Closed Bug 1267056 Opened 8 years ago Closed 7 years ago

Enabling remote content shows incorrect sender address when message is viewed in unified mailbox

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

45 Branch
defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: pkeusem, Unassigned)

Details

Attachments

(2 files)

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0
Build ID: 20160407164938

Steps to reproduce:

Receive messages with remote content and view in a unified mailbox


Actual results:

When the message is selected, the remote content options bar is visible at the top of the message.  Clicking the options button opens a menu with entries allowing remote content from various sites.  Here is where it gets interesting.  Normally, the sender is listed at the bottom of menu (I think this has changed from earlier versions of thunderbird) When viewing the message in the unified mailbox, the sender of the message is not listed in the remote content menu, the sender of some other message is listed.  Making it impossible to enable remote content from the sender of the message you are viewing.  When viewing the message in the mailbox for the account the message was sent to, the correct sender is listed in the remote content menu.

Normally, the "Show remote content in this message" will enable remote content for that message but if the message is being view in the unified mailbox, this does not work.  Switching to the account mailbox and selecting "Show remote content in this message" does work.


Expected results:

When viewing mail in the unified mailbox, the remote content menu should behave like it does when viewing mail in an account mailbox and show sources for the message being viewed not sources from random messages.
OS: Unspecified → All
Hardware: Unspecified → All
I cannot reproduce that. I have two (and more) accounts and I chose the two inbox folders to show in the unified inbox folder. The remote content options work as they should. Each one is showing the corrected sender email address.

How do you have the unified folder defined?

Unified folders are sadly not the most stable TB feature. Sometimes it helps to delete (or move elsewhere temporarily) the smart mailboxes and define the unified folders again.
Component: Untriaged → Folder and Message Lists
Attached image RemoteContentGoogle.png
The Remote Content menu for a message when viewed from my Google account.

This is how it should look.
The Remote Content menu when view from my unified mailbox.

This is broken.
(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2) from comment #1)
> I cannot reproduce that. I have two (and more) accounts and I chose the two
> inbox folders to show in the unified inbox folder. The remote content
> options work as they should. Each one is showing the corrected sender email
> address.
> 
> How do you have the unified folder defined?

I am not sure what you are looking for.  Can you be more specific?  If you tell me what you're looking for, I will try to provide it.

I have 8 folders chosen for my unified inbox: Gmail: Inbox & Sent Mail, Local Mail (a local mail server): Inbox & Sent, Mediacom Mail: Inbox & Sent, and Local Folders (the local mail directory on my Solaris workstation): Inbox & Sent.

I have attached two snapshots of Thunderbird with a message selected while viewing the Google account and the same message while viewing the unified mailbox.  As you can see, the last item in the menu in the unified mailbox view seems to be from a different message entirely.

It seems like the behavior has gotten better with the upgrade to TB 45.0,  In 38.7.2, pretty much everything in the remote content menu was garbage.

> 
> Unified folders are sadly not the most stable TB feature. Sometimes it helps
> to delete (or move elsewhere temporarily) the smart mailboxes and define the
> unified folders again.
Yes, the pictures show what I have been imagining reading comment #0. However, I've tried to reproduce it with two folders only and it works.

"How do you have the unified folder defined?" was meant to mean: Are there any search criteria defined or are you matching all messages? (Right click on the unified folder, Properties).

As I said, try to delete (or move elsewhere temporarily) the "smart mailboxes" in your message store and define the unified folders again.
(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2) from comment #5)
> Yes, the pictures show what I have been imagining reading comment #0.
> However, I've tried to reproduce it with two folders only and it works.
> 

Just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was crazy or stoopid.

> "How do you have the unified folder defined?" was meant to mean: Are there
> any search criteria defined or are you matching all messages? (Right click
> on the unified folder, Properties).
> 

OK, I just have the 8 folders (4 accounts, Inbox and Sent for each).  Search Online is disabled (greyed out) and Match All Messages is selected.

