218998 - Username/Password prompts should specify News account name

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(MailNews Core :: Networking: NNTP, defect)

Description

[tironsi]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624

There is a prompt that comes up and asks for the user name for the news server
since I have in the settings to check for news every so often. However, I have
two news accounts that I have set up. The prompt window however does not specify
which account it is checking, and therefore I don't know which username to give
it. I imagine there are other such prompts for password prompts and if they
behave this way they should also be fixed.

I am using: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.2 (20030901)

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Ronald Killmer]

Running TB 1.0.2 official Win32 build on Win ME.  Since user/pass is used for
two NNTP servers this server ID request will be usefull.  I get the dialog
frequently because Pass Mgr keeps dropping the user/pass for news.annexcafe.com
and am not sure that it is not for it or mozilla.dev.org.  If the password
manager bugs get fixed this issue would drop to RFE class of action.

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

*** Bug 336101 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3

[Maurits]

bug still there one Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 ID:2007032621

dupe/ similar bug 187406 for Seamonkey (formerly known as Mozilla suite)

Comment 5

[Ronald Killmer]

Adding Josh to the CC

Is this a case that can be tested with the Fake Servers and a copy of Shredder having two or more news accounts. Then serially have the server throw the 50x responses and watch how Shredder responds.

The same basic testing method could be applied to the other protocols to sort out Connection versus other server responses. The advantage is not having to wait for "In the Wild" feedback. A plus would be additional Unit Testing to run against new builds.

Looks like this bug needs some way to grab an account name property as a variable to insert into the User alert dialog.

Comment 6

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to comment #5)
> Adding Josh to the CC
> 
> Is this a case that can be tested with the Fake Servers and a copy of Shredder
> having two or more news accounts. Then serially have the server throw the 50x
> responses and watch how Shredder responds.

That won't do anything useful. We just need to actually put the account & server details in the dialog.

Comment 9

[:Hb]

Why isn't the user name set in the settings for a news account? 

Is more than one user name for a news server necessary as bug 185427 requests?

Bug 66860 