1796891 - Lost all message filters for one account after testing bug 1758165 (quotes in filter rules)

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Thunderbird :: Filters, defect)

Description

[Barry Abel]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:105.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/105.0

Steps to reproduce:

I upgraded Thunderbird from 102.3.1 to 102.4.0. Both are the 64-bit versions in Fedora 36 with Xfce.

Possibly relevant additional information: During my last session of 102.3.1 before upgrading, I tested a filter bug, 1758165, using the filters for this account. 1758165 also involves the loss of filters, though not the loss of all filters.

Actual results:

Unfortunately, I didn't write everything down as it happened. But the gist is that a dialog box appeared telling me that my message filters couldn't be read, that a new msgFilterRules.dat file had been created, and that the old file had been saved to some backup file whose name was given. Something else happened, but I don't recall exactly what; something seemed to be repeated about receiving or not receiving messages. The only backup file I found in the directory in question didn't have my filters; I had to get them from my own backup. Once I exited Thunderbird, replaced with msgFilterRules.dat with my backup, and restarted the program, everything worked fine.

Note: I apologize for not writing everything down as it happened. The problem was so frustrating that I was reacting as a user, rather than as a tester., and I didn't immediately realize that the problem might somehow be related to my testing of 1758165.

Expected results:

None of the above. Since I hadn't edited msgFilterRules.dat by hand or done anything that would have or should have warned me that I was tampering with the program, with results not guaranteed, I had expected the program to update normally.

Comment 1

[Barry Abel]

After further testing, I was able to reproduce the bug without upgrading Thunderbird. It does indeed seem to be related to bug 1758165.

Comment 2

[Barry Abel]

It's late at night, so for now, I'm just going to report what I'm seeing. I hope to be able to test this further tomorrow (Saturday).

New steps to reproduce:

1. I retested bug 1758165, using the filter on a folder, then restarted Thunderbird.

2. I went to Tools-Message Filters.

3. I selected the account that I had been testing bug 1758165 with. The following message appears:

"Your filters do not work because the msgFilterRules.dat file, which contains your filters, could not be read. A new msgFilterRules.dat file will be created and a backup of the old file, called rulesbackup.dat, will be created in the same directory."

4. No message filters are showing for that account. However, this time, rulesbackup.dat has the filters, even after exiting and restarting Thunderbird.

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Sounds like this would have been a file permissions issue?

Comment 5

[Barry Abel]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #3)

Sounds like this would have been a file permissions issue?

I'm not seeing that, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. I'm looking in this directory: ~/.thunderbird/<randomly generated name>.default/Mail/mail.comcast-6.net/.
The file rulesbackup.dat contains the filters for the affected account, so I know that this directory is for the account. However, at all stages of testing, this is what I'm seeing for the permissions of msgFilterRules.dat and rulesbackup.dat:

Owner access - read & write
Group access - read only
Others access - read only

I'm also seeing these permissions in the directory for a different account.

Here's are my current steps to reproduce the bug, in Thunderbird 115.9.0 (64-bit) in Manjaro XFCE:

1. You need to receive an email from an account that puts a backslash before each double quotation mark in the display name of the sender. I'm getting this to work now with a Comcast email account where the first name is:

    The "Real"
   

and the last name is:

   Name

Also, in the Thunderbird account that I send the email from, my name is:

   The "Real" Name

in the account settings. (I wasn't sure whether the name was coming from Thunderbird or the mail server, so I put in both places.) In the message that I receive in Thunderbird from this account, this is From line as it appears in the source:

From: "The "Real" Name" <{My Account}@comcast.net>

If you have trouble finding an account to send messages from that handles special characters this way, I'd be happy to send you messages from my test account.
2) In a Thunderbird account whose filters you don't mind losing, create the following filter (where I use my account as an example):

   If From is: {My Account}@comcast.net
   and From contains: The \"Real\" Name
   Move the message to a test folder

I have this as my first of two filters; I'm assuming that what the second filter says is irrelevant.
3) Send a message from the account with quotation marks in its name to the account with the filter. Or wait to receive a message from someone else whose account has quotation marks in its name.
4) Once you receive the message, restart Thunderbird.
5) Go to Tools-Message Filters and select the account that has the filter. The following message appears:

"Your filters do not work because the msgFilterRules.dat file, which contains your filters, could not be read. A new msgFilterRules.dat file will be created and a backup of the old file, called rulesbackup.dat, will be created in the same directory."

6. Click OK. The filters you had for this account will now be gone.

Comment 6

[Barry Abel]

(In reply to Barry Abel from comment #5)

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #3)

Sounds like this would have been a file permissions issue?

I'm not seeing that, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. I'm looking in this directory: ~/.thunderbird/<randomly generated name>.default/Mail/mail.comcast-6.net/.
The file rulesbackup.dat contains the filters for the affected account, so I know that this directory is for the account. However, at all stages of testing, this is what I'm seeing for the permissions of msgFilterRules.dat and rulesbackup.dat:

Owner access - read & write
Group access - read only
Others access - read only

I'm also seeing these permissions in the directory for a different account.

Here's are my current steps to reproduce the bug, in Thunderbird 115.9.0 (64-bit) in Manjaro XFCE:

1. You need to receive an email from an account that puts a backslash before each double quotation mark in the display name of the sender. I'm getting this to work now with a Comcast email account where the first name is:

    The "Real"
   

and the last name is:

   Name

Also, in the Thunderbird account that I send the email from, my name is:

   The "Real" Name

in the account settings. (I wasn't sure whether the name was coming from Thunderbird or the mail server, so I put in both places.) In the message that I receive in Thunderbird from this account, this is From line as it appears in the source:

From: "The "Real" Name" <{My Account}@comcast.net>

If you have trouble finding an account to send messages from that handles special characters this way, I'd be happy to send you messages from my test account.
2) In a Thunderbird account whose filters you don't mind losing, create the following filter (where I use my account as an example):

   If From is: {My Account}@comcast.net
   and From contains: The \"Real\" Name
   Move the message to a test folder

I have this as my first of two filters; I'm assuming that what the second filter says is irrelevant.
3) Send a message from the account with quotation marks in its name to the account with the filter. Or wait to receive a message from someone else whose account has quotation marks in its name.
4) Once you receive the message, restart Thunderbird.
5) Go to Tools-Message Filters and select the account that has the filter. The following message appears:

"Your filters do not work because the msgFilterRules.dat file, which contains your filters, could not be read. A new msgFilterRules.dat file will be created and a backup of the old file, called rulesbackup.dat, will be created in the same directory."

6. Click OK. The filters you had for this account will now be gone.

Correction: The backslashes didn't show up when I pasted the From line In step 1. Here is the line again, with the backslashes spelled out:

From: "The <backslash>"Real<backslash>" Name" <{My Account}@comcast.net>