I just want to reiterate here, this is happening on 3 different machines, Linux and Windows.  I have not tested exhaustively but the few messages I just check were behaving exactly the same my Linux machine and on one of my Windows machines, i.e. both systems were displaying the same (wrong) email address at the bottom of the remote content menu.

> As I said, try to delete (or move elsewhere temporarily) the "smart
> mailboxes" in your message store and define the unified folders again.

I am not following you here.  I am using Unified Folders and there is no way that I know of to delete it.  I can change the view, er I used to be able to change the view, it seems the button to cycle the view of the unified folders is now gone.  Or I can uncheck the various mailbox from the Select Folders dialog.  Is that what you mean?

I just tried unchecking all of the selected folders from the Select Folders dialog and it won't let me do that.  It says: "You must choose at least one folder to search for the saved search folder".  So I unchecked all but my GMail inbox, ran update, exited Thunderbird, restarted Thunderbird, un-selected the GMail inbox and selected the inbox from my local folders account, ran update, exited Thunderbird, restarted Thunderbird, re-selected all of the inboxes and sent mail folders from my accounts, ran update and there is no change.

This behavior started just recently, actually, it could have happened after I ran a try-build that was supposed to resolve a problem with compacting mailboxes (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1174485) I noticed that I had to re-do all of my remote content exceptions after running that build and I think this problem started around the same time.
(In reply to Paul Keusemann from comment #6)
> Just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was crazy or stoopid.
We take all reports seriously, even if people misspell common words ;-)

> I just want to reiterate here, this is happening on 3 different machines,
> Linux and Windows.  I have not tested exhaustively but the few messages I
> just check were behaving exactly the same my Linux machine and on one of my
> Windows machines, i.e. both systems were displaying the same (wrong) email
> address at the bottom of the remote content menu.
Understood.

> > As I said, try to delete (or move elsewhere temporarily) the "smart
> > mailboxes" in your message store and define the unified folders again.
> I am not following you here.  I am using Unified Folders and there is no way
> that I know of to delete it.  I can change the view, er I used to be able to
> change the view, it seems the button to cycle the view of the unified
> folders is now gone.  Or I can uncheck the various mailbox from the Select
> Folders dialog.  Is that what you mean?
You have to open the profile where your e-mail is stored. On Linux it's under ~/.thunderbird and on Windows on C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird.

In there you will find a folder called "smart mailboxes". I would try to rename that to "smart mailboxes-xx" and then create the unified view again.

Of course you need to close TB before modifying its internal data.

I have some weird behaviour of my unified folders the other day and removing "smart mailboxes" fixed it. As I said, start by renaming the folder.
(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2) from comment #7)
> (In reply to Paul Keusemann from comment #6)
> > Just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was crazy or stoopid.
> We take all reports seriously, even if people misspell common words ;-)
> 
> > I just want to reiterate here, this is happening on 3 different machines,
> > Linux and Windows.  I have not tested exhaustively but the few messages I
> > just check were behaving exactly the same my Linux machine and on one of my
> > Windows machines, i.e. both systems were displaying the same (wrong) email
> > address at the bottom of the remote content menu.
> Understood.
> 
> > > As I said, try to delete (or move elsewhere temporarily) the "smart
> > > mailboxes" in your message store and define the unified folders again.
> > I am not following you here.  I am using Unified Folders and there is no way
> > that I know of to delete it.  I can change the view, er I used to be able to
> > change the view, it seems the button to cycle the view of the unified
> > folders is now gone.  Or I can uncheck the various mailbox from the Select
> > Folders dialog.  Is that what you mean?
> You have to open the profile where your e-mail is stored. On Linux it's
> under ~/.thunderbird and on Windows on
> C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird.
> 
> In there you will find a folder called "smart mailboxes". I would try to
> rename that to "smart mailboxes-xx" and then create the unified view again.
> 
> Of course you need to close TB before modifying its internal data.
> 
> I have some weird behaviour of my unified folders the other day and removing
> "smart mailboxes" fixed it. As I said, start by renaming the folder.

No effect whatsoever.  The "smart mailboxes" directory was recreated automagically when I restarted Thunderbird and I still have the broken remote content behavior.
Yes, the "smart mailboxes" directory would have been rebuilt, that was the whole idea.

