150782 - Old mailbox's mail sent out again

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Backend, defect)

Description

[Whit Blauvelt]

On a system using Mozilla 1.0 as the mail client, somehow an old outbox with a
couple of hundred messages was sent out again as if it were fresh mail. The user
at the time it happened was just replying to some current mail. Is there some
sort of user action that could inadvertently cause a mbox file to be treated as
a queue of mail to send? Having a hard time imagining how this could have
possibly happened. The mail folder that was involved is a normal mbox file,
originally created with another mail client (not Mozilla's own Sent folder). The
mail involved was all originally sent months ago, and the mail server's log
shows  normal connection from the user's system to send it out. It all went out
at once.

Comment 1

[Jason M. Abels]

This isn't really a bug report.

Comment 2

[Whit Blauvelt]

If it's not a bug, how did it happen? Either the user interface is such that she was able to 
trigger this unwittingly - a bug; or the software itself initiated this sequence - a bug. Granted, 
we only saw it happen once. But that once was a major event. 

Comment 3

[Jason M. Abels]

How is it a bug if this was an unsent mail folder?

Anyway, reporter: can you reproduce this with a recent build?

Comment 4

[Whit Blauvelt]

> How is it a bug if this was an unsent mail folder? 
 
I did not report that this was an "unsent mail folder." It was a folder of mail that hand been 
sent as much as a year ago. It was sent again. This confused the hell out of the recipients. It 
required hours of work to let them know that the mail was not about current issues (since the 
user was running a business where some of the e-mails were invoices and the like). If you got 
"unsent" out of this bug report, you need to learn to read more closely. It wasn't there. 
 
> Anyway, reporter: can you reproduce this with a recent build? 
 
I have no idea what caused the phenomenon in the first place, thus I have no idea how to 
reproduce it. But unless you have a developer's testomony that they've fixed some cuplrit that 
could have caused this, you still have a serious problem. It may be rare, but you should be 
concerned that Mozilla mail ever did this even once. The problem was: Mail that had been sent 
over a matter of months was all sent again, at once, in a single session. Perhaps this was the 
result of some bit being flipped that placed it in the queue again. I really haven't studied 
Mozilla's mail internals. Could simple hard drive corruption have been enough to cause this? 
For 100 e-mails? The point is it happened, it was a serious problem, if you don't know it's been 
fixed, you should be very sure it will be. 
 
Whit 
 
 

Comment 5

[OstGote!]

No response, not reproducible.

Resolving. If the problem still exists and you can provide steps to reproduce it
with current versions feel free to reopen the bug.