183162 - blank message pane whenever I open a mail message

Status: VERIFIED WORKSFORME

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect)

Description

[kingparrots]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.2.x)

Every mail message I open is completely blank in any of the Mozilla builds 1.2x

I can download messages OK, but when I double-click on them or hit enter to open
them, I can't read anything - they're completely blank.

The "Stop" icon is "on", seemingly indicating that the message is still opening,
but nothing happens, even if I leave my PC alone for 5 mins or more.

Mozilla 1.1 seems unaffected, and so I have returned to using this after trying
to adjust every setting I can when using Mozilla 1.2.x

I'm using IMAP on my Win98 PC, connecting to a mail server running RH Linux. Not
sure what the IMAP mail server is - I'll try and ask a sysadmin tomorrow.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open Mail
2. Wait for messages to download
3. Double-click or hit enter to view a mesage

Comment 1

[R.K.Aa.]

are you using a compatible theme, and did you follow the Installation Notes?

Comment 2

[kingparrots]

No, I'm not using themes, and yes, I did follow the installation notes.

Comment 3

[James Graham]

Does this still happen if you use a new profile?

Comment 4

[kingparrots]

Yes, this still happens even after I add a new email account/profile in Mozilla
connected to the same mail server (using another virtual server name), and try
opening messages from any of my mailboxes.

Comment 5

[R.K.Aa.]

Can you please try quit mozilla, and also quickstart if you use that.
Make sure mozilla processes are running - kill what's left.
Then delete the file XUL.mfl in your profile directory, and restart mozilla.
(XUL.mfl will be re-created on starup of missing)

Does that change anything?

Comment 6

[R.K.Aa.]

Correction;
.."Make sure NO mozilla processes are running"..

Comment 7

[kingparrots]

Thanks, but no, this didn't fix it.

I followed your suggestions, but still experienced the same problem after
restarting Mozilla.

Comment 8

[laurel]

*** Bug 187276 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[laurel]

*** Bug 186339 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 10

[kingparrots]

I've changed PC's at work (now using WinNT, was using Win98 previously), and am 
not experiencing this problem any more, which led me to think that:
a) it's not a problem with our particular mail server, which I thought may have 
been part of the problem previously
b) it could be a Win98 thing

but then I saw that 2 other bugs very similar to this problem had been reported 
on other Win OS', including WinNT, and are now marked as duplicates of this bug.

Given that these 2 bugs are now marked as duplicates, shouldn't this bug be 
tagged as "Confirmed"?

Also, forgot to report earlier that on my Win98 PC, messages were only blank if 
I double clicked on them to open them. If I used Mail in 3 pane mode (with 
mailboxes running down the left, the mailbox index in top right, and the 
individual mail message bottom right), then I could read mail messages. I could 
NOT open or view attachments howevet, so this bug could well be related to 
attachment handling.

Comment 11

[Todd]

Hi All,

   I just installed 1.3.0.2003011108 (w2k-p, sp3) in a seperate directory.
No symptom change.  :-(

--Tony
[e-mail]

Comment 12

[Todd]

Hi All,

   Just fixed this puppy on my machine.  I created a seperate mail folder
called "Temp", then moved all my inbox messages to it.  At this point
Mozilla still thought I had one unread message in my inbox, so I exited 
Mozilla and restarted.  Now no unread messages.  Then one-by-one copied 
all my messages from "Temp" back to the inbox.  There must have been
a corruption somewhere in my inbox.  Now I can double click on my inbox
messages and a seperate window comes up.

--Tony

Comment 13

[Simon Crute]

I'm having this problem as well. 

I'm running on Mozilla 1.2.1 with Enigmail and the spell checker installed. 
Running on Windows 2000 SP3. 

In a previous bug (816339) deleting the abook.mab seemed to work for me, ( I
have no idea how though, cos now I know what that file does)

This ocurance of the problem I've tried the following. 
Moving all my inbox mail to another folder.
renaming the imap/mailserver directory and mailserver.msf file and restarting.
removing the cache directory and restarting
changing the theeme. 
removing the XUL.mfl file and restarting

None of these have helped me fix the problem. 
I'm going to create a new profile to get working again, but I'll keep this
broken one to help trouble shooting. 

Comment 14

[R.K.Aa.]

*** Bug 198882 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[James Harris]

Have same issue with 1.3 on Win XP attaching to IMAP mail server. Sometimes
closing Moz will resolve the issue othertimes not, and will have to reboot XP to
get to the message again. Appears intermittent but happens more often after the
mail front-end has been open for a while. Dosen't seem to happen with HTML
formatted mail, just text.

Comment 16

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Dupe of Bug 189370?  That bug is marked as fixed due to the fix for Bug 106461: 
Mozilla now handles corruption of abook.mab correctly.

Comment 17

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

kingparrots, have you tried a recent build (1.4b) to see if your problem has 
been fixed, per comment 16?

Comment 18

[kingparrots]

Mike,
I've been using 1.4b on my work machine (WinNT), and still experience this
problem intermittently with particular messages.

When it occurs, some messages open with a blank window, and it doesn't matter
how many times I try reopening them, they still remain blank, until I quit
Mozilla entirely, and then restart Mozilla (don't need to restart WinNT).

Confusingly, when this problem occurs, I can open other messages without any
problems. I haven't spotted a trend yet as to why some messages are affected,
and others not, but I'll keep on looking. It doesn't appear to be related to
attachments, as it often happens with plain text messages, and it can happen
within only a few minutes of having Mozilla running.

Comment 19

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

kingparrotsATyahoo.com: Do you still see this issue with a current Mozilla
build? This wfm with a current Mozilla trunk build on win2k.

Comment 20

[Mark Terrel]

*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***

Comment 21

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

does anyone still see this?

WFM current trunk, and reporter's address is invalid.

Comment 22

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

=> WFM