I've just configured my the unified inbox to contain six inboxes of six accounts, five POP and one IMAP and still don't see the problem. Now I've added two sent boxes and still no problem.

Can you please try in safe mode (Restart without add-ons on the Help menu). You don't have the "Conversations" add-on installed by any chance? - we know that causes problems with remote exceptions.
(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2) from comment #9)
> Yes, the "smart mailboxes" directory would have been rebuilt, that was the
> whole idea.
> 
> I've just configured my the unified inbox to contain six inboxes of six
> accounts, five POP and one IMAP and still don't see the problem. Now I've
> added two sent boxes and still no problem.
> 
> Can you please try in safe mode (Restart without add-ons on the Help menu).
> You don't have the "Conversations" add-on installed by any chance? - we know
> that causes problems with remote exceptions.

The only add-on I have installed is Google Search and I just installed that after upgrading to 45.0, so the problem predates the Google Search install.

Re-starting in safe mode also had no effect.
So in one screenshot there is the correct sender address shown to be allowed. The other contains some postal service email. Why is Sender field empty in the message header? Did you erase the contents? OR do you have it forced to be displayed even if it is empty in the message?

But I couldn't reproduce this either. I always see the correct email in the menu.

Once you see a wrong email, can you check tools->error console if there are any problems?
(In reply to :aceman from comment #11)
> So in one screenshot there is the correct sender address shown to be
> allowed. The other contains some postal service email. Why is Sender field
> empty in the message header? Did you erase the contents? OR do you have it
> forced to be displayed even if it is empty in the message?
> 
I had View/Headers set to All.

> But I couldn't reproduce this either. I always see the correct email in the
> menu.
> 
> Once you see a wrong email, can you check tools->error console if there are
> any problems?

Do you mean at the time the mail was received or at the time the mail was displayed?

I have a message that was received: Sat, 30 Apr 2016 15:10:46 +0000 and the only thing in the error console around that time are two warning messages

Timestamp: 4/30/2016 10:10:49 AM
Warning: Unknown property 'align'.  Declaration dropped.
Source File: about:blank
Line: 57, Column: 5
Source Code:
align: left !important;

Timestamp: 4/30/2016 10:10:49 AM
Warning: Unknown property 'align'.  Declaration dropped.
Source File: about:blank
Line: 54, Column: 5
Source Code:
align: left !important;

When select the message to display it, I see a number of warnings simliar to the folowing:

Timestamp: 5/1/2016 6:52:23 AM
Warning: Unknown property 'align'.  Declaration dropped.
Source File: imap://pkeusem%40gmail%2Ecom@imap.googlemail.com:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E5986
Line: 234, Column: 5
Source Code:
align: left !important;

Timestamp: 5/1/2016 6:52:23 AM
Warning: Unknown property 'mso-line-height'.  Declaration dropped.
Source File: imap://pkeusem%40gmail%2Ecom@imap.googlemail.com:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E5986
Line: 0, Column: 159
Source Code:
font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; color:#666666; padding: 0px 0px 15px 0px; line-height:22px; mso-line-height:exactly;

But I see those same warnings when I select the message from the gmail inbox.

I will try to remember to check the error console the next time I get a new message to see if there's anything different the first time it is selected.
Look into the console after you display the message and open the "allow remote content" menu and you see the wrong sender value.
(In reply to :aceman from comment #13)
> Look into the console after you display the message and open the "allow
> remote content" menu and you see the wrong sender value.

