139242 - News: Thread with new messages spontaneously expands

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect)

Description

[Pedro Lopes]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0rc1)
Gecko/20020417
BuildID:    2002041703

When mozilla gets the new messages for a newsgroup, one of the threads that gets
a new message will automatically expand. Exactly one thread gets expanded, not
all threads that have new messages. 

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Subcribe to some newsgroup (high traffic will make it easier)
2. Cause new messages to be retrieved for the NG (e.g. just by entering)

Actual Results: If some threads got new messages, one of them will be expanded.
Expected Results: Threads should not expand except for explicit user action.

This may not sound like a big deal, but on newsgroups that regularly have
threads with 500+ messages it can become quite annoying :(

Comment 1

[Pedro Lopes]

Ooops, I forgot to add: when this happens, the message list gets scrolled so the
new messages on the expanded thread will be placed in view. 
This is actualy what makes it cumbersome, as it forces the user to scroll up
until he finds the first message so he can click on the [-]

Comment 2

[Sander]

confirmed: 2002051006 (win98)
Indeed highly annoying to have huge threads expand automatically.

Comment 3

[Dave Royal]

Still there in 1.3a
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.3a) Gecko/20021212
Still very annoying.

Comment 4

[[e-mail]]

FYI, this is caused by Mozilla trying to be helpful and show you the first new
message; if this message is in a thread then the thread expands to show it.

Comment 5

[Sander]

Neil: that makes sense, and for email I actually like it (I use a threaded view
for all my bugmail), but for newsgroups it just isn't the right behaviour, at
least not in any newsgroup where you generally don't want to read more than one
or two threads. Which for me are all of them. I absolutely loathe always getting
dumped fifteen levels deep into some off topic politics or Matrix thread.

Comment 6

[MORA]

This bug also affects Thunderbird (verified with the 0.2 milestone and the 20030912 build of 0.3a. I agree with Sander that this behavior is *very* annoying 
for newsgroups. 

If this is indeed a feature, as Neil suggested, I think this 'helpful' behavior 
should be made optional and turned off by default. I doubt if many users 
actually use threaded viewing for e-mail anyway (but I might be wrong, of 
course).

Comment 7

[Stijn Jonker]

This bug also occures in email when using ThunderBird, and can be highly 
annoying. As I'm subscribed on some high volume mailing lists which generate a 
couple 100 emails a day, these (imap)folders are all on New Threads with unread.

They also show the above mentioned, unexpected expanding of threads. 

Comment 8

[[e-mail]]

Reassigning to someone who might actually be able to come up with a reasonably
useful alternative.

Comment 9

[David :Bienvenu]

One possibility is to simply not do this for newsgroups. Another is to have a
global pref that disables this behaviour completely. 

The other complaint in this area is that the thread we chose to expand is the
thread with the first new message, instead of the first thread in the view with
a new msg.

Comment 10

[[e-mail]]

*** Bug 222455 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 11

[jay garcia]

Confirmed here in latest T'bird, Win98SE

This has also been going on in Mozilla 1.5x, .6x and now .7a

Comment 12

[David :Bienvenu]

yes, it's been going on since Netscape 4.0, since it's considered a feature.

Comment 13

[jay garcia]

A "feature" ??? bah

The only way is to expand all threads with the asterisk above the number pad. I
NEVER saw this behaviour in Communicator or even earlier pre-1.5 trunk builds.
Doesn't do it in 1.4x .. at least not here it doesn't.

Comment 14

[David :Bienvenu]

All threads??? that's different. This bug is about a single thread. There's a
separate bug about toggling back and forth between threaded and non-threaded
views expanding all threads, and I agree that's not a feature.

Comment 15

[jay garcia]

No no ... 

There are SOME that are expanded and some that aren't regardless of the view
settings. This is what I meant when I said expand "all" threads with the
asterisk.  It expands those few that are collapsed.

Am I still in the wrong bug ?? 

Comment 16

[David :Bienvenu]

That sounds like a third issue - I've not heard of that one. This bug is about
us expanding the thread containing the first new message, when new messages
arrive. see http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=139242#c0 - The other
bug I was referring to is http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=223970

It's also the case that now, if you expand all threads in a newsgroup, we'll
remember that state and expand all threads the next time you open that
newsgroup. That was an RFE - people felt that we should remember that state
because they were tired of having to expand all everytime they opened the
newsgroup. New threads, however, will get added collapsed. Maybe that's what
you're seeing?

