Closed Bug 1844149 Opened 2 years ago Closed 1 year ago

Subject of an email thread can be wrong

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect, P1)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Folder and Message Lists
Version:
Thunderbird 115
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: clement.lefevre, Unassigned)

References

Details

Attachments

(1 file)

Bug_Subject.JPG
92.59 KB, image/jpeg
Details

First I'm not sure of the component, as the issue is affecting both the emails list and the email reading interface.

I've got a little email threads (three messages) where the first one have a correct content, From and To displayed, but the subject is wrong in both the emails list and the emails reading interface.

For the emails list, this is presented as this:

A completely unrelated subject to the thread (from another thread)
|__ The correct email thread subject 
|__ The correct email thread subject

Hard to post a screenshot without showing some private info. The raw sources of the email are fine and shows the correct subject.

Note that the issue persist after Thunderbird restart and that the email with the correct subject was of only one email, the second one being a dupe from bug 1844007

See Also: → 1844007
Version: unspecified → Thunderbird 115

Clement, are you still seeing this when using 115.2.3 or 115.3.0 (available hopefully later this week)?

Flags: needinfo?(clement.lefevre)
See Also: → 1849713
See Also: → 1852294

This is difficult to tell, as now that https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/gmail-conversation-view/ has been fixed and is usable in versions 115.x I don't bother unfolding threads anymore and just select them to show every emails in it.

I can try to randomly unfold some here and there to keep an eye on it, but I need to think about this.

Was there some specific commits to fix this kind of issues?

Flags: needinfo?(clement.lefevre)

Note that along with that line, I already got in the past an issue where an email unrelated to a thread was appearing inside it. This is a very rare bug, but it happened sometimes, and I've absolutely no information about that one.

Was there some specific commits to fix this kind of issues?

Not possible to say without knowing the cause of your issue, which has not been determined.

When I have this problem, it helps to repair the folder.

Right-click on the folder > Properties > Repair Folder

Seems to have also been reported as bug1860518 (also has screenshots) and bug1860805.

I can also confirm this. This is embarrassing us because replies leak the wrong subjects.

What I know so far:

  • Once a mail has the wrong subject in Thunderbird, it is wrong everywhere (in preview pane, message window, quick filter uses the wrong subject, reply to uses the wrong subject) except in source view. The correct subject will never again occur by itself as far as I can see.
  • "Repair folder" fixes the subject, but problem will just reappear for other mails again.
  • Did not happen in the past, started to occur around upgrade to 115.x. Now happens sporadically, sometimes more than daily.
  • Happens for myself and several colleagues, on completely unrelated installations.
  • Using Ubuntu 22.04 x86_64 with the Ubuntu-provided Thunderbird.
  • Last known occurrence with Thunderbird 115.5.0, currently testing with 115.5.2.
  • We do use encrypted emails (as the reporters of the linked bugs also do). I cannot say for certain whether it happens only with signed or encrypted mails, though. Will keep an eye out.

If there is any other useful info that I could provide, please tell me. I would be highly interested in helping to identify this bug, and could for example also run a debug version of Thunderbird or so, if something like this exists.

Duplicate of this bug: 1860805

There were duplicates of this severe bug, so let us solve it here.
I have encountered the problem on Win10, 115.5.2 (64-Bit). The bug was also reported on Linux and a friend told me he ran into this nasty bug on Apple 115.5.2 (64-Bit).

Duplicate of this bug: 1860518

In my opinion this (bug 1844149) has nothing to do with the wrongly referenced bug 1844007

Attached image Bug_Subject.JPG —

The subject is obviously not the right one.

A big +1 to what Philipp Wendler said, we also use encrypted emails (GPG), same issue, we consider it a HUGE privacy/security issue. We were very close to leaking sensitive data to a competitor because of this.

MacOS 13.6.4, Thunderbird 115.8.0 here. Also Linux, same issues.

Repairing the folder helps, but by then the privacy/security incident already happened.

