1872595 - Thunderbird "Apply columns to" still fails after 1846127) - (seems to give up part way through a large number (maybe 150-ish) of folders

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Paul Hatton]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

Wayne Mery asked me to open this as a new bug after I posted in the Mozilla Support Forum.

The bug that was described as fixed in the Thunderbird 115.5.2 (64 bit) Release Notes:

"Apply columns to" sometimes failed to apply columns to a root folder and its descendants

(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1846127)

is still present in 115.6.0 (64-bit) - at least for me on Win10. It seems to give up part way through a large number (maybe 150-ish but I haven't counted) of folders, in that the first several (I haven't counted) folders are correct but after a point the columns remain unchanged. Foe accounts with a small number of folders this seems to work as expected. Happens in Safe Mode as well.

To reproduce:

• select IMAP account such as [e-mail]
• Select 'Inbox'
• right-click on column header bar set desired column headers
• 'Apply columns to' > 'folder and it's children' >[e-mail] >[e-mail]
• get pop up asking if I want to apply to all [e-mail] folders - click on OK.

This is IMAP access to email accounts, one of which is [e-mail] as shown in the steps above, hosted on a domain at UK2.net

Actual results:

Nothing changed. It did not apply same column headers as set in Inbox.

Expected results:

All other folders in the mail account to have same set of column headers as the 'Inbox'.

Comment 1

[Abrena]

Thunderbird 115.6.0 (32-bit) - Windows 10 Pro 22H2 build 19045.3803

I can confirm a behavior still erratic of this feature since the fix.

What changed is that it didn't work at all before the fix. It now works at least for some of the folders, even a large number of folders, but seem to fail for some, including their descendants (I might be wrong on that).

In my case, the folder trees I tried to apply a column setting to were local folders, not remote IMAP folders.

Comment 2

[lrdix]

Thunderbird 115.6.0, 64 bit, Linux Mint 21.3

I had (and still have) the problem that “Apply columns to” applied to Local Folders when viewing an IMAP Inbox did nothing. It did work when I applied it from the same IMAP Inbox to the IMAP Inbox of a different mail account. That is all testing I have done. It would seem the problem is only with Local Folders.

Comment 3

[Paul Hatton]

I still have this pronlem with IMAP mail accounts. Whilst this may well affect Local Folders (I don't use them to any extent) it emphatically is not just limited to local folders. Note that I use Thunderbird on Windows while Irdix uses Linux which might, or might not, be relevant. For me, it works OK to some extent on some acounts for some of the time but I can't get an absolutely repeatable failure on a specific account for all of the time. It seems to fail more reliably on an account with many (maybe 100+ but I've not counted) folders and sub-folders.

Comment 4

[Abrena]

(In reply to Paul Hatton from comment #3)

I still have this pronlem with IMAP mail accounts. Whilst this may well affect Local Folders (I don't use them to any extent) it emphatically is not just limited to local folders.

I can confirm occurrences in both cases.

Comment 5

[Abrena]

In my case, the "root" folder to which I try to apply the columns configuration seems to always be configured. It looks like if one of its children is left unconfigured, all of the descendants of that folder are left unconfigured too. (Maybe someone can confirm?)

Comment 6

[Abrena]

Also, if somehow setting a custom default columns configuration might be a big ask, I'm sure many would appreciate if newly created sub-folders would inherit the column and view configuration of their parent folder, and that might be easier to accomplish?

Comment 7

[betterbird.project+18]

It gives up when encountering a folder with a corrupt database file.
https://github.com/Betterbird/thunderbird-patches/blob/main/128/bugs/1872595-apply-columns-fault-tolerant.patch

Comment 8

[Hartmut Welpmann [:welpy-cw]]

Attachment: Bug 1872595 - Continue applying columns/current view to child folders after an error occurred. r=mkmelin

Based on https://github.com/Betterbird/thunderbird-patches/blob/main/128/bugs/1872595-apply-columns-fault-tolerant.patch

Comment 9

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/0e51933de229
Continue applying columns/current view to child folders after an error occurred. r=mkmelin

Comment 11

[Hartmut Welpmann [:welpy-cw]]

Comment on attachment 9425518 [details]
Bug 1872595 - Continue applying columns/current view to child folders after an error occurred. r=mkmelin

[Approval Request Comment]
User impact if declined: Applying columns/current view to child folder is aborted if an error occurs.
Testing completed (on c-c, etc.): c-c and beta (for a month)
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky): very low

Comment 12

[Hartmut Welpmann [:welpy-cw]]

Release Note Request (optional, but appreciated)
[Suggested wording]: Continue applying columns/current view to child folders even if it failed for one folder.

Comment 13

[Corey Bryant]

Comment on attachment 9425518 [details]
Bug 1872595 - Continue applying columns/current view to child folders after an error occurred. r=mkmelin

[Triage Comment]
Approved for esr128

Comment 14

[Daniel Darnell [:dandarnell]]

Thunderbird 128.4.3esr:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-esr128/rev/9ec095043a0e

Comment 15

[Vlad Lucaci, Thunderbird QA (:vlucaci)]

Confirming this issue as verified fixed with 128.4.3(20241108210256) on macOS 14, Windows 11 and Ubuntu 24.