Comment 17

[jay garcia]

I'm seeing old threads collapsed and some expanded. There is no rule here as it
seems to be random. There are collapsed threads with new messages and collapsed
threads with no new messages. There are expanded threads with new and expanded
with no new messages. Settings are not "remembered" from session to session as
different threads exhibit the same behaviour for the next subsequent session(s).
Doesn't matter which server/group(s), all are affected. And yes, I've deleted
the relevant .MSF files with no luck after a rebuild and resetting of view settings.

Should there be a new bug filed or an addition to an existing bug?

Comment 18

[David :Bienvenu]

Please file a new bug - I'm not seeing that, and haven't heard any reports of
it, so the more information you can give about reproducing it, the better - thx!

Comment 19

[jay garcia]

Thanks

Filed bug 232562

Comment 20

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

*** Bug 231366 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 21

[u85353]

Also in 1.6final and 1.7a (both under linux)

Comment 22

[Daniele Mirabile]

Thunderbird 0.5
Windows XP sp1
The same problem: thread with new messages spontaneously expands too.
Also when new messages/threads are present, right scroll bar it's not at the 
bottom of messages/threads windows.

Comment 23

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Possible patch

This works around the problem by not expanding the thread with the new message.

Comment 24

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 148046 [details] [diff] [review]
Possible patch

Let's see if the big boys shoot down my approach.

Comment 25

[David :Bienvenu]

the thing is, a lot of people actually want this behaviour, so turning it off
for everything, including e-mail folders, is not the way I'd want to go. We
could turn it off for news, I guess, or turn it off based on a pref...

Comment 26

[Stijn Jonker]

Please, make it a pref, as I must admit I hate this for the email folders as
well, espcially on long threads on busy mailinglists it's a killer.

Comment 27

[jay garcia]

Expanding only the threads with new messages is, IMHO, the preferred way and
AFAI the way the feature was designed to work.

Comment 28

[denis]

In newsgroups, this is a _very_ annoying behavior. I'd also vote for an option.
The thread one absolutely does not care about gets expanded, and you just have
to scroll all the way up (or down) to read the latest posted messages..

Comment 29

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Still expand mail threads

Comment 30

[Karsten Düsterloh]

AFAICT, this patch still scrolls the thread with the newest messages into view -
why? Most probably, if I don't care for the newest message, I don't care for the
thread it's in, too...
I, for instance, am used to read news via the keys N and Space (and use the view
'Threads with unread'). If I enter a group, a thread "somewhere" is scrolled
into view, but as soon as I hit N, the first new posting in the first thread is
selected.

Comment 31

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: FE approach

Comment 32

[Christian Eyrich]

*** Bug 252090 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 33

[denis]

Are there plans to fix this in the upcoming release? It sounds simple enough,
and is a single most annoying "feature" of Thunderbird, the News Reader.

Comment 34

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Forgot the search bar

Comment 35

[chawtrey]

Please fix.  Software that takes "helpful" actions without asking the user
reminds me too much of our friends in Redmond...

Comment 36

[[e-mail]]

A workaround has been available since last September:
user_pref("mailnews.scroll_to_new_message", false);

Comment 37

[Dave Royal]

Workaround doesn't work for me.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217

Comment 38

[jay garcia]

(In reply to comment #36)
> A workaround has been available since last September:
> user_pref("mailnews.scroll_to_new_message", false);

Didn't work then and doesn't now - TB 1.0 XP-Pro

Comment 39

[Sander]

(In reply to comment #37) [with apologies for the spam] 
> Workaround doesn't work for me.
> Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217

The 1.7 branch was created back in April. Of course something checked in on the
trunk in September won't work on that. (Same goes for TB 1.0) 
The code of your build is ancient in Mozilla terms. Try a nightly, alpha, or the
upcoming beta, or wait for 1.8 final.

Comment 40

[Pawel Kaczmarczyk]

Attachment: Patch to prevent expanding the thread with the first new message

The previous patches were not sufficient to prevent expanding the thread with the first new message. The file \mail\base\content\msgMail3PaneWindow.js has to be changed as well.
After this patch, the function "ScrollToMessage(nsMsgNavigationType.firstNew..." is only performed when the "mailnews.scroll_to_new_message" preference is set to true.