Never had this kind of issue with non-threaded view, but if I'm not mistaken a recent major Thunderbird update switched automatically to threaded-view and I kept it. Approach for now: Repair folders and avoid Threaded view like the plague, see if it helps.

Other user reporting the same issue recently [German] https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/wrong-subject-shown-in-thunderbird-115-8-0-64-bit-for-mac/m-p/53486#M18979
Very well possible that this is also caused by a filter like in Bug 1368519 (we use filters).
Could have the same root cause as Bug 1855962
Other people having similar issue 8 years ago https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1105651
Might be a duplicate of Bug 457094 (16 years though).

Sounds like a duplicate of bug 1860977
which was fixed in 115.8.1

See the security advisory here:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2024-11/#CVE-2024-1936

(In reply to Kai Engert (:KaiE:) from comment #13)

Sounds like a duplicate of bug 1860977
which was fixed in 115.8.1

See the security advisory here:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2024-11/#CVE-2024-1936

Indeed!

I guess it would be time then to close bugs Bug 1368519, Bug 457094 and potentially also Bug 1855962 and referencing this issue.

(In reply to floyd from comment #14)

(In reply to Kai Engert (:KaiE:) from comment #13)

Sounds like a duplicate of bug 1860977
which was fixed in 115.8.1

See the security advisory here:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2024-11/#CVE-2024-1936

Indeed!

I guess it would be time then to close bugs Bug 1368519, Bug 457094 and potentially also Bug 1855962 and referencing this issue.

I agree, as the problem seems to have vanished, also for a few contacts of mine whom I just asked and they confirmed.
Additionally this duplicate can be closed bug 1860805
Thank you all

I'm not sure, looking at previous messages, the other issues you're referencing seems to be linked to PGP-encrypted emails.
Those weren't using PGP and were plain unencrypted emails.

The Bug is still not solved with the update on Version 115.8.1 (64-Bit)
It can't be happening that I have to repair my inbox every time to avoid replying to emails that arrive at the recipient with a sensitive subject from another email.

In my case, for example, it is the subject of a previously encrypted email but the content of an external email without encryption. If I reply to the external email and don't realise beforehand that the subject doesn't belong to the email, the external person sees sensitive data such as "Onboarding first name last name". This is insane!

(In reply to bindereif from comment #17)

The Bug is still not solved with the update on Version 115.8.1 (64-Bit)

Can you reproduce this and are you sure that these are not old mails where the subject is still wrong?

Yes, they were emails from yesterday and today.
I can't reproduce it, but I suspect that it sometimes happens when I delete mails in my inbox.

(In reply to s.lechner from comment #18)

(In reply to bindereif from comment #17)

The Bug is still not solved with the update on Version 115.8.1 (64-Bit)

Can you reproduce this and are you sure that these are not old mails where the subject is still wrong?

Yes, they were emails from yesterday and today.
I can't reproduce it, but I suspect that it sometimes happens when I delete mails in my inbox.

I get the feeling some of you here brought in a completely different bug in that one.
When I reported this bug, I didn't have an encrypted email for years. This is completely unrelated to encrypted emails.

(In reply to Clément Lefèvre from comment #21)

I get the feeling some of you here brought in a completely different bug in that one.
When I reported this bug, I didn't have an encrypted email for years. This is completely unrelated to encrypted emails.

I created a new bug 8 month ago: bug 1860518, but someone said it is a duplicate of this one and it was closed but not solved.

No longer duplicate of this bug: 1860518

I have reopened bindereif's bug 1860518.

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #23)

I have reopened bindereif's bug 1860518.

Note this might still be a dupe, I don't know, it's just that the last couple of messages were becoming more and more focused on encrypted messages while the bug I reported had nothing to do with it.

Is anyone experiencing this with non-threaded view or is everyone having the issue with threaded view?

