Open Bug 1005223 Opened 12 years ago Updated 1 year ago

drag and drop of attachments into composition not working when user has or runs with admin privileges

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Message Compose Window
Version:
24 Branch
Platform:
All
Windows
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: tom, Unassigned)

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:28.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/28.0 (Beta/Release) Build ID: 20140314220517 Steps to reproduce: dragging a file (any extension) into a new / reply / forwarded message. Was working fine in Thunderbird 24.4 Using Win 7 Pro 32bit Actual results: Message windows does not accept the file. Expected results: Attachment is added.
wfm on WinXP TB 24.5.0
Summary: drag and drop of attachments no longer working in 24.5 → drag and drop of attachments into composition no longer working in 24.5
Windoes Vista Thunderbird version 31.2.0 Select file and drag to drop in header area of Write message. There is a black circle with line through it. Used to change when in correct spot to allow a drop into the right hand side of header area, which auto showed an 'attachment' area. After the new Write design page was created, this ability stopped and is still not working in 31.2.0. No attachment area appears. Tried with most file types. Tried in Thunderbird Safe mode.
Richard, can you look into this? wfm on WinXP, TB31.2, but seems to fail on higher versions of Windows. Theme issue? Anje, thanks for confirming! -> new
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Flags: needinfo?(richard.marti)
I have no problems on XP with TB 31.2, Win7 or Win8 with 36.0a1 to add a attachment through dnd in the header pane. Anje, only to be sure, with the header area you mean the area where the addresses and subject are? The Buttons area on top of them and also the format buttons area below them aren't working.
Flags: needinfo?(richard.marti)
Confirmed: in a 'Write' window, I'm attempting drag and drop into the right hand side of area which says FROM, TO , Subject - above the 'Formatting Bar'. When I hovered over, this used to auto show a section called 'Attachments' and allow you to drop the attachment. Confirmed: this occurs regardless of whether it is a new 'Write' message or 'Reply' or 'Forward'. If I select to 'Forward' an email that already has an attachment, it opens in a new Write window showing the 'Attachments' section to the right of the FROM, TO, Subject with the original attachment. However, even with the 'Attachmnets' section showing, I cannot drag and drop another attachment into that area. I can add attachments using 'Attach' button located in 'Composition Toolbar'.
Affects Thunderbird 31.4 Windows 8.1.
(In reply to mcarro from comment #6) > Affects Thunderbird 31.4 Windows 8.1. Strangely, it works perfectly for me on TB 31.4 Win 8.1. I'm running 32bit TB on a Win 64bit system. I do this: - Write - place TB and windows explorer windows side by side (using Win+Cursor left/right) - drag a file from windows explorer into the recipient section of the write window Actual result = expected result attachments area appears while hovering with the dragged file (mouse button still pressed) dropping attachment on attachment area succeeds So mcarro or anyone affected, can you spell out exactly what you did and any other circumstances that might be relevant, addons, custom themes, 64bit TB, exact windows version, etc. Anje, do you get this also in TB safe mode (attachments disabled)?
I'm running TB 31.4 (32bits) in Windows 8.1 (64 bits), no addons, no custom themes, just installed and configured an email account. After a small period, stopped working. I disabled all addons, if you're interested this is the list of disabled addons: -Adobe Acrobat 11.0.10.32 -Google Update 1.3.26.9 -Java Deployment Toolkit 6.0.450.6 -Java(TM) 6.0.430.1 -Microsoft Office 2013 15.0.4545.1000 -Silverlight Plug-in 5.1.30514.0 -VLC Web Plugin 2.1.3.0 Really thanks for anyh help, if you want me to try something let me know.
Very interesting results. Windowss Vista, TB 31.4.0 Help > Restart with addons disabled > Continue in SAfe Mode. This disabled all 'Extensions', Appearence' and 'Dictionaries'. Safe mode did not disable any enabled 'Plugins' Tested - Same results - could not add any file as attachment using Drag and drop. Click on Plugins to see list. Clickon 'Check to see if your plugins are up to date' It said my 'Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash player were not up to date. I updated 'Adobe Flash player'. Unable to update 'Adobe Reader' as it said I was running the up to date version, even if the 'Mozilla - check your Plugins insists it is not up to date. I manually disabled all Plugins. Retested. All worked as expected. Gradually, I enabled each Plugin, one at a time and tested after each one was enabled. I was hoping to discover one of them was causing an issue. The Write window worked as expected each time - I could add any file as attachment using drag and drop. After I had enabled all the Plugins I use, it still worked ok. I restarted in Normal TB mode and the Window works correctly. These are the Plugins I use and are now all enabled again. Adobe Acrobat 10.1.13.16 Gogle update 1.3.26.9 Java Platform SE 7 U67 10.67.2.1 Motive Plugin 1.0.0.23 VLC Web Plugin 2.1.30 Window Live Photo Gallery 15.4.3502.922 So I would advise people to try this: ReStart TB in Safe mode. Select the Plugins tab Make sure all plugins are up to date. Then manually disable all Plugins by selecting 'Never Activate' Restart in Safe Mode - now all 'Extensions', Appearence', 'Dictionaries' and Plugins are disabled' then enable all required Plugins again. Then restart TB in normal mode.
Note: I missed out a process - where I said: Clickon 'Check to see if your plugins are up to date' It said my 'Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash player were not up to date. I updated 'Adobe Flash player'. Unable to update 'Adobe Reader' as it said I was running the up to date version, even if the 'Mozilla - check your Plugins insists it is not up to date. I did retest again and nothing worked. So then I disabled each plugin, tested, reenabled and restarted in Normal mode and all worked ok.
I can summise that updating the Adobe Flash Player (although it is not a listed plugin - it must be used by Adobe Reader) - see info here: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/reader-acrobat-flash-player-download.html
I see this in 45.4 on Windows 2012 R2. When I drag a file over the mail windows the cursor turns into "move". Once I drop nothing happens, no attachment added, no error message.
Still seeing this in 52.7 on Win10 Home 64-bit. Disabling all plugins / updating all plugins / safe mode has no effect. Cannot drag attachments to compose window at all.
I resolved this problem some years ago ensuring that TB wasn't executed with "administrator" rights, executed with common user rights it just works fine.
Just tested and can confirm that it works fine when TB is run with non-privileged account. Running as administrator appears to cause the issue. Thanks for clarifying, mpellicer. I searched all over and didn't find this solution posted anywhere. It's counterintuitive so wasn't part of my normal testing. So issue should be updated to addressing the run-as-administrator issue.

