1763084 - Thunderbird displays some messages as received at the moment of startup even though they aren't

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[Pieter]

Attachment: Screenshot_20220405_121649.png

Steps to reproduce:

Configure IMAP accounts containing a large amount of messages in Thunderbird for Linux

Actual results:

I am facing strange behaviour when using Thunderbird for Linux. The same bug doesn't seem to be present in Thunderbird for macOS.

The bug is that when you open an IMAP account, some messages that were received a while ago, will show up as received at the moment of starting up Thunderbird, even though they showed up with a correct date in a previous session. This happens almost every time Thunderbird starts up. When checking in other mail clients, the date is still correct but in Thunderbird it isn't. This is very confusing, especially when replying to e-mails because it will use the wrong date for the section quoting the text you are replying to and unfortunately makes Thunderbird unusable.

On Linux, it seemed that it started after upgrading from Debian Buster to Bullseye this became much worse. This is happening for multiple users on multiple systems. A full system reinstall or Thunderbird reinstall doesn't resolve it.

In this thread, it seems a Reddit user was facing a similar issue.

To illustrate, I've attached an image

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Do the mails involved have an actual Date: header line?

Comment 2

[Pieter]

I looked at the headers and it doesn't seem the affected messages mention a "Date: " header.
Please find below a redacted example header of one.

A date is mentioned in the "Received: " section though and on other mail clients such as Apple Mail, Android Mail, Roundcube and Thunderbird on macOS the missing "Date: " field is apparently is not an issue.
Only Linux (and Windows according to the Reddit post linked in my report) seem to be affected.

Return-Path: <____REDACTED____>
Delivered-To: ____REDACTED____
Received: from ____REDACTED____
    by mail with LMTP
    id K47wBALvS2JvQgAAZU03Dg
    (envelope-from <____REDACTED____>)
    for <____REDACTED____>; Tue, 05 Apr 2022 09:25:54 +0200
Received: from ____REDACTED____ (____REDACTED____ [____REDACTED____])
    by ____REDACTED____ (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 747012611D4
    for <____REDACTED____>; Tue, 5 Apr 2022 09:25:53 +0200 (CEST)
Received: from ____REDACTED____ ( ____REDACTED____ [____REDACTED____])
    by ____REDACTED____ (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 13FB6638A24
    for <____REDACTED____>; Tue, 5 Apr 2022 09:25:53 +0200 (CEST)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d= ____REDACTED____;
    s=rts; t=1649143553;
    ____REDACTED____
Received: from ____REDACTED____ (____REDACTED____ [____REDACTED____])
    by ____REDACTED____ (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0E850BE212
    for <____REDACTED____>; Tue, 5 Apr 2022 07:25:53 +0000 (UTC)
From: ____REDACTED____ <____REDACTED____>
To: ____REDACTED____
Message-ID: <____REDACTED____>
Subject: Re: ____REDACTED____
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
    boundary="----=_Part_29090902_517911914.1649143553049"
X-Message-ID: 9ffa134c-b4b1-11ec-b4e2-c311c21fe030
X-Conversation-ID: 2d5z:5b5l91g:2hd5znt7r
X-Spamd-Bar: ----
Authentication-Results: ____REDACTED____;
    dkim=pass header.d= ____REDACTED____ header.s=rts header.b=H85PY+Me;
    dmarc=pass (policy=reject) header.from= ____REDACTED____;
    spf=pass (____REDACTED____: domain of ____REDACTED____ designates ____REDACTED____ as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom= ____REDACTED____

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Pieter,
Does this still reproduce for you when. using version 115?