1716166 - Untagged, unread and selected message items become mostly invisible in message list when TB loses focus [with Windows' High Contrast Black], subject etc. black on black, only UTF8 emoji is visible

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Theme, defect)

Description

[David Ogilvie]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/91.0

Steps to reproduce:

In Nightly for 2021-06-12, inbox shows 1 unread message in hotmail account inbox, but no message is showing. I hit escape a couple of times to deactivate any filters that might have been running (there weren't any). I then shut down TB, then restarted it. The unread email now shows as it should.

Actual results:

I had read and deleted quite a few messages over the previous few hours. Somehow it looks like the database lost sync or something. Once TB was restarted, the message was there as expected. I suspect this will be an intermittent bug that will be hard to pin down. Since I have restarted TB, I wasn't able to get a screenshot.

Comment 1

[David Ogilvie]

Attachment: screenshot_std.png

Comment 2

[David Ogilvie]

Attachment: screenshot_hcb.png

Comment 3

[David Ogilvie]

Problem doesn't seem to be in the database, but in the way the screen is displayed in High Contrast Black color scheme.

Windows screen colors were set to "High Contrast Black".
Started TB.
Waited for emails to be downloaded.
4 emails were listed.
I went to a Windows Start Menu app (Radarscope), then returned to TB.
I noticed that three emails were displayed, except that a graphic in the 4th email was showing, but the subject and submitter name were missing (see screenshot_HCB). I switched to the Windows 10 standard color scheme, and took screenshot_std, showing all 4 emails appearing correctly. I then switched back to "High Contrast Black", and the display error showed itself again.
I changed the filter from "unread" to "all" to get this bug number from a previous email.
When I switched the filter back to "Unread", the 4th email header appeared the way it should have.

Looks like there may be an issue in how the emails are being listed.

Comment 4

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

:Paenglab, any insights on screenshot attachment 9226708 [details], 4th message in the list which has an UTF8 icon showing in subject, but the rest of the subject does not display, but it's there as seen in attachment 9226707 [details]? Weird...

(In reply to David Ogilvie from comment #0)

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/91.0

Steps to reproduce:

In Nightly for 2021-06-12, inbox shows 1 unread message in hotmail account inbox, but no message is showing. I hit escape a couple of times to deactivate any filters that might have been running (there weren't any). I then shut down TB, then restarted it. The unread email now shows as it should.

I have occasionally seen this issue for decades, but I've never been able to nail this down. Mostly just switching to another folder will be enough. IIRC, it may occur when inbox which gets new message has focus, maybe on first message. New message arrives, but if you try to cursor up to view it, it won't be there until you focus another folder and refocus inbox, then it will be there.

Reporter, is your but report about wrong count of new messages or about display error (invisible subject), or both?

Comment 5

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Is it also invisible with High Contrast White? Maybe there is a control command to set the text colour to black.

Comment 6

[David Ogilvie]

It appears that the wrong count in the database was a misinterpretation of the display issue.

Comment 7

[David Ogilvie]

Next time I see the issue I'll check to see if it also occurs with "High Contrast White" color scheme.

Comment 8

[David Ogilvie]

Attachment: screenshot_2 HCB.png

Comment 9

[David Ogilvie]

Attachment: screenshot_2 HCW.png

Comment 10

[David Ogilvie]

Attachment: screenshot_2 HCB unread.png

Comment 11

[David Ogilvie]

Attachment: screenshot_2 HCB all.png

Comment 12

[David Ogilvie]

Attachment: screenshot_2 hcb hotmail unread.png

Comment 13

[David Ogilvie]

Attachment: screenshot_2 hcb hotmail all.png

Comment 14

[David Ogilvie]

Attachment: After an hour.png

Comment 15

[David Ogilvie]

Attachment: daily after restart.png

Comment 16

[David Ogilvie]

Interesting sequence today.

Started off with "screenshot_2 HCB" as soon as I noticed an email subject was invisible. Switched to "High Contrast White" color scheme to produce "screenshot_2 HCW". I switched back to "High Contrast Black" color scheme, then changed filter from "unread" to "all" and produced "screenshot_2 HCB all", then "screenshot_2 HCB unread". I then switched from my uwaterloo account to my hotmail account and took "screenshot_2 hotmail unread". Changed filter to "all" and took "screenshot_2 hotmail all". I had to leave the computer for an hour and when I returned, took "after an hour". TB wanted to update, so I let it do that and took daily after restart, where the issue vanished as can be seen in "daily after restart".

