132153 - mail folders are coming up empty

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(MailNews Core :: Database, defect)

Description

[Greg Ercolano]

Every six months I move my Inbox and Sent message folder into another folder.
In the netscape universe, this was:

    cd nsmail
    mv Inbox zipped/2002-march-Inbox
    mv Sent  zipped/2002-march-Sent
    rm .Inbox* .Sent*                  ; remove the summarys

Later, in netscape mail, I'd select the zipped/2002-march-Inbox file, and
netscape would build a summary file for it, and the messages would appear.

In Mozilla, when I click on these files, mozilla shows an empty message window,
and does not appear to process the messages in these files at all.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

*** Bug 132149 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 2

[David :Bienvenu]

this works fine for me - what build are you using? 

Comment 3

[Greg Ercolano]

> this works fine for me - what build are you using?

        It's 0.9.9.

        It would appear it might have to do with the fact my archived
        mail folders are in a subdirectory called 'zipped'.

        eg. the path to my Inbox file is:

/net/erco/.mozilla/erco/pii3yoj0.slt/Mail/3dsite.com/Inbox

        The path to my archived folders is:

/net/erco/.mozilla/erco/pii3yoj0.slt/Mail/3dsite.com/zipped/2001-march-Inbox
                                                     ------

        Note the subdirectory 'zipped'.

        Any files I try to open in that subdir (basically my last 10 years 
	of email) all don't open. They are all in ASCII format, same as 
	the other files. I even moved a new folder in there, 
	restarted mozilla mail, and it saw the new folder, but 
	wouldn't build it for viewing. There are no .mdf files 
	being created in there when I click on the message folders.

        Hope that helps.

PS. I replied to the [e-mail] email,
but it bounced back, so I made this entry in the bug form.

Should I send the bounced message to someone for analysis?
Brief bounce msg reads:

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to gila.mozilla.org.:
>>> RCPT To:<[e-mail]>
<<< 550 5.1.1 <[e-mail]>... User unknown
550 <[e-mail]>... User unknown

Comment 4

[Greg Ercolano]

	I think the issue is mozilla can only deal with a mail directory 
	that is flat, ie. has no subdirs in it, regardless of the dirname.

	To replicate:

		1) Close out mozilla
		2) Chdir to your mozilla mail directory
		3) Run these commands:

			mkdir Foo
			cp Inbox Foo/Bar

		4) Open mozilla mail, and try to open the 'Foo/Bar' 
		   mail folder. My experience is folder will show as empty.

	However, if I then move the Foo file up one into the top level 
	mail directory, then it opens fine from within mozilla:

		1) Close out mozilla
		2) Move Foo/Bar up one directory:

			mv Foo/Bar .

		3) Open mozilla mail, and open the 'Bar' file.
		   It opens fine.

Comment 5

[David :Bienvenu]

Yes, you're right - we expect the parent directories to be named Folder.sbd, and
if they're not, we fail to regenerate the summary files. Has this ever worked in
Mozilla, or is it a recent regression? Or is .9.9 the first release you've tried?

Comment 6

[Greg Ercolano]

> Has this ever worked in Mozilla, or is it a recent regression? 

It probably never worked; it's the first version I've tried.

Creating subdirs in the mail directory is a habit I started when I used Mail in
the mid 80's, then elm (1992-1996) and netscape (1996-present).

It's a unix habit to manage things from the command line; it would be good if
mozilla played along, regardless of subdir names, or how deep the subdirs get.

Netscape names its summary files '.foo.summary', the wisdom being unix folks
grepping around in their mail archives don't catch these binary files with
grep(1) or ls(1); the leading '.' prevents it. It would be nice if Mozilla did
the same, eg. '.foo.msf'. (I guess this is an RFE)

> Or is .9.9 the first release you've tried?

Yes, .9.9 is the first I tried to look at my archive. The netscape->mozilla
conversion operation did grab all my subdirs successfully. Just seems mozilla
can't view them.

Comment 7

[Jo Hermans]

Reporter, is this still a problem in Mozilla 1.4 ?

For the record, I'm archiving my old mail from inside Mozilla itself. Works
perfectly.

Comment 8

[Greg Ercolano]

It looks like it was resolved.

Definitely works now in 1.2.1 and 1.4rc2.

I find I do have to exit completely out of mozilla (mail and all browsers)
for the new files to be seen, which is definitely not as bad a problem
as the original bug.

So I guess it's safe to say it's been resolved/fixed.