(In reply to floyd from comment #25)

Is anyone experiencing this with non-threaded view
yes

The bug was mentioned as a problem with email encryption, for two reasons:

  • if an email has an encrypted subject message, the initial subject could have been a placeholder (such as "..."),
    and at the time the message is decrypted, Thunderbird would write a copy of the cleartext into its
    message database. That allows TB to show the cleartext subject in message lists.
    (This is a behavior which had been implemented in the past in the Enigmail add-on,
    and the behavior was kept when the Enigmail code was integrated into Thunderbird's core.)

  • a leaked subject of an encrypted message can be considered worse than other subject mixup,
    because the encrypted subject shouldn't be shown in any other context.

The cause of the bug was (or is) parallel processing of more than one email, which could happen for a variety of reasons.
One example, user clicks a message, and the message takes some time to load completely, the user clicks another email during that period.
Another example are tabs. If Thunderbird has messages in tabs open, the messages might load in parallel.

When loading a message has completed, and an decrypted subject is available, a notification is sent across Thunderbird's internal code, with a request to update the message database.

This code is supposed to have self protection - it's supposed to check that the origin of the subject belongs to the entry in the message database that we want to update.

We had that check in the past. But that check was accidentally removed in bug 1803255.

Bug 1860977 should have restored that check.

If users still experience mixed up subjects with 115.8.1 and later, even with unencrypted messages,
we should investigate in which situations we store the subject e.g. in the message database.

Maybe there is another race in our code which can cause a subject to be assigned to the wrong message.

In which situations does Thunderbird's code update the subject in its message database?

Severity: -- → S2
Priority: -- → P1

I would encourage people to also try beta. Many aspects around this are significantly different there, and there would be no knowing whether the bug still exists based on v115 reports.

(In reply to Kai Engert (:KaiE:) from comment #27)

  • a leaked subject of an encrypted message can be considered worse than other subject mixup,
    because the encrypted subject shouldn't be shown in any other context.

I agree this is worse, even more considering I didn't knew the subject was also modified in replies. But also wanted to be cautious that the bug wasn't restrained to those emails when it was either more general or a different bug.

The cause of the bug was (or is) parallel processing of more than one email, which could happen for a variety of reasons.
One example, user clicks a message, and the message takes some time to load completely, the user clicks another email during that period.
Another example are tabs. If Thunderbird has messages in tabs open, the messages might load in parallel.

When loading a message has completed, and an decrypted subject is available, a notification is sent across Thunderbird's internal code, with a request to update the message database.

This code is supposed to have self protection - it's supposed to check that the origin of the subject belongs to the entry in the message database that we want to update.

We had that check in the past. But that check was accidentally removed in bug 1803255.

Bug 1860977 should have restored that check.

(In reply to Kai Engert (:KaiE:) from comment #28)

If users still experience mixed up subjects with 115.8.1 and later, even with unencrypted messages,
we should investigate in which situations we store the subject e.g. in the message database.

Maybe there is another race in our code which can cause a subject to be assigned to the wrong message.

Can huge threads also have an effect onto this? (Yes I'm looking at you https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=wayland and your thousands of messages until I cleaned some up). I also have different situations where TB shows signs of poor performances , could that create such issues? (Quick search and especially its cleaning where UI freeze for some time, including the time it looks for the message in the list because it want to scroll there, random notification sounds happening when there's no new messages, notification showing for a different message than the one just received, …). This is kinda a bit out of topic, but considering your explanation, I'm wondering if this could have an effect on this.

It's also hard for me to tell if issue's still around: I could only notice it with unfolded threads, which I had to do for the time https://github.com/thunderbird-conversations/thunderbird-conversations wasn't compatible with TB 115.x yet. After it was compatible again, I just went back at never unfolding threads, therefore unable to see if issue's still around.

PS: Note that I didn't opened issues for some of the aforementioned issues, but I have absolutely no STR and not a clue of which circumstances triggers these, so a report would be very empty-handed. And some issues like the Quick Search one maybe could be related to the addon, that's hard to tell…

I agree, as the problem seems to have vanished, also for a few contacts of mine whom I just asked and they confirmed.