I noticed that when I changed the filter from one setting to another, the filter did not highlight as it did in TB 78. Also, in TB 78 the filter usually had a white dropdown outline around it, which doesn't show up in the daily. Not sure if this is by design or not.

Anyway, hope this bug report is helpful.

Comment 17

[David Ogilvie]

Attachment: screenshot_3 HCB.png

Comment 18

[David Ogilvie]

After putting in the comments above, I switched from my hotmail account to my uwaterloo account and noted thaht the error had returned, in "screenshot_3 HCB".

Comment 19

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

What happens when you try "Repair Folder" in folders properties dialog?

Comment 20

[David Ogilvie]

I selected the second (invisible) message in my uwaterloo account, and when I used ctrl+w to close the message, the invisible subject line was highlighted and visible, which makes me think that the bug might have something to do with the highlighting being out of sync. Next time I see an invisible message, I'll try highlighting the message above it and using the keyboard to move to and from the invisible message to see if it shows up when highlighted or when the focus leaves the message to another one.

Comment 21

[David Ogilvie]

I'll try the "repair folder" the next time I see the error.

Comment 22

[David Ogilvie]

When I click on the invisible email with the mouse, the email shows up when the highlight is on it. If O switch to a different account, the email is not highlighted (the folder is) and the email is invisible again. If I send an email from my hotmail account to the uwaterloo account (where the invivible email is), the invivible email shows up as soon and the second (just sent) email arrives.

Comment 23

[David Ogilvie]

Attachment: screenshot_4 HCB.png

Comment 24

[David Ogilvie]

I switched back to my hotmail account, then back to my uwaterloo account, and the email was missing in action again. See "screenshot_4 HCB".

Comment 25

[David Ogilvie]

As soon as I clicked on the second (visible) email, the first email became visible. Looks like TB was thinking the first email had focus and was highlighted (but it wasn't) and when I clicked on the second email, it got the highlight and focus, and the first email lost focus (and the non-existant highlight) and was rewritten on the screen in its non-highlighted form. Looks like TB is having a problem keeping the focus and highlight cooredinated.

Comment 26

[David Ogilvie]

Attachment: screenshot_4 unfocused HCB.png

Comment 27

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Now I got it: The text is invisible when the message is unread, selected and TB unfocused. I can reproduce this now.

Comment 28

[David Ogilvie]

Definately a focus issue.

If I have a invisible email, it appears in any folder when I click on the folder name (hotmail, uwaterloo, etc). As soon as I click on a subject in the folder, the focus goes to whatever email is clicked on, and if that isn't the invisible email, then the invisible email loses focus, is rewritten correctly, and the email that has gained focus is written correctly. If I ciick on another folder, then return to the folder which had the invisible email, there is no focus in the list of subjects (there shouldn't be, as focus is still on the folder name), and things will only get back in sync when I click on a subject in the folder. Looks like that's the issue to focus on (pardon the pun) here.

Comment 29

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Attachment: 1716166-HC-selected-non-focus.patch

Thomas, you can test this with selecting a message, then click on the read dot (or press m) to mark the message unread and click outside of TB to unfocus the window. Without patch it's unreadable and with patch it gets the normal colour.

Comment 30

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Comment on attachment 9227270 [details] [diff] [review]
1716166-HC-selected-non-focus.patch

Review of attachment 9227270 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks Richard!

This fixes the invisible text problem in message list when TB loses focus!

TB 78 after losing focus would still show the selection somehow albeit oddly (tagged messages with green border, untagged with green background). Now with TB 91 it's a bit different (untagged & selected: selection not visible when unfocused, tagged & selected: green border with or without focus). Anyway, High Contrast Black is Pandorra's box...

Comment 31

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

STR:

1. In Windows, activate High Contrast Black Color Scheme (Left-Alt+Shift+Print)
2. In TB message list, select some untagged messages which have a subject and ensure they are marked unread (showing in bold text).
3. Unfocus Thunderbird by focusing any other window, but keep Thunderbird in view

Actual result

• untagged+selected+unread+TB-unfocused message items are mostly invisible in the message list (subjects etc. are blank).

Expected result

• Even when Thunderbird does not have focus, those messages should still be visible (the subject should be readable).

Comment 32

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/8300454e8bfa
[Windows High Contrast] On unread treeitems don't highlight the text when not focused. r=thomas8