1958255 - edits to identities should get reflected on the main account page when closing identities dialog

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, defect)

Description

[Gaetano Giunta]

Attachment: blank settings

Steps to reproduce:

I recently updated to TB 137.
Yesterday, I added a new account for an Outlook365 mailbox (IMAP server. I only had POP servers beforehand).

The account-setup wizard was completely unable to set up the new account btw, as it was not opening the web-page-browsing-window which Office uses to authorize TB. It just kept failing with a generic error message.
In the end I managed to set up the new account manually.

Actual results:

The data shown for the 1st page of the account settings is not persisted any more, ie. the whole set of settings is blank. When I edit them, they do not persist.

The same happens when I try to edit the same settings when clicking on the "manage identities" button instead of editing them directly in-page.

Last but not least, in the dropdown showing which email to use as sender in the email composition window, the name of the identity is now shown as "[NslMsgIdentity: N]" before the email address

Comment 1

[Gaetano Giunta]

Attachment: bad text in "from" control

Comment 2

[Gaetano Giunta]

Note about "The data shown for the 1st page of the account settings is not persisted any more, ie. the whole set of settings is blank. When I edit them, they do not persist." : this happens for all accounts, not just the newly-added one

Comment 3

[Gaetano Giunta]

ps: I just tried to add another SMTP server, and this fails too.

I suspect that the TB profile has become corrupted and that it will need some fixing before TB starts working normally again :-(

Comment 4

[Gaetano Giunta]

Further testing: I have

• reset the TB profile to a copy which I had made with TB version 128
• reinstalled TB 136.01
• set the windows registry key which prevents TB from autoupdating
• started TB with the -P option, to allow specifying an existing profile in a custom directory
• checked that the existing accounts were working ok, and that both pop and smpt server settings where ok

-> so far so good

then I tried editing the settings of the existing accounts/identities, with the following results:

• change the value of an "account name" field, then click on another account -> the account is renamed ok. When clicking back on its settings, the "account name" is blank again
• change the value of another field, then click on another account -> when coming back to that field, the value seems not to have been persisted
• change the value of an Identity attached to an account (eg. "Include signature for forwards"), click OK -> when coming back to that Identity, the value seems not to have been persisted

So it seems that this issue is not something which came about in TB 137.

I will carry out further testing with TB 137 and a fresh profile...

Comment 5

[Gaetano Giunta]

Testing with TB 137 and a fresh profile:

• I created 2 accounts. All ok, could get mail (tested IMAP and POP)
• tried editing "Default Identity" account settings: ok - they are persisted. Also, they are reflected into the matching Identity
• tried editing the same settings via "Manage Identities": almost ok
  • the settings are persisted if I change them, click ok, then click again "edit" in the identity-list dialog
  • but if I change them, click ok, then close the identity-list dialog, the settings page of the account does not reflect the changes...
  • ...until I move to another settings page then I come back - in which case the data shows what was set in the Identity

At this point, it looks like there are (at least) 3 issues at play:
A) profile corruption, most likely due to profile being very old and having been upgraded for many, many TB versions, makes it impossible to successfully edit accounts
B) an error when trying to create Office365 accounts via the setup wizard, due to TB not popping up the oauth2 webview window. Possibly related to A?
C) a missing refresh of data in the (main) Account Settings page, when the data is edited in the matching Identity

Comment 6

[Gaetano Giunta]

Another issue:

D) when trying to set up 2 accounts for 2 different mailboxes, using POP, on the same server (not gmail but siteground hosted email), I get an error message that "the same incoming mail server already exists"

:-(

Comment 7

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Which OS are you using?

For the initial issue, it does sound like some kind of profile corruption. Just upgrading from 128 should work even if the profile is old.

Comment 8

[Gaetano Giunta]

I am on Windows 10.

I do have as well a backup of the profile as it was around TB 78.
I'd be happy to share those for analysis (sans the actual emails), if there was an easy/safe way to remove all personal info from them...
Other than that, is there a "debug mode" or something to be enabled which would turn on verbose logging of why the editing of account settings fails?

Comment 9

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Since you tried a fresh profile, probably wouldn't help: but there is -safe-mode (Help | Troubleshoot Mode)
Check the Error console (Ctrl+Shift+J) for relevant errors

Comment 10

[Gaetano Giunta]

Thanks. I might try that later, if I have some more free time.

What about the issues with the account-creation wizard: should I open separate tickets for them?

Today I also found out that there is an issue with Office365 accounts (created using a "fresh" profile) - using the same username/password, I am able to receive mail but not send it. When trying to send, TB shows me a dialog with a button to "re-enter password", but when I click it nothing happens...

Comment 11

[Gaetano Giunta]

Today I also found out that there is an issue with Office365 accounts (created using a "fresh" profile) - using the same username/password, I am able to receive mail but not send it. When trying to send, TB shows me a dialog with a button to "re-enter password", but when I click it nothing happens...

This turned out to be due to a config in Office365 - it allows by default POP+IMAP, but not SMTP...
Still, it is a minor nuisance that when clicking on the button to "re-enter password", nothing happens.
Also, it would be nice if TB was giving pointers about getting detailed info about the connection errors whenever there are issues related to remote servers.

Comment 12

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Yes, a new bug for account creation.

Comment 13

[Gaetano Giunta]

OK, I created bug #1958792 about the issue with account creation.
I also added a comment to existing bug #1935379 about the dialog popping up when there are issues with oauth to smtp servers.

Comment 14

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Ok I think all that's left in this bug is to refresh the main page view when the identities dialog is closed.

Comment 15

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Attachment: Bug 1958255 - refresh the account main page when closing identities dialog - to reflect possible changes made to the identity there. r=#thunderbird-reviewers

Comment 16

[Gaetano Giunta]

Fine with me. Trying to reproduce the issue with the profile having got mangled through a long update history (or some disk corruption) looks like a lot of work for a hopefully infrequent case.

Comment 17

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/fea11fc3565d
refresh the account main page when closing identities dialog - to reflect possible changes made to the identity there. r=aleca