No errors.  Lots of Unknown property 'mso-line-height-rule' warnings though.  There are way too many to coy them all but here's an example:

Timestamp: 5/5/2016 8:08:50 AM
Warning: Unknown property 'mso-table-lspace'.  Declaration dropped.
Source File: imap://pkeusem%40gmail%2Ecom@imap.googlemail.com:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E6130
Line: 55, Column: 19
Source Code:
   mso-table-lspace:0pt;

There are a couple of other things I've noticed.  First, I think I mentioned this before, but I have thunderbird installed on a Linux machine and two Windows (Win 7 64-bit) machines.  I am currently seeing this problem on the Linux machine and one of the Windows machines.  My laptop is working as expected for now.  Second, there is another problem I've noticed but not opened a ticket for and that is that when I am viewing the unified mailbox and get a new email, the selected message changes to what I though was a random message from sometime in the past.  What I have just noticed is that the random message is the one the sender listed in the remote content menu is from.  For example, if I am viewing the Unified mailbox and have a message from bob@foo.com selected.  The sender in the remote content menu is jim@bar.com.  If I get a new message, the selected message will now be the message from jim@bar.com.  I don't know what this means but I also have another bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1267052 open against thunderbird and I think all three of these things are related.  The fact that my laptop is not currently exhibiting any of these behaviors implies that it is specific to the local installation.

If there is any other way to debug this, let me know and I will happily dig into it.
I too have been having mysterious issues, like this, since upgrading to Thunderbird 45 (Mac OS). They are starting to drive me nuts. I don't know if it will help track down the problem, but the following issues showed up upon upgrading to version 45 (All accounts/folders have the same settings, and I have used the repair option on them all):

1) The already mentioned inability to load remote content in some e-mails.

2) Some e-mails in the unified browser window will either; not mark themselves as read 2 secs. after being clicked on (my setting), or will mark themselves as read without being clicked on after showing up in the list.

3) When composing an e-mail the text would default to having the pull-down menu showing Paragraph and would skip a line every time I hit enter while typing. This problem went away on it's own, after I manually set the pull-down choice to body several times

It's like Thunderbird has developed a mind of it's own.
It would be good to have one issue per bug, otherwise the issues will be ignored if they are in the wrong bug.

Re 1): This bug here, right?

Re 2): Is that bug 1267052?

Re 3): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/new-thunderbird-45:
The Thunderbird composition window now functions more like a word processor in that pressing the "Enter" key inserts a new paragraph, pressing "Shift+Enter" inserts a new line. This new behavior can be switched off in the Tools > Options > Composition > General tab.

There are a few issues with paragraph mode, we're tracking them here: Bug 1248971.
I only mentioned the different issues together, because they all showed up together, and I figured that might give a clue as to what was happening in this bug report. 

Re 1) Yes I am having the same issue.

Re 2) I don't know if it is related to this issue or not. That's why I mentioned it showing up at the same time.

Re 3) I don't have a choice for 'Options' under 'Tools' in the Thunderbird menu (Mac OS). I found what you were mentioning though: it was under Preferences > Composition > General Tab. The paragraph option is not checked, so hopefully the problem will stay gone. Thanks for the help.
This has started happening again.  All three of the things I mentioned in comment #13 (Enabling remote content, selected message changing on receipt of new mail and messages not be marked as read) are happening again.  I recently upgraded to 45.2.0 but I don't know if the problems are related.
And once again it has gone away.

There is something that is very odd about this.  I have two Thunderbird installations that exhibit this behavior and one that does not.  The behavior it not related to the sender or recipients of the message but seems to be related to the time the message was sent or received.  Right now, I have a message dated: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 09:24:44 -0600 that exhibits this behavior and the next message I received, dated Thu, 21 Jul 2016 08:47:58 -0700 does not.

The primary symptoms are:
 - Messages are not automatically marked as read after being selected.
 - The Show Remote Content item in the Remote Content Options menu does not work.
 - Items in the Remote Content Options menu are not related to selected message.
 - The email address listed in the Remote Content Options menu is from some other message.
 - When new mail is received, the selected message will "warp" to the message listed as
   the last item in the Remote Content Options menu.

This seems to be related to the time messages are received or possibly the number of messages in the unified mailbox.  The behavior switches back and forth every couple of weeks or longer.  I am going to try document here when it switches to see if there's some correlation.

This is specific to two of my three Thunderbird installations.  So it is definitely related to the mail database or something local.  If there is any way to debug this based on comparing a working and non-working installation, I would be more than happy to attempt it.
Flags: needinfo?(mozilla)
I'm running out of ideas here. I doubt it has anything to do with the time when the message was received. Have you repaired the underlying real mail boxes (right-click, Properties, Repair)?

