192562 - Unreasonably long subject lines are permitted when sending (should warn and/or limit subject length)

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Composition, defect)

Description

[Matthew Wilcox]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021226 Debian/1.2.1-9
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021226 Debian/1.2.1-9

Nikolay Semenov <[e-mail]> pasted into the Subject field instead of
the body text, and mozilla permitted him to send it.  I believe mozilla should
limit him to something more reasonable.  Reasonable is arguable, of course, but
256 characters seems reasonable to me.  After all, my terminal window is only 80
characters.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Select a n unreasonably large amount of text
2. Paste it into the Subject field
3. Click send

Actual Results:  
The message is sent

Expected Results:  
Declained to send the message with an appropriate error message.

Nicolai was running Mozilla on Windows (don't know which version of either).
I can reproduce this problem with the current mozilla 1.2 in debian.

Comment 1

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

GNKSA?

confirming - considerably request.

re mailinglist archive URL: hahahahaha :-)

Comment 2

[Benedikt Kantus]

I think Moz should at least pop up a warning.

Personally, I believe it problematic to decline the sending of an email with a
long subject. It should at least be possible, shouldn't it? A warning with
Yes/No would be suitable.

Comment 3

[Matthew Wilcox]

As you can see, a message with such a long subject line is more of a problem for
the recipient than for the sender...

as a compromise, how about a warning at 160 characters and a hard limit at 800?
(respectively two lines and ten lines on an 80x25 screen)

Comment 4

[Benedikt Kantus]

I could agree with that. Maybe we should wait what Seth says?

Comment 5

[John Moreno]

This would be fine with the GNKSA, although I'd suggest using the 
standard maximum line length (998 characters including the header 
name and space, plus CRLF, possibly one less for servers with one off 
issues), instead of just 800.

Trying to send an unfolded header longer than that /will/ cause 
propagation problems, so that's definitely the max.

Comment 6

[Karl Palsson]

I think this is the most appropriate place for my comment...

Currently (moz 1.4b) (I presume that this won't have changed anytime soon)
mozilla doesn't handle receiving these long subject lines at all well anyway.

I want to be able to see the whole thing, as long it arrived.

Howevever, even with full headers turned on, the subject line is still treated
as a "special" header and only goes to the end of the line.  I can actually see
more of the subject in the title bar than in the mail itself.

I think this goes hand in hand with the blocking of overly long subjects.

Cheers,
Karl P

Comment 7

[Matthew Wilcox]

It's been a year since I reported this bug.  It doesn't seem like it should be
terribly hard to fix for someone who knows the code.  Has it just fallen off the
radar?

Comment 8

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

There are many, much more severe bugs.

Comment 9

[Tobias Burnus]

Q: What should happen if one replies to an email with an insane long Subject
(such as CVS commit emails which lists all files changed)?
I'm not sure whether cropping the subject is always the best idea.

Comment 10

[Stewart Gordon]

Another reason to avoid excessively long subject lines is that I've known
Outlook Express to choke on them.  I'm not sure what its limit is....

Comment 11

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

sorry for the spam.  making bugzilla reflect reality as I'm not working on these bugs.  filter on FOOBARCHEESE to remove these in bulk.

Comment 12

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Karl Palsson from comment #6)
> Currently (moz 1.4b) (I presume that this won't have changed anytime soon)
> mozilla doesn't handle receiving these long subject lines at all well anyway.

That's related bug 77806 for *receiving* msgs with long subjects.