1817508 - With Global Inbox (defer incoming POP to another inbox via Advanced Account settings), after upgrading to 111, previously hidden POP accounts reappear in folder pane

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect, P2)

Description

[Tom]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/111.0

Steps to reproduce:

When upgrading to the latest beta, the hidden accounts were no longer hidden.

Actual results:

Hidden accounts should have remained hidden, but were not hidden

Expected results:

Hidden accounts should have remained hidden.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Please be more specific. A screen shot will help.

Comment 2

[Tom]

Attachment: Screenshot 2023-02-18 093554.png

As shown in the screenshot, there are three accounts that show up above the global account. In previous versions, these three accounts were hidden and all I saw was the global account.

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I think you mean View > Folders > Unified ?
See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switching-folder-pane-view

Comment 4

[Tom]

I'm using the Unified account, but in previous versions of Thunderbird, the three individual accounts were hidden from view. In this new beta version, when I launch Thunderbird, those three individual accounts show up. I just wish they remained hidden from view like in previous versions.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

You must uncheck "All" in View > Folders

Comment 6

[Tom]

If I uncheck "All", then I lose all my folders under my unified account.

Comment 7

[Tom]

Everything worked fine previously. This only changed with the new Thunderbird 111 beta.

Comment 8

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Folder modes are pretty broken atm yes. Bug 1816820?

Comment 9

[Tom]

Like I mentioned before, everything was working fine until this latest update. Hopefully it will be corrected soon.

Comment 10

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Tom from comment #4)

I'm using the Unified account, but in previous versions of Thunderbird, the three individual accounts were hidden from view. In this new beta version, when I launch Thunderbird, those three individual accounts show up. I just wish they remained hidden from view like in previous versions.

This is TB guru stuff. Reporter is not using Unified Folders, this about an advanced feature of POP accounts somewhat inappropriately called Defer Account (Bug 1546083) involving Global Inbox. This can be used so that incoming POP messages of the deferred account will just be directly put into another inbox instead, which must be either Global Inbox (under Local Folders), or another POP account's inbox (for obvious reasons, no IMAP allowed). Reporter is right, in old versions, when you set this up, this used to nuke the entire inbox of the deferred acccount without backup (after a warning which really doesn't make this dataloss clear enough). However, I've just tested this in 102.6.1 (sic) and we are no longer nuking the inbox, which imo is better (sort of). I'll add some screenshots for documentation of the feature which reporter is using and its effects in 102.

Comment 11

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Screenshot A: How to enable "defer" feature to receive POP messages in `Global Inbox` of Local Folders

Here's how to enable reporter's scenario of "defer" feature to receive POP messages in Global Inbox of Local Folders. Reporter enabled this on some old version, which hides the entire folder structure of the deferring account whose new (!) messages will then get downloaded into another, "global" inbox (under Local Folders, or another POP account). Iiuc, reporter's problem then is that the update made those nuked/hidden account folders reappear in the folder pane.

Steps for enabling the feature (without the old version/update scenario):

Warning: Do not try this on a production POP account, as the account will disappear from your UI including its messages, which is perceived dataloss (and other chaos if your account has filters or other connections to the rest of your app). That said, in my test on 102, the actual folder files containing the old messages remained available in the profile folder.

1. `≡ > Account Settings
2. Select YourAccount > Server Settings
3. Near Message Storage, click Advanced... button to get Advanced Account Settings dialog (see screenshot)
4. For When downloading mail from this account's server, use the following folder to store new messages: Choose (o) Inbox for different account
5. Choose Global Inbox (Local Folders)
6. If you are sure that you have an external backup of all messages in the originating POP account, and if you are ready for your POP account's folders/messages being nuked after restart of TB, confirm the warning to enable "defer" feature (see next screenshot).

Comment 12

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Screenshot B: `Defer Account` warning dialog (this used to cause real dataloss in previous versions)

Defer Account warning dialog: Enabling this for an existing POP account with messages in Inbox will hide the account's folder hierarchy and existing messages from the folder pane (perceived dataloss), and may affect other accounts via filters or shared folder use.

Comment 13

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Screenshot C: Folder structures before and after enabling `Defer account` feature

Here's the folder structures before and after enabling Defer account feature (tested on 102.6.1 (64-bit), Win10), and an illustration of how it works:

• In my test on 102.6.1, originating account's folder structure and messages remained intact and unmoved, but don't bet on that! disappeared after restart of TB, which is perceived dataloss.
• Under Local Folders (which can be renamed by user), a new folder Inbox was created for downloading the messages of the deferred POP account. That's the Global Inbox.
• When you get new messages for the originating account, they will be directly downloaded into the Global Inbox, as seen and indicated in the screenshot. Note: Only if you enable Include this server when getting new mail in the Advanced Account Settings dialog, the originating account will also be polled whenever you get messages for the Global Inbox.

Comment 14

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Bug 1546083 - Change "defer" (for redirecting accounts to some global inbox) to some other verb and provide stronger dataloss warnings

Comment 15

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Screenshot C-2: Folder structures before and after enabling `Defer account` feature

Turns out there's another twist when setting up Defer account (on 102.6.1 (64-bit), Win10).

• Perceived dataloss is real - after restarting Thunderbird, the deferred account disappears completely from the folder pane UI, including all old messages therein, so from a general user's POV, the data is gone.
• However, when double-checking on the underlying profile folder, all the folder data files are still there and could be recovered if the user is privy to such advanced information and procedures.
• Of course, the deferred account will still be present in Get messages button and Account Settings for functional purposes.

Comment 16

[Tom]

My whole point was that this is an issue only with the latest beta version of Thunderbird and not an ongoing issue with previous versions of Thunderbird.

Comment 17

[fyz]

I agree with Tom, I have the same issue, and it occurred with the latest beta version of Thunderbird, until the update everything worked fine. Thomas D. is describing another problem. Btw., I tried to redirect the account inbox from the global inbox to another account and after the restart back to the global inbox, finally without a change. Emails go properly to the global inbox, but the account, which was originally hidden, is still displayed including its own inbox (although it remains empty because emails go to the global inbox) and can't be hidden.

Comment 18

[Ilja Rogoff]

112.0b7 still has this bug. Using of global inbox doesn't hide the account in the folder pane. When using several pop3-accounts this is quite nasty.

Comment 19

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I think we have enough reports here to confirm there is an issue.

Comment 21

[Geoff Lankow (:darktrojan) [OOO, back 5 Jan]]

Attachment: Bug 1817508 - Hide deferred POP3 accounts from the folder tree. r=mkmelin

Comment 22

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/f10ba21cc486
Hide deferred POP3 accounts from the folder tree. r=mkmelin

Comment 23

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Comment on attachment 9328258 [details]
Bug 1817508 - Hide deferred POP3 accounts from the folder tree. r=mkmelin

[Triage Comment]
Approved for beta

Comment 24

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Thunderbird 113.0b3:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-beta/rev/fa76e4f0bd58

Comment 25

[Tom]

It's working now.
Thank you

Comment 26

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Tom from comment #25)

It's working now.

Working with what version?

Comment 27

[Tom]

Thunderbird 113.0b3