176326 - Unable to create multiple news accounts on same server with the same username.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 41929

(MailNews Core :: Backend, defect)

Description

[Jason Boerner]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826

In Mail/News I used to be able to access the same news server using the same
username/password but under a different Account Name.  This allows the user to
monitor differrent newsgroups on the same news server but to organize them on
the "sidebar".
For example:
It's nice to have one collection of newsgroups under the title "Job Search" and
another collection under the title "Software Development".


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Start up Mail/News
2.Edit/Mail and Newsgroups...
3.<Add Account>
4.* Newsgroup Acount <NEXT>
5.Type in your name & email address <NEXT>
6.Enter the name of your news server <NEXT>
Here an error message comes up.

Actual Results:  
A mail or newsgroup account with the same user name and server name already
exists click back...

NOTE: A workaround is simply enter your email addres using different case.

Expected Results:  
That an "account" will be set up with a different account name.

Comment 1

[Paulo Melo]

I can confirm that this bug exists.

Moreover, even if you try to use the same name on the same server, but using
different ports (I need to do so, because I have forwarded secure connections to
the mail servers elsewhere from my machine) you cannot create the accounts.

This may be due to the way mozilla indexes the accounts internaly (probably
using a triplet username/servername/protocol). 

A workaround may be to use different names to the same machine (you can do so if
you have control over DNS or your local resolver) on the client side. However, a
change on the code would be certainly preferrable.

Comment 2

[Daniel Wang]

reporter (Jason Boerner), is this bug dupe of bug 55540?

Comment 3

[Mark James]

Around 1.4b or 1.4rc1 it became no longer possible to create or use multiple
accounts on the same news server.  Now all newly-created second accounts appear
in the pane as a dupe of the first one. Furthermore, any existing second account
no longer works: viewing messages in the first subscribed newgroup crashes
Mozilla, messages in other subscribed groups do not display at all, and only
currently subscribed groups are shown in the list of all groups carried by the
server.

Multiple accounts are useful not just as categorization aid, as mentioned by
JasonB, but also to allow one to post under different identities in different
sets of newsgroups.

Will try the server name DNS alias trick suggested by Paulo Melo.

Comment 4

[Cyril Novikov]

Same problem on Linux with Mozilla 1.4. I can't create more than one newsgroup
account (same server). After I click Finish in the account creation dialog,
nothing changes in the list of accounts displayed. However, new account records
are present in prefs.js.

When I use a 1.3 profile with multiple newsgroup accounts in Mozilla 1.4, they
appear all right. However, when you try to view any newsgroup message, the whole
thing crashes.

Looked at the differences between 1.3 and 1.4 prefs.js. It appears that 1.3
profiles have mail.server.serverN.userName fields and 1.4 don't.

If you edit a 1.4 profile with multiple accounts (of which only the first one is
visible), and add userName fields to all of them, then restart Mozilla, suddenly
all of the accounts are displayed. However, Mozilla crashes when you try to view
any newsgroup message.

Remove userName's, and only the first account is displayed, and Mozilla does not
crash when viewing messages. The idea is that userName field makes accounts
beyond the first one visible, but also crashes Mozilla when viewing messages on
that server.

Comment 5

[Philip walden]

Same problem on HP-UX. Adding my support for Mark James' comments.

Comment 6

[Paul Thompson]

When I create an new news account (with an existing news account), the creation
either overwrites my existing news account and all subscribed groups (I haven't
been able to detect the sequence necessary to reproduce this) or doesn't
actually create the new account (if the news server of the to-be-created account
is the same as the existing account's news server).  I've tried both file/new,
selecting the right panel's "accounts / create new account", and the "account
settings / add account" button.  Whatever is selected on the left side (mail
account, existing news account, local folders) doesn't seem to matter.  I've
tried real and bogus email addresses.

Comment 7

[R.K.Aa.]

*** Bug 251954 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Michael McDougall]

Setting up a 2nd account using the same server corrupted my original account.

I was able to fix my corrupted news account by deleting the folders and files in
my profile that correspond to the server and by removing the entries in prefs.js

Essentially this removed my account. I had to re-create the account, but once I
did I could access newsgroups without reconfirming my subscription every time.

Comment 9

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 301085 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 10

[Shon Vella]

*** Bug 228777 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 11

[Peter Weilbacher]

Isn't this a dupe of bug 41929?