1653838 - Cannot set IMAP server directory via Advanced Account Settings dialog (pref mail.server.serverNN.server_sub_directory not set from UI)

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1653588

(Thunderbird :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[Christian W.]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/84.0.4147.89 Safari/537.36 Edg/84.0.522.40

Steps to reproduce:

after setup a new email account, the server_sub_directory must set for the german T-Online Account to "INBOX"

Actual results:

the field for the root folder path remains empty. In prefs.js the entry user_pref("mail.server.server3.server_sub_directory", "INBOX"); is not set.

so the IMAP-folder for this Mailbox were unsorted.

I've set this entry in prefs.js by Hand and the mailbox works correct

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Hello Christian, could you provide more detailed steps and/or a screenshot of what exactly you were setting in the Thunderbird UI which failed?

(Maybe involving https://searchfox.org/comm-central/source/mailnews/base/prefs/content/am-server-advanced.xhtml ?)

Comment 2

[Christian W.]

Attachment: Screenshot on 2020-07-21 at 06:53:15.png

Comment 3

[Christian W.]

Attachment: prefs.js

Comment 4

[Christian W.]

Hallo Thomas,

i have set up a new account. this works fine. after that , I go to the account settings, server settings an dthe advanced Account settings. I set the IMAP server directory to INBOX and klick OK. But Thunderbird does not save this setting and thunderbird doesn't sort the folder in on row. In prefs.js is no entry "mail.server.server3.server_sub_directory", "INBOX"." for this new mailbox.

Comment 5

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Christian Wichner from comment #4)
Awesome. Thanks for providing more information. Confirming as far as I can see. Now it's clear, so I got you right in my comment 1:

This is about Advanced Account Settings Dialog.
Setting IMAP server directory in the UI seems to have no effect (although it's remembered for the dialog).
At least it does no longer set the pref mail.server.serverNN.server_sub_directory at all.
This works in TB68, where the pref is written immediately --> regression.
From reporter's description, I understand this can affect IMAP accounts that rely on this quite badly.

First glance at the code, both xhtml and .js, I'm failing to see any link to preferences (but I'm not an expert on that):
https://searchfox.org/comm-central/source/mailnews/base/prefs/content/am-server-advanced.xhtml
https://searchfox.org/comm-central/source/mailnews/base/prefs/content/am-server-advanced.js

Comment 6

[gene smith]

I see this also on my recent TRUNK builds (I don't have 78). There are problems saving any "advanced" server settings from the screen. You have to go to config editor to have it stick. However, it seems to come and go as a problem. I submitted Bug 1624393 a while back but it seemed to become OK for a while but now I notice it is back so that bug is probably a dup. Probably caused by elimination of the OK/Cancel button on the advanced server settings screen.