1988288 - Option "Show missed reminders for writable calendars" makes no sense and switching it off by default leads to missing reminders for future events

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Calendar :: Alarms, defect)

Description

[Francesco]

Option "Show missed reminders for writable calendars" makes no sense and switching it off by default leads to missing reminders for future events.

Here's the long version.

Historically, pref calendar.alarms.showmissed was true, so when you connected an calendar, you were bombarded with reminders of past events which was highly annoying.

However, switching the default of the pref to false now leads to missed reminders, as bug 1976666, bug 1980982, bug 1983334 and bug 1977535 show.

Overall, the logic behind this option is faulty: You don't want to suppress missed reminders, you want to suppress reminders of missed events.

If the event is - say - tomorrow at 8 AM and the reminder was set to one day, and TB was started at 8:15 AM today, the reminder will be missed. That seems quite wrong.

Comment 6

[Totoche2607]

Hi,
Not only do I completely agree with Francesco, but I would also like to remind you that this option (Show missed reminders for writable calendars) does not work for tasks.
We don't miss “a few” tasks, but “almost all” of them.
Thank you

Comment 7

[Francesco]

@Totoche2607: You filed bug 1976629: "Old tasks (unfinished) no longer ring (missed reminders no longer shown)".

Does the "no longer" imply that it worked previously? In which version of TB? Does it work if you select this option:
"Show missed reminders for writable calendars"? If setting this option doesn't return the behaviour to the previous (good?) state, then this is a different issue (and "no longer" in the summary would be confusing).

Comment 8

[Alex]

Betterbird has a fix:

https://github.com/Betterbird/thunderbird-patches/blob/main/140/bugs/1988288-reminders-for-future-events.patch

Comment 9

[Totoche2607]

(In reply to Francesco from comment #7)

@Totoche2607: You filed bug 1976629: "Old tasks (unfinished) no longer ring (missed reminders no longer shown)".

Does the "no longer" imply that it worked previously? In which version of TB? Does it work if you select this option:
"Show missed reminders for writable calendars"? If setting this option doesn't return the behaviour to the previous (good?) state, then this is a different issue (and "no longer" in the summary would be confusing).

I think I remember it was between V128 and 140, around February...
But I juggled between versions a lot from then on, precisely to avoid this problem: too many “important” tasks not being handled...
So I first migrated to ‘esr’ to postpone the bug, then added a portable 128esr just for lightening (without email accounts) in double with a normal release version...

Comment 10

[Francesco]

OK, if it no longer works for tasks and the option "Show missed reminders for writable calendars" doesn't apply to tasks, then I incorrectly duplicated your bug here. I'll undo that.