1176658 - Mail is looped between filters

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1215933

(Thunderbird :: Filters, defect)

Description

[grzegorz.szyszlo]

Attachment: MailFilterLooping.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0
Build ID: 20150525141253

Steps to reproduce:

I don't really know how to reproduce. But I have a lot of filters, and I see mails are looped between filters.
Filters rules partially overlap each other. But order is, more detailed filter is first, and less detailed filter is later executed. In previous stable (v35 ?) it wasn't any problem.


Actual results:

Mails are looped between filters, and the same mails are moveing between folders. this is infinite loop, unless I disable some filter that participate in that looping. After that I must run that filter manually.


Expected results:

First filter that match should stop other filtering. Unfortunately after it moves email, next filter insequence takes this email and again go back with it to previous folder.
Of course more mails can fall into that loop hole, then they are processed together.
I think this should be debugged, please instruct me how to do it [e-mail]   .
I assign activity monitor screenshot with this situation, with 1 only email.
"Przeniesiono 1 wiadomosc z Net do SVN" it means "Moved 1 message from Net to SVN" . This is Polish localisation

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1068334 also talks about loops

Comment 2

[Josh Berry]

Also seeing this with a simple test case on Thunderbird 38.0.1 on Mac.  Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a folders: "Folder B".

2. Create a message filter A as follows:
   rules:
   - "To or CC" contains "[e-mail]"
   actions:
   - Move Message To: INBOX
   - Stop Filter Execution

3. Create a message filter B as follows:
   rules:
   - "To or CC" contains "[e-mail]"
   actions:
   - Move Message To: folder B
   - Stop Filter Execution

4. Send an email to "[e-mail]" and "[e-mail]".

5. Notice the message will bounce back and forth between INBOX and Folder B in an infinite loop, despite the fact that both filters have "Stop Filter Execution" listed as an action.

Comment 3

[:aceman]

Why is the filter supposed to move the message into Inbox? Isn't it already there? Is this some IMAP account and the message is received directly into another account? Then, filters are NOT automatically run on other folders than Inbox. Do you have intentionally set the filters to run on other folders via the hidden settings?
Or is INBOX not the special Inbox folder but one of your created folders?

Comment 4

[Josh Berry]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #3)
> Why is the filter supposed to move the message into Inbox? Isn't it already
> there? 

Because in my case, I have two levels of filtering -- sometimes messages appear in folders other than INBOX due to (stupid) server-side filtering and need to be moved into INBOX.

> Is this some IMAP account and the message is received directly into
> another account? Then, filters are NOT automatically run on other folders
> than Inbox. Do you have intentionally set the filters to run on other
> folders via the hidden settings?

No, I have not adjusted any hidden settings.

> Or is INBOX not the special Inbox folder but one of your created folders?

I have also seen loops that don't involve INBOX at all -- messages that were originally delivered to a non-INBOX folder "Foo" just get moved back and forth between two other non-INBOX folders (e.g. "A" and "B").

Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to repro this consistently.  I tried my own procedure from comment 2 again, both with and without INBOX (replace "INBOX" with "Folder A"), and did not see the looping happen in either case. :/

Comment 5

[grzegorz.szyszlo]

Yes it is. TB should be configured for supporting IMAP. Both folders should be on IMAP server.
I have been suprised, some filtering is done on folders outside inbox. It shouldn't happen.
Notice, when I did some failed configuration in filters, some "backmoveing" was done in TB 35. But it never was infinite loop.

Comment 6

[grzegorz.szyszlo]

ok, one missed info. I'm using IMAP over MS Exchange. Maybe it is a problem. But on exchange isn't done any server side filtering. I can configure it by Outlook, but filter list is empty.

Is it possible to export/see TB filters definitions 'as is'? Maybe some in it is damaged.

Now I have ugly workaround. I disabled some filters that are in loops for break looping, and run it manually. but it is ugly for big mails set.

Comment 7

[Josh Berry]

I've seen this issue happen against both Exchange and GMail IMAP servers.  So I don't think it's specific to Exchange.

Comment 8

[grzegorz.szyszlo]

If it helps please instruct me about debuggind on my TB. Of course problem still exists on my installation.

Comment 9

[grzegorz.szyszlo]

after upgrade to 38.1.0 still the same. filters are looped.

Comment 10

[:aceman]

As a temporary workaround, you could add an action to the filter to add a specific tag. Then in the filter rules, check for messages NOT having that tag already.

Comment 11

[grzegorz.szyszlo]

workaround is working, many thanks for that :)
Unfortunately I have very complicated filtering, then some filters I must split into simpler one but many. it is depended on UI, all detailed rules are interpreted as global AND or global OR (any or all option), no advanced boolean expression is possible.

But now I still recommend implementing hierarhical filtering organized as tree instead flat parallel like now.

Comment 12

[Neil Farnham-Smith]

I am seeing the same issue. Windows 10, Thunderbird 38.2.0.

Oddly I have many computers which all access the same IMAP account (but not concurrently). Ie work desktop, laptop and home desktop and I am only ever using one machine at a time.

I have replicated the same filter rules file onto all instances of ThunderBird on the three machines. Interestingly only my work machine exhibits this looping issue, the other two have not done it, all three are same versions of Windows and Thunderbird.

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Still seeing this in version 45?

Aceman, did we fix something like this?

Comment 14

[Neil Farnham-Smith]

Yes consistently in all updates. Currently running on latest release. On more than one system.

Comment 15

[:aceman]

Wayne, not exactly fixed, but bug 1215933 seems similar.

Comment 16

[Neil Farnham-Smith]

Aceman and Wayne, having viewed bug 1215933 I can confirm this matches what I am seeing exactly. Also to confirm I am currently using 45.5.0 but this issue has been present for over a year, sadly I can't tell you when it first appeared.

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

thanks for checking!