1976327 - Thunderbird does not check e-mail address format sufficiently - should not allow address ending with dot

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Sven P]

Attachment: TB To-field validation error.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:140.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/140.0

Steps to reproduce:

1. Write an e-mail. In the To-field add an e-mail-address ending with a dot, such as [e-mail].
2. Send this e-mail

Actual results:

1. The e-mail-provider (in this case: GMX.de) sends an error message, referring to https://postmaster.gmx.net/en/case?c=hi&i=ip&v=86.103.57.60&r=1MysRk-1uvq4O3pfm-00xqRY.
2. TB shows error message with title "Send Message Error", see attachment. Unfortunately I was not able to copy the message text or URL from the error window because this just did not work.

Expected results:

1. TB validates the given e-mail-address before sending, see RFC 5321.
2. In case of a validation error TB shows a meaningful error message and asks the user for correction. If possible, TB suggests a corrected e-mail-address (I think, in this case this would have been possible).
3. In case of a received server error, which cannot be handled beforehand, TB shows a clickable link button with a human-readable, meaningful error message and an advice to solve the problem. TB also allows the user to copy the message from the error windows.

Comment 1

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

We should probably remove the ending dot automatically before finalizing the address pill. Such dots can easily happen for copy-paste.

Comment 2

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Though replacing could be error prone (esp. as we also have mail lists to consider).
But we should add the warning it's invalid.

Comment 3

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Attachment: Bug 1976327 - Don't say address pill ending with with any of .,:;!?- is valid. r=#thunderbird-reviewers

When copy-pasting from somehwere, these could easily be found after the address

Comment 4

[Sven P]

Exactly, the error was caused by copy & paste.
Speaking of copy & paste, we should IMHO consider one or more trailing whitespaces, too.
AFAIK the complete mail address spec is given in RFC 5322. Regarding comment 2: in RFC 5322, section 3.4 I found something about distribution lists (e. g. mail lists): "This is done by giving a display name for the group, followed by a colon, followed by a comma-separated list of any number of mailboxes (including zero and one), and ending with a semicolon."
I hope this helps.

Comment 5

[Sven P]

(In reply to Sven P from comment #0)

2. [...] Unfortunately I was not able to copy the message text or URL from the error window because this just did not work.
   Regarding this (UI related) part of my report, I filed bug #1976565.

Comment 6

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Yes, comma and semicolon have special meaning. At the point I'm adding the check they should already be handled by code running before it - and would be invalid in that context.

Comment 7

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/45035b144f5a
Don't say address pill ending with with any of .,:;!?- is valid. r=tobyp