Looks like some internal structure is getting corrupted and the e-mail address in the remote exceptions panel is picked up incorrectly, alongside other undesired effects that you mentioned.

I'm not using unified folders much, but I'll configure one now to see whether I can reproduce the problem.
Flags: needinfo?(mozilla)
Summary: Enabling remote content is badly broken in unified mailboxes → Enabling remote content shows incorrect sender address when message is viewed in unified mailbox
(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2, PTO during summer) from comment #20)
> I'm running out of ideas here. I doubt it has anything to do with the time
> when the message was received. Have you repaired the underlying real mail
> boxes (right-click, Properties, Repair)?

Yes, many times.  All to no effect.  Thankfully, I don't see these problems when I select the real mailboxes, so there doesn't seem to be any problem with them.

Any you're right about the time.  Up until now, it seemed to be time or message order related but having gone through the rest of the messages in my mailboxes, I've got some messages the exhibit the behavior and some that don't.

Is there some file or something on the local file system that gets created for a unified mailbox?  Anything I can look at or blow away so it gets recreated?

> 
> Looks like some internal structure is getting corrupted and the e-mail
> address in the remote exceptions panel is picked up incorrectly, alongside
> other undesired effects that you mentioned.
> 
> I'm not using unified folders much, but I'll configure one now to see
> whether I can reproduce the problem.
(In reply to Paul Keusemann from comment #21)
> Is there some file or something on the local file system that gets created
> for a unified mailbox?  Anything I can look at or blow away so it gets
> recreated?
Yes, the smart mailboxes. We've already discussed this in comment #1.
There is also panacea.dat, you could back up your profile and then delete panacea.dat and see whether that helps. Don't tell anyone I suggested that ;-)
(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2, PTO during summer) from comment #22)
> (In reply to Paul Keusemann from comment #21)
> > Is there some file or something on the local file system that gets created
> > for a unified mailbox?  Anything I can look at or blow away so it gets
> > recreated?
> Yes, the smart mailboxes. We've already discussed this in comment #1.

By smart mailboxes I assume you mean the unified folders, correct?
How do you remove them?

> There is also panacea.dat, you could back up your profile and then delete
> panacea.dat and see whether that helps. Don't tell anyone I suggested that
> ;-)
(In reply to Paul Keusemann from comment #23)
> By smart mailboxes I assume you mean the unified folders, correct?
> How do you remove them?
No I meant the "smart mailboxes" folder in your profile as already discussed above. In comment #8 you said that you had already removed this folder/directory and it was recreated, sadly the problem persisted.

I've been using a "unified" inbox since comment #20 but I couldn't reproduce the problem so far. I think were on a "wild goose chase" here, since you said that there is something special about your setup, quoting from comment #19: "I have two Thunderbird installations that exhibit this behavior and one that does not."

Please understand that TB is fully maintained by unpaid and over-worked volunteers. We will fix bugs, depending on priorities and severity, but we have practically no resources to help end-users to pin down problems.

All I can suggest is to use TB on a new profile with no add-ons and if the problem is visible there, we're interested.
(In reply to Paul Keusemann from comment #23)
> (In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2, PTO during summer) from comment #22)
> > (In reply to Paul Keusemann from comment #21)
> > > Is there some file or something on the local file system that gets created
> > > for a unified mailbox?  Anything I can look at or blow away so it gets
> > > recreated?
> > Yes, the smart mailboxes. We've already discussed this in comment #1.
> 
> By smart mailboxes I assume you mean the unified folders, correct?
> How do you remove them?
> 
> > There is also panacea.dat, you could back up your profile and then delete
> > panacea.dat and see whether that helps. Don't tell anyone I suggested that
> > ;-)

(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2, PTO during summer) from comment #24)
> (In reply to Paul Keusemann from comment #23)
> > By smart mailboxes I assume you mean the unified folders, correct?
> > How do you remove them?
> No I meant the "smart mailboxes" folder in your profile as already discussed
> above. In comment #8 you said that you had already removed this
> folder/directory and it was recreated, sadly the problem persisted.