Unfortunately the bug still seems to be present in 115.9.0 (64bit) at least on Win10Pro.

I just noticed a not encrypted email to recipient B that I had sent (forwarded) end of January that contains the wrong subject of another encrypted email to recipient A that I had send before. This wrong subject is shown after I just used the repair function for that folder, closed TB and then restarted TB. So teh repair function did not repair the problem, this is new and has not happened before.

Recipient B received that unencrypted email on and it does not carry the changed subject, is carries the correct subject. I have another installation of TB 115.8.0 (64bit) on Linux (installation is not 115.9.0 but 115.8.0!) and that email to recipient B carries the correct subject (also after repairing that folder).

To me it seems that all this really could have something to do with the message database.

(In reply to librelegal from comment #31)

I just noticed a not encrypted email to recipient B that I had sent (forwarded) end of January that contains the wrong subject of another encrypted email to recipient A that I had send before. This wrong subject is shown after I just used the repair function for that folder, closed TB and then restarted TB. So teh repair function did not repair the problem, this is new and has not happened before.

You say you had sent a "not encrypted email" to B in January.
You're looking at that message.
I assume you're looking at that message in your Sent folder, correct?
You say, that message has an incorrect subject.

The subject is shown in two places.

  • in the list of messages
  • in the header area, after the from and to lines.

Do those two places show the same subject text?

Now, please view the source of that message (hit CTRL-U).
Please search for "subject:" in that message.
(Hit CTRL-F, enter subject:, press enter, then hit CTRL-G to jump to additional places that contain the text.)
Using this procedure, you should be able to find the subject: that is carried in that message.

Does that line match the (incorrect) subject that was shown by Thunderbird above?

Flags: needinfo?(librelegal)

Please search for "subject:" in that message.

The Windows (visible in the GUI as incorrect subject) and the Linux (visible in the GUI as the correct subject) installations show in the header area show the same correct (!) subject after "User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird" and before "References:" This subject can be found only once in the header area.

The wrong subject visible in the Windows GUI cannot be found in the header search!

Flags: needinfo?(librelegal)

librelegal, I have trouble understanding your report. I think you haven't answered all my questions for clarification.

I'm referring only to your Linux computer, where you say the display is wrong, even after repairing.

I said there are three places where the subject can be seen:

  • in the message list
  • in the header area when displaying the individual message
  • in the message source

Please tell me, whether the same subject is shown in three places, or if you see different text.

I am sorry to have caused confusion, but the Linux / Debian installation never had any problems, in Linux the repair did nothing bad, after the repair all was still correct. I only referred to it to compare with Windows. Also I just contacted the recipient B of the non-encrypted message and got the confirmation that the visible subject was the correct subject, so at least in this case the recipient got the email with the correct subject.

If things are wrong, then please consider my question from comment 34 for your Windows computer.

On Windows regarding the three places I see the message:

  • in the message list: with the wrong subject
  • in the header area when displaying the individual message with the correct message, between "User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird" and "References" (I accessed that wit Crtl+U, https://www.lifewire.com/view-source-of-message-thunderbird-1173188)
  • in the message source: I am sorry, but I do not see the subject in a third place

For now 3 months I did not see this issue happen again, so it seems to have been solved. I suggest to close this bug. Thank you

(In reply to librelegal from comment #38)

For now 3 months I did not see this issue happen again, so it seems to have been solved. I suggest to close this bug. Thank you

Clément do you agree?

Flags: needinfo?(clement.lefevre)

I've not seen it recently either. The bug was appearing sporadically so it's hard to completely confirm it's gone, but I guess bug can be closed, and reopened if needs be.

EDIT: I was going to close as FIXED, but I'll let you do in case you'd think it should be something else.

Flags: needinfo?(clement.lefevre)

Thanks for the update

Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 1 year ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
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