Comment 41

[Pawel Kaczmarczyk]

Comment on attachment 201348 [details]
Patch to prevent expanding the thread with the first new message

File: mozilla\mail\base\content\msgMail3PaneWindow.js

Line:
  var scrolled = ScrollToMessage(nsMsgNavigationType.firstNew, true, false /* selectMessage */);

Change to:
  var scrolled = false;
  if (!scrolled && pref.getBoolPref("mailnews.scroll_to_new_message"))
  {
	scrolled = ScrollToMessage(nsMsgNavigationType.firstNew, true, false /* selectMessage */);
  }

Comment 42

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 201348 [details]
Patch to prevent expanding the thread with the first new message

Strictly speaking, this isn't a patch, this is a (presumably) modification of an unidentifed revision of a known CVS file.

Comment 43

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Patch version of comment 41 [checked in on trunk and MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH]

Comment 44

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 341085 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 45

[Miles]

(In reply to comment #44)
> *** Bug 341085 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
> 
I had submitted Bug 341085 on the 10th of June.  Bug 139242 reads status resolved & resolution fixed.   Perhaps I don't fully understand your terms, but I have seen no activity to correct this issue in SM 1.0.2 using WinXP.

Comment 46

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #45)
> I have seen no activity to correct this issue in SM 1.0.2 using WinXP.

It's unlikely this will be fixed in the 1.0.x series.  It has been fixed on the "1.8.1" branch, which will be the basis for, I believe, SM 1.1.  (The fix is working in a current nightly Thunderbird 2a1 build I'm running.)

Comment 47

[Miles]

> It's unlikely this will be fixed in the 1.0.x series.  It has been fixed on the
> "1.8.1" branch, which will be the basis for, I believe, SM 1.1.  (The fix is
> working in a current nightly Thunderbird 2a1 build I'm running.)
>
 
So guess you are saying that the Bugzilla description or action which in this insant reads "fixed," does not refer to SM?   And if that is the case, is it planned to be included or is SM to continued to be the poor country cousin (who in the south of France was given the then worthless land alongside the beach)?

Comment 48

[Karsten Düsterloh]

> So guess you are saying that the Bugzilla description or action which in this
> insant reads "fixed," does not refer to SM?

Not quite true.

The state of a bug which is not tied directly against a specific branch is related to the trunk. This means that a fixed bug is usually fixed in nightly trunk builds only (e.g. SM 1.5, TB 3), but not on branches.

As for SM, we only take security and otherwise important fixes for the 1.0.x releases - and this bug here surely isn't.

Neil, do you think we need Pawel's approach for SM also?

Comment 49

[[e-mail]]

OK, so here's a potted history of this bug:
1. TWO years ago, I added the mailnews.scroll_to_new_message pref to stop the first new message being scrolled BUT I only patched the Suite, not Thunderbird
2. The following September, the pref was enhanced to work with the search bar
thus fixing Suite! Strangely I also patched Thunderbird's search bar as well
3. Last month Mnyromyr checked Pawel's patch into the trunk for Thunderbird 3
4. Last week Mnyromyr checked Pawel's patch into the branch for Thunderbird 2

Comment 50

[Miles]

Don't understand why this reads "resolved - fixed."  Using TB 1.5.0.9 the bug still exists. (And mailnews.scroll_to_new message" has been changed from true to false.)  Here are examples of recent testing with various newsgroups:

1)   Moz Firefox: Thread "Strange...." the latest was time 2251 and that was located in the middle with several other unread new msgs.

2)   Moz General: "Support" was opened with the latest msg at 2348.
"Rudeness.." was not open and it had the latest msg time of 2359.

3)   Moz Firefox again and nothing open.

4)   Moz SeaMonkey:  "My Yahoo" thread opened with latest time of 2319.  Not
open was "Open Dirty Subject Pane.." with times of 2331 and 2340.

5)   GRC:  Tech:  Open "do web crawlers" 1946.  Not open The Amero, 2315, Re Vista 2132, 2107, 2243; Re Upgrading 2145, 2146; and Re Change Default 1956.

6)   GRC:  Security-Hardware: Only 1 thread it's open with 2 msgs.

7)   GRC:  Security-Software: 3 msg threads and none open out of 10 new msgs.

8)   GRC:  Shields Up: 1 new msg in one thread and it's open.

