Thunderbird changes rules file when a folder is missing
Categories
(MailNews Core :: Filters, defect)
Tracking
(Not tracked)
People
(Reporter: gary, Unassigned)
References
Details
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/68.0
Steps to reproduce:
I was trying to change a POP3 account to IMAP. Thunderbird makes this very difficult so it took some time. During that period, not all my folders were recreated in the IMAP account's inbox.
I have also noted this problem when a folder has a problem that seems to prevent Thunderbird from moving mail to it. Usually compacting the folder solves this.
Actual results:
When Thunderbird detected that a rule couldn't be carried out, it deleted the action part of the rule as well as disabling it.
Expected results:
The rule should either be ignored or disabled - arguments for both - but Thunderbird should not be deleting the action part (move mail to a folder).
The problem with deleting the rule is that when I re-enable it, it's not obvious that the rule itself is broken - it doesn't do anything until I reset the action part.
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Comment 1•5 years ago
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If this were being done in the UI - semi related to Bug 319743 - Drag & drop of folders from one account to another should ask what to do and update message filters
The net effect of what you describe is Bug 454589 - if filter move target folder is deleted, messages go to trash (filter should get disabled)
What Thunderbird should do and what it does do are vastly different. AFAIK, when folders are copied to another account, the rules don't follow. I certainly was never asked about it. More to the point, dragging folders (moving them) from POP3 to IMAP doesn't work. The folder gets created but is empty. Again I never get asked about filters. I also don't get asked about filters when I copy all the messages to the IMAP folder.
Given that copying messages is a hit or miss operation at best, moving messages is something to be avoided. You could find yourself having to restore from a backup after the move fails.
Anyway the point is that Thunderbird incorrectly handles the disabling operation. The UI may catch some instances, but as the earlier (12 years ago) bug report complains, it doesn't always do it properly. This is a different situation from the earlier bug report which complained about filters pointing to the Trash instead of being disabled when a folder was deleted.
My complaint is not that the filters are not disabled. They are. but their action is removed as well. This means that the rule cannot simply re-enabled. I have to re-assign the action as well. Presumably at some point in the past 12 years someone fixed the problem with disabled filters still being used. However removing the action part of the filter (possibly as extra insurance?) doesn't give me confidence in the programming team's ability to write understandable code.
Nor does your assertion that this is a duplicate bug when it clearly is not the same as the previous bug. The only similarity is that they both refer to message filters.
Description
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