Anje, does comment 15 match your testing?

Flags: needinfo?(anjeyelf)

Using TB 52.9.1
Just tested on user account with no privilege. All worked ok.
On administrator or account with special privilege to run as admin, this still does not work.
I confirm, same result as comment 15.

Flags: needinfo?(anjeyelf)

Weird. Why would it fail for users with more privileges?

OS: Windows 7 → Windows
Hardware: x86 → All
Summary: drag and drop of attachments into composition no longer working in 24.5 → drag and drop of attachments into composition not working when user has or runs with admin privileges

Historical item - Bug 598631 - Drag and drop of attachments is not working any more (since 3.1)

After some digging around, I believe this problem/bug may have nothing to do with Thunderbird, but is something to do with Windows UAC mandatory rights and privileges.
You cannot drag and drop from a lower privileged process eg: Windows Explorer to a higher privileged process eg: Thunderbird running with administator privilege.
So it may be not a true bug.

Just tested and can confirm that you CAN drag and drop successfully from an elevated privilege explorer window (which requires registry editing to enable because running explorer.exe as admin is disabled in registry in Win10 - Details: https://superuser.com/questions/1060456/is-there-any-way-to-run-file-explorer-as-administrator-under-windows-10/1060578) to an elevated privilege Thunderbird compose window. However, it's not a UAC issue because I have UAC disabled and only the relative admin rights seem to matter.

How do other programs handle drag-and-drop from lower privilege explorer to their program windows when they are run as admin? Surely this can't ONLY be impacting Thunderbird, even if it is now confirmed a Windows permissions issue? Is there a way that the drag and drop interface can pass a privilege elevation request for this scenario?

I run UAC with User Account set as administrator.

If I right click on Thunderbird shortcut > Properties > Compatibility and select 'Run this program as an administrator'
Task Manager > Details - right click on explorer.exe > Set Priority says 'Normal' and UAC virtualisation says 'Disabled'
Task Manager > Details - right click on thunderbird.exe > Set Priority says 'Normal' and UAC virtualisation says 'Not allowed'
In Thunderbird you cannot drag and drop to attachment.

If I right click on Thunderbird shortcut > Properties > Compatibility and UNCHECK: 'Run this program as an administrator'
Task Manager > Details - right click on explorer.exe > Set Priority says 'Normal' and UAC virtualisation says 'Disabled'
Task Manager > Details - right click on thunderbird.exe > Set Priority says 'Normal' and UAC virtualisation now says 'DISABLED'
In Thunderbird you CAN drag and drop to attachment.

It does not only effect Thunderbird. You cannot drag anything from Explorer to an Application which is running as Admin.
I believe Windows OS auto sets explorer.exe to run without admin as a security measure regardless of UAC and regardless of whether the User Account is set as administrator.
The info provided in link supplied on how to get explorer.exe elevated to admin, is useful to know.

Severity: normal → S3

Just an update, the info I supplied in comment 22 is still valid.
I've just tested using Thunderbird 128.6.0 esr and you cannot drag and drop files into Write compose window if you select to run Thunderbird using select 'Run this program as an administrator'. You get the symbol Ø displaying in the compose area.

Windows OS User in Support Forum had issue using drag and drop and my advice fixed issue.

So my advise is to try this: right click on Thunderbird shortcut > select 'Properties' > select 'Compatibility' tab and UNCHECK: 'Run this program as an administrator'

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