Open Bug 1787599 Opened 2 years ago Updated 1 year ago

Investigate why users are complaining of the new folder threading affecting them post update.

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Thunderbird 102
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: unicorn.consulting, Unassigned)

References

(Depends on 1 open bug, Regression, )

Details

(Keywords: regression)

I have but a single user example which is still under investigation.

There appears however to be an issue with other existing users having hundreds of folders to convert back to unthreaded. I am going to ask David if he can elaborate on his report in Bug 1764842#c11, as I have not been involved in SUMO much of late. That there is an issue on update I am sure. If it is incorrect new profiles (profile per install being broken), or a regression from Bug 176484 I am still unsure.

Flags: needinfo?(dskirk)

Just today, I received another complaint, and there have been several in past weeks on this. People are upset because a long-standing default has been changed and there is no simple way to change it. These are long-term users with many folders. Even people with only a few folders are easily confused because the message list when threaded does not show the simple sort order by date that people are accustomed to using.

Flags: needinfo?(dskirk)

Here is today's complaint on SUMO that I referenced:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1387405

(In reply to Matt from comment #0)

There appears however to be an issue with other existing users having hundreds of folders to convert back to unthreaded.

They do not have to do this folder by folder.
Once you have configured a folder according to your wishes, the settings can be transferred to other folders:

  • Configure a folder.
  • In the header view, in the column header on the far right, open the options menu.
  • At the very bottom is the option:
    -> "Apply current view to..."
    -> "Folder and its children..."
    -> Hower over an account
    -> In the next menu don't select a folder. Instead select the account name itself!

This should copy the settings to all folders of that account.

(In reply to Alfred Peters from comment #3)

They do not have to do this folder by folder.

My copy of 102.2.0 does not have that menu sequence. It has a Apply columns to -> folder and its children -> account name -> account name which brings up a popup window asking "Apply the current folders columns to account name and its children" . That works even with accounts such as Gmail and Outlook which have new folders added as peers of the inbox but it is not obvious to most users that know about the existence of customize columns widget (its icon is not intuitive, just looks like a squiggle to me). The user interface leads most people to choose a parent folder instead.

Daily has the menu sequence you're quoting (plus the one I used). I'm used to using the Mail Views widget in the main toolbar. Its very useful. However most people don't use it or even know that customization is available, and I've never seen it effect the folder columns. It just effects the contents of the folder listing. So I'm puzzled why you suggest apply current view rather than apply columns.

(In reply to Eric Moore from comment #4)

(In reply to Alfred Peters from comment #3)

They do not have to do this folder by folder.

My copy of 102.2.0 does not have that menu sequence.

You are right. My fault. TB105.0b1 already has it - but for the release version it was delayed. See Bug 574986

Daily has the menu sequence you're quoting (plus the one I used). I'm used to using the Mail Views widget in the main toolbar. Its very useful. However most people don't use it or even know that customization is available, and I've never seen it effect the folder columns. It just effects the contents of the folder listing. So I'm puzzled why you suggest apply current view rather than apply columns.

The threaded status isn't transferred by "Apply columns to", is it?

For the cases I've seen I've assumed the new defaults come into play because the .msf of the folder was missing etc. (due to other bugs), so there's no old default saved.

All I have so far is that folk are creating new profiles (deliberately) now we sync their mail and contacts. Is there any telemetry data on age of profiles etc? or number of profiles and if other than the primary is ever accessed?

(In reply to Matt from comment #0)

There appears however to be an issue with other existing users having hundreds of folders to convert back to unthreaded.

I have the opposite problem: my folders were previously unthreaded, but after updating today from Thunderbird 91.9.1 to 102.2.1, all my folders are now threaded.

(In reply to Alfred Peters from comment #3)

There appears however to be an issue with other existing users having hundreds of folders to convert back to unthreaded.

They do not have to do this folder by folder.
Once you have configured a folder according to your wishes, the settings can be transferred to other folders:

Yes, but this still needs to be done once for every subtree of folders with a particular view configuration, so still possibly annoying and time-consuming.

On the initial question itself ("why are people complaining..."), I think it boils down to this:

  • a feature that had been in Thunderbird for many years was changed (without good justification in my opinion). Saying that other email clients did it is not a good reason to change what thousands of users were using. Making changes to what has been in place this long should have a more in-depth review on the reasoning and the implications to users.
  • there was no announcement of this change and no announced easy way to undo it. I've seen the technique that has been offered, but it is not easy. Undoing should be simple.

The complaints aren't just due to the need to fix hundreds of folders; this also impacts on users with just a few folders who are now confused on how the messages appear in message list.

This is my email story - sorry if it's a bit long...

LONG time user of Mac OSX, hung on to the last great verson - 10.6.8 Snow Leopard refusing to move any further since Apple turned a 27" iMac into a giant iphone. I used Apple's email app from the start along with Safari, with multi email accounts and as a default, all emails appeared in one list. Once application security/SSL became a too much of a problem, I moved over to Debian Stable, MATE and Firefox. (Hadb een using Debian for servers for years but not as a desktop)

BUT I had to keep using my old iMac for email because every single mail app I tried to use didn't offer the ability to combine all my email accounts in one inbox. This, I thought would be called something like "combined inbox" and be fairly easy to switch on in any app.

It was YEARS doing this until one day I stumbled, by accident, on a forum discussion that mentioned that Thunderbird, in fact, has this, but it is called "Unified Folders" and at the time a few years/versions ago the switch for it wasn't in an obvious location.

OK, so now I'm happily using Thunderbird with 18 IMAP accounts and a Unified inbox on a desktop and a laptop. Both, until a week or so ago, running 102.4.0. I do NOT want to read through emails sequentially, or have the next one appear in the window when I hit the delete button on an email.

So I have the following options set n "Reading and Display:

Automatically mark messages as read
Immediately on display

Open messages in : A new message window

Close message window/tab on move or delete

I'm not sure how I have it switched off but a do not want to go anythere near "message threading". I have 55000+ messages in my inbox, 21000 of them unread.

And then, I upgrade my laptop to 102.5.0 and the bottom drops out of my world.

On my laptop now,

When I have a message open in a window, and I hit the delete key, the message get moved to trash, but the window doesn't close and the message stays there with the delete button greyed out.

Some new messages that happen to have idential subject line and fromthe same email account (but are completely seperate) are deemed to be part of a thread and when I open them a metric ton of windows are opened.

Sometime when I delete a message, the next message appears in the window instead of the window closing even though I've gone into settings and made sure the aforementioned options are selected.

This has turned efficient email reading (scroll down the unified inbox list to the required message, hit enter to read - window opens, hit delete to trash, window closes - scroll to the next) into a keyboard Olympics of ctrl-w's etc.

I'm just glad I caught this before I upgraded the desktop to 102.5.0 or else I'd be in a rubber room right now.

So, how to I get 102.5.0 to stop ignoring my display settings selections and to ignore threading completely, the way things used to be?

Thanks for any assistance provided!

How to make new folders in Thunderbird default to unthreaded

Due to popular demand (and as the pref is pretty hard to find and use), I've created a new section titled Changing default threading mode with detailed steps in the Message threading in Thunderbird article.

Note that changing the hidden pref mailnews.default_view_flags to 0 (unthreaded) will only apply for new folders created after the change. For existing folders, there are other methods documented in the article.

Plus how is a non-dev user supposed to figure that out I wonder?

As of today, they can find information in the support article, but I'm still in favor of exposing this pref in the settings UI.

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