Oh, sorry about that, I forgot about that.  I tried it again and it still doesn't make any difference.

On a whim, ;-> I tried removing panacea.dat as well and that didn't make any difference either.


> 
> I've been using a "unified" inbox since comment #20 but I couldn't reproduce
> the problem so far. I think were on a "wild goose chase" here, since you
> said that there is something special about your setup, quoting from comment
> #19: "I have two Thunderbird installations that exhibit this behavior and
> one that does not."
> 
> Please understand that TB is fully maintained by unpaid and over-worked
> volunteers. We will fix bugs, depending on priorities and severity, but we
> have practically no resources to help end-users to pin down problems.
> 
> All I can suggest is to use TB on a new profile with no add-ons and if the
> problem is visible there, we're interested.

I'll see if I can set that up and try it.
(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2, PTO during summer) from comment #24)
> (In reply to Paul Keusemann from comment #23)
> > By smart mailboxes I assume you mean the unified folders, correct?
> > How do you remove them?
> No I meant the "smart mailboxes" folder in your profile as already discussed
> above. In comment #8 you said that you had already removed this
> folder/directory and it was recreated, sadly the problem persisted.
> 
> I've been using a "unified" inbox since comment #20 but I couldn't reproduce
> the problem so far. I think were on a "wild goose chase" here, since you
> said that there is something special about your setup, quoting from comment
> #19: "I have two Thunderbird installations that exhibit this behavior and
> one that does not."
> 
> Please understand that TB is fully maintained by unpaid and over-worked
> volunteers. We will fix bugs, depending on priorities and severity, but we
> have practically no resources to help end-users to pin down problems.
> 
> All I can suggest is to use TB on a new profile with no add-ons and if the
> problem is visible there, we're interested.

I just finished setting up a new profile (with no add-ons but my default profile doesn't have any either) and it is exhibiting the same behavior.
I guess now we have to be interested ;-)

Can you tell us a little bit about the accounts you have set up. In the attached pictures I can see a Gmail account and a few others. I guess we would have to create something similar to your setup.
(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2, PTO during summer) from comment #27)
> I guess now we have to be interested ;-)
> 
> Can you tell us a little bit about the accounts you have set up. In the
> attached pictures I can see a Gmail account and a few others. I guess we
> would have to create something similar to your setup.

Sure, I currently have three mail accounts plus local folders.  The mail accounts are GMail, Mediacom and a local server I have set up.  The GMail account is IMAP, the Mediacom account is POP3 and the local server is IMAP.  The GMail and Mediacom accounts are SSL/TLS with Normal Password and the local server (only accessible inside my firewall) is non-SSL.

What else would you like to know?
Hi,
we are experiencing the same issue with Thunderbird last version (45.2.0).
When using Unified folder mark as read does not work only on with some mail accounts.
We have 11 mail accounts configured.
Also when using Unified folder the show remote content function does not works only with some accounts.
We tried with safe mode without addons but it is the same.
We also tried to delete global db file but issue remains.
We tried to roll back to version 38 but issue remains.
Paul, sorry, I've never gotten back to you. Today TB 52.1.1 has been released. Can you try that. I've been talking to a user about a bug related to the unified inbox today and noted that this feature is really quite buggy: https://mzl.la/2pOgblB and https://mzl.la/2pOziw9.
Jorg,

I have not seen this problem since it went away (spontaneously, unrelated to any version updated or anything else I did) back when I posted comment #19.  To be honest, I had forgotten about it.

I just updated to TB 52.1.1 and it is still not exhibiting the bad remote content behavior.  But then again, version updates have not had any effect for as long as I can remember at this point.

I suspect you can close this ticket but being deeply paranoid, I also suspect the problem will return as soon as you do.
Well, if closing the bug can recreate the problem, let's go for it ;-)
We can always reopen the bug. Thank you for closing the loop.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 7 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
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