9)   Corel: Word Perfect: 3 threads with 4 msgs, none open.

Apparently there is no rhyme nor reason why a particular thread is open.  This causes one to push "\" then up to the start (or down to the bottom) for every NG opened in order to collapse the open thread and is extremely annoying.

Can't there simply be an option to have this on or off in newsgroups? 

Comment 51

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

(In reply to comment #50)
> Don't understand why this reads "resolved - fixed."  Using TB 1.5.0.9 the bug
> still exists. 

The fix is checked into the Mozilla trunk and Mozilla 1.8.1 branch. Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 is built on the Mozilla 1.8.0 branch. The first Thunderbird end-user release to be built on the Mozilla 1.8.1 code is Thunderbird 2.0. You'll have to wait until Thunderbird2 is released, to see the fix.

Comment 52

[David E. Ross]

I still see this problem in Thunderbird version 2.0.0.0 (20070326).  

Comment 53

[Miles]

Interesting as I was just about to thank Neil and others for finally having fixed this languishing annoyance in 2.0.0.0 (20070326).  On my machine it works just fine.  Opening any NG, all threads are closed and it starts at the top --descending which is the latest email. 

Comment 54

[Miles]

Interesting as I was just about to thank Neil and others for finally having fixed this languishing annoyance in 2.0.0.0 (20070326).  On my machine it works just fine.  Opening any NG, all threads are closed and it starts at the top --descending which is the latest thread. 

Comment 55

[David E. Ross]

Windows XP Home Edition 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
Tbird version 2.0.0.0 (20070326)
[View > Layout > Wide View]
[View > Sort by > Order Received, Threaded, Ascending]
[View > Threads > Threads with Unread]

If the first thread in a newsgroup has its original (first) message already read but there are unread replies in the thread, that thread is expanded.  All other threads in that newsgroup with the same characteristics (first already read, unread replies) are collapsed.  Threads in which all messages -- including the original -- are unread are also collapsed.   

Comment 56

[Miles]

Since mine never expands a thread when a NG is opened and yours does, suggest you try out these differences and see if it changes things. The only differences in your setup and mine:

View/Layout/Classic View (in lieu of wide view)
View/descending (in lieu of ascending)

Not certain if any difference in Windows, but About Windows reads 5.1 (build 2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.061219-0316: Service Pack 2) (And have the latest updates installed.)

Comment 57

[David E. Ross]

Oops!  It seems that the problem appears only if the first thread in the newsgroup has a NEW unread message.  

Open a newsgroup and get new messages for the first thread; the thread is expanded.  Don't read all the new messages in that thread.  Terminate Tbird.  Restart Tbird.  Reopen the same newsgroup.  If there are no additional new messages in that thread, the presence of unread messages does not cause the thread to expand.  

I've got Windows Build 2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254.  You might be missing some updates.  

I'll try your suggested test tomorrow, after I accumulate some new messages in existing threads.  

Comment 58

[David E. Ross]

Per comment #56, I tried setting
   View/Layout/Classic View (in lieu of wide view)
   View/descending (in lieu of ascending)

The result was that the expanded thread appeared at the bottom of the Subject pane instead of the top.  

Comment 59

[Miles]

Interesting that the bottom thread is open under descending when I would have thought the top or latest thread would be open -- the bottom one being the oldest.  

Sorry I couldn't be of any help, was almost hoping that one of those settings would identify a bug.  Perhaps someone else will have a fix for you. 

Comment 60

[Miles]

Interesting that the bottom thread is open under descending when I would have thought the top or latest thread would be open -- the bottom one being the oldest.  

Sorry I couldn't be of any help, was almost hoping that one of those settings would identify a bug.  Perhaps someone else will have a fix for you. Incidentally, do you see the same in safe mode?

Comment 61

[David E. Ross]

I have not installed any extensions or other add-ons.  Thus, I'm not sure whether running in safe mode would show anything different.  

Comment 62

[David E. Ross]

Yes, I finally tried using Safe mode.  The problem is seen there, too.  Therefore, I am reopening this bug report.  

Comment 63

[David E. Ross]

Oops!  When the bug report refreshed, I realized the bug is for Mozilla Suite (SeaMonkey).  I'm using Thunderbird.  I'm restoring the status to Resolved/Fixed and opening a new Thunderbird bug report (if none already exists).