1731729 - Add Account Wizard - chaotic, not working, confusing

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, defect)

Description

[xbarinka]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/92.0.4515.159 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

Try to add new common email account - IMAP + SMTP.

Actual results:

Lots of gui issues like:
port number is reset to 0 every time the security option is changed (SSL/TLS to Start TLS etc.)
When I went over bugs like this the wizard finally shows that the configuration is ok so I clicked to create the account. Account creation failed because of wrong credentials or other reason (don't remember correctly). But wizard shows that configuration is ok.

Finally I skipped this shit (Sorry for saying that, but those wizards are always bothering me but this version is totally crazy) and I used the same values in manual configuration and everything works well.

Expected results:

If wizard shows that configuration is ok then the account should be created. And there should be a clear unhidden option to go directly to manual configuration when user wants to create an new account. Maybe I'm blind, maybe I'm too old, but my experience is that the manual configuration was always easiest and quickest way to setup account in TB.

Comment 1

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

I think we should fix the port number reset (may be an open bug for it already?).
Other than that, you haven't given enough details to reproduce. In general the setup is much easier for users to use. As soon as you type in an address the "Configure manually" link will appear.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Magnus Melin [:mkmelin] from comment #1)

I think we should fix the port number reset (may be an open bug for it already?).

Bug 1297380? Decouple the value of "port" and "SSL" in Thunderbird "mail account setup"

Comment 3

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Attachment: Bug 1731729 - for manual account setup do not set auth methods to auto just because port changed. r=aleca

The auth method is really unrelated to port or socketType.
Whatever was there should remain, and let the user change it if needed.

Comment 4

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Attachment: Bug 1731729 - for manual account setup, when switching out TLS, use STARTTLS as default (not autodetect). r=aleca

When adjusting port and SSL was selected already, switch to StartTLS if the port is know to potentially use that.
After this, the user can still switch from StartTLS to None, but the initial selection was TLS, default to a something secure.

Fixes "typo" for pop3 preventing adjustments there to work correctly.
Use onchange instead of onblur for the change handling: when working with the spin buttons to change ports this is needed.

Depends on D132352

Comment 5

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/d6f76f32038f
for manual account setup do not set auth methods to auto just because port changed. r=aleca
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/be2faa4c4b8e
for manual account setup, when switching out TLS, use STARTTLS as default (not autodetect). r=aleca

Comment 6

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Comment on attachment 9252835 [details]
Bug 1731729 - for manual account setup do not set auth methods to auto just because port changed. r=aleca

[Approval Request Comment]
Regression caused by (bug #): not a regression
User impact if declined: manually adjusting config options is harder than it should be
Testing completed (on c-c, etc.): c-c+beta
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky): some risk

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Comment on attachment 9252835 [details]
Bug 1731729 - for manual account setup do not set auth methods to auto just because port changed. r=aleca

[Triage Comment]
Approved for esr91

Comment 8

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Thunderbird 91.4.1:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-esr91/rev/c9abd6c79901
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-esr91/rev/4de5218ea83a

Comment 9

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Sorry for the late comment to the patch here:

for manual account setup do not set auth methods to auto just because port changed

In Phab:

The auth method is really unrelated to port or socketType.
Whatever was there should remain, and let the user change it if needed.

That is actally not correct. Even for large ISPs, the authentication methods offered by the same server are different, based on whether you use TLS or not. I saw that when I surveyed and captured the configs.

Also, if you're using non-standard ports, there can be different servers running on different ports. Normal servers will use the default ports. If you're changing the port specifically, then it's possible that the configuration of the endpoints is different, e.g. because you're tunneling to different servers, or similar.