This is still not resolved.

Comment 13

[Patrick Schoenbach]

How can I reopen this bug? There is no option for it.

Comment 14

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

Please file a new bug rather than revisiting a 5-6 year old issue.

Comment 15

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Patrick Schoenbach from comment #13)
> How can I reopen this bug? There is no option for it.

after you create the new bug report, please come back here and post the new bug#

Comment 16

[Patrick Schoenbach]

I opened a new bug at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1017005