524928 - Automatic unsubscription from newsgroups with names containing '!'

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[pooja_gupta2_9]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Thunderbird version 2.0.0.23

If you subscribe to a newsgroup with name containing exclamation mark (!), Thunderbird automatically unsubscribes you from this forum when you login to thunderbird a second time.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Subscribe to a newsgroup with name containing exclamation mark (!)
2. Close Thunderbird
3. Open Thunderbird. 
Actual Results:  
The newsgroup (with exclamation mark in it's name) is not present in the list of subscribed newsgroups.

Expected Results:  
This newsgroup should also have been present in the list of subscribed newsgroups just like others.

Comment 1

[Arthur Hagen]

This is probably a good thing, considering that ! has a special meaning in newsgroups, namely to negate the following expression.
Example:  "alt.sysadmin.*,!alt.sysadmin.recovery" specifies all groups in the alt.sysadmin hierarchy except for the monastery.
Other illegal group names include those with asterisks or commas, or ending with .all

For more details, see the Usenet FAQs and RFC 850, 977 and 1036

Comment 2

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

This sounds invalid.

Comment 3

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

The relevant RFCs and updating internet drafts clearly state that `!' is an illegal name for a newsgroup:
   component-char  =  ALPHA / DIGIT / "+" / "-" / "_"