1694252 - Sometimes settings get corrupted and are not what they seem to be in the GUI for non-default identity

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, defect)

Description

[pm]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:86.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/86.0

Steps to reproduce:

1. In Account Settings | (test account) | Copies & Folders | Archive options, set "When archiving messages" to "A single folder".
2. Select message(s) to archive (in my case, typically selected from a search folder that may span multiple IMAP accounts -- but issue likely extends to other folder types).
3. In message display pane, click the "Archive" button.

Actual results:

In some cases, the "Yearly archived folders" behavior is used, even though this is not the behavior specified in settings. Subfolders of the Archive folder are created, and the selected messages are moved into them. This bug has been in Thunderbird for as long as I can remember. But it does not happen 100% of the time, and it's unclear what causes it.

Expected results:

Account settings should be respected. Selected messages should be moved into the root of the "Archive" folder, with no subfolders created or involved.

Comment 1

[pm]

Having reviewed https://wiki.mozilla.org/BMO/UserGuide/BugFields#bug_severity, the correct severity classification for this defect is S2: "(Serious) Major functionality/product severely impaired and a satisfactory workaround does not exist"

Comment 2

[Onno Ekker [:nONoNonO UTC+1]]

Can you try to un-archive a wrongly archived message and then follow the same steps again to see if the behavior is reproducible for a single message?

Comment 3

[pm]

Onno, in researching this question I believe I have actually discovered the pattern! If the message recipient is a NON-DEFAULT IDENTITY, the archiving preferences are ignored. Otherwise, if the recipient is the DEFAULT IDENTITY, the account archiving preferences are obeyed.

As such, yes, the behavior is always reproducible for a given message.

Comment 4

[pm]

REVISED - Steps to reproduce:

1. In Account Settings | (test account) | Copies & Folders | Archive options, set "When archiving messages" to "A single folder".
2. Select message(s) with recipients other than the default account identity to archive.
3. In message display pane, click the "Archive" button.

Actual results:

The "Yearly archived folders" behavior is used, even though this is not the behavior specified in settings. Subfolders of the Archive folder are created, and the selected messages are moved into them.

Expected results:

Account settings should be respected. Selected messages should be moved into the root of the "Archive" folder, with no subfolders created or involved.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Onno, does it reproduce for you with the revised steps?

Comment 6

[Onno Ekker [:nONoNonO UTC+1]]

I've got Archiving totally disabled, I think by toying in the Config Editor or maybe in the GUI of a previous version, because i cannot find anywhere where to configure it in the latest version.

Having said that: there are a couple of preferences that control if archiving is enabled and how/where messages are archived, and those preferences can either be set globally or per identity.

So I think the reporter of this bug has somehow configured archiving for the first account and not for all accounts or the consecutive accounts. He can check by temporarily mark another account as default to see if that changes things, but I don't expect it, because setting an account as default, doesn't change its id.

Best thing to check is to go to the Config Editor (Tools > Options > Config Editor) and check the following preferences:
mail.identity.id[n].archive_enabled
mail.identity.id[n].archive_granularity
mail.identity.id[n].archive_keep_folder_structure
mail.identity.id[n].archives_folder_picker_mode

I suspect those settings differ from the default account to the other accounts.

There's also the following settings:
mail.identity.default.archive_enabled
mail.identity.default.archive_granularity
mail.identity.default.archive_keep_folder_structure
mail.identity.default.archives_folder_picker_mode

Those are not for the default account, despite their name, but for new accounts and maybe also for existing accounts if the per account settings are missing.

Comment 7

[Onno Ekker [:nONoNonO UTC+1]]

Lol, I completely looked over it, though I checked 4 times...but it's still in Account Settings per account in the pane Copies & Folders (where you would expect it :-))
There you can tell Thunderbird how and where to archive messages. For GMail I cannot specify archive options, but i can for Hotmail or Yahoo!

Comment 8

[Onno Ekker [:nONoNonO UTC+1]]

Attachment: Message Archives

Comment 9

[Onno Ekker [:nONoNonO UTC+1]]

Attachment: Archive Options.png

Comment 10

[pm]

@Onno, thank you for your efforts. First of all, account archive options may be found in the following locations -- this information should allow you to determine for certain whether you've managed to hide the options in your test instance by toying in the Config Editor:

Account-level options:
Tools | Account Settings | (select "Copies & Folders" node under desired account) | Archive options.

Identity-level options:
Tools | Account Settings | (select desired account node) | Manage Identities | (select identity) | Edit | Copies & Folders | Archive options

Secondly, here are the steps I took:

1. I hadn't recalled that archive options could be set per-identity. However, I reviewed the archive options for each identity under each account, and observed that they were all in fact consistent with the account-level setting (all set to "A single folder").

2. I again confirmed that messages addressed to the default identity were being archived correctly ("A single folder"), while other messages were still being archived incorrectly ("Yearly archived folders").

3. At your suggestion, I changed the default identity on one account to see how this would affect Thunderbird's behavior. To my amazement (and as you predicted), the behavior for each identity was unchanged, even though the default identity had been changed.

4. I then observed that archive settings for the NEW default identity had miraculously changed from "A single folder" to "Yearly archived folders". At this point, at least within the context of this specific account and identities, Thunderbird's behavior was finally accurately reflecting account and identity settings.

5. I was then able to change the archive option to the desired option ("A single folder"), and change the default identity back to the correct identity. Following this, Thunderbird began to respect the archive options for both identities.

To review, the workaround is as follows:

1. Temporarily change the affected account's default identity to an affected identity.
2. Observe that the affected identity's archiving options have changed and now reflect Thunderbird's current behavior, which is undesired.
3. Set the affected identity's archiving options to reflect the desired behavior.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 for each affected identity.
5. Restore the account's correct default identity.

If there is an interest in resolving this defect, I'm happy to help. Please let me know what I can do.

Comment 11

[Onno Ekker [:nONoNonO UTC+1]]

If I understand it correctly, it works as expected for you now?
Sometimes settings get corrupted and are not what they seem to be in the GUI, I think that’s what happened to you. Only if you have a back-up from before you fixed it and can compare the settings from about:config from before and after fixing it, we can find out what the wrong setting was.
Otherwise I think this bug can only be closed as works for me…

Comment 12

[pm]

@Onno, in my opinion the best course of action would be to open a new ticket based on your statement: "Sometimes settings get corrupted and are not what they seem to be in the GUI".

This defect could be attacked in a number of ways -- either through direct resolution (preventing corruption in the first place), or by notifying the user when settings are corrupted.

It's difficult to imagine a more serious defect than one in which user settings are not respected. The consequences could be devastating -- data loss, delivery to the wrong recipient, exposure of personal data, etc..

Further, you'd be hard-pressed to find a user that is comfortable using Thunderbird, if users were informed that their account settings may not be respected, and that it may be impossible to know if they are until it's too late.

In my case the result was simply user confusion. But based on your explanation, it appears that what I experienced was a more general problem that could potentially expose itself in more catastrphic ways. In other words, I got lucky.

So while I know you'd typically only seek to resolve defects that are easily reproducible, and I completely agree with the necessity of this strategy, the severity of this issue is such that I believe it deserves attention. If you agree, I'll help however I can.

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Alfred, TCW, does this reproduce, preferably using something newer than 78?

Comment 14

[Alfred Peters [:infofrommozilla]]

| Sometimes settings get corrupted and are not what they seem to be in the GUI

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #13)

Alfred, TCW, does this reproduce, preferably using something newer than 78?

No, I haven't noticed that yet. Not with any version.

Comment 15

[Alfred Peters [:infofrommozilla]]

(In reply to Onno Ekker [:nONoNonO UTC+1] from comment #6)

Having said that: there are a couple of preferences that control if archiving is enabled and how/where messages are archived, and those preferences can either be set globally or per identity.

Yes exactly, per identity - Not just per account.

If you have created alias addresses under Account Settings -> Manage Identities, each of them can have its own setting.

Comment 16

[Arthur K. (he/him)]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #13)

Alfred, TCW, does this reproduce, preferably using something newer than 78?

Sorry for the late reply. No, this doesn't happen for me. I can't repro.

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

@Reporter,
Do you agree this does not reproduce when using version 91?

Comment 18

[Phoenix]

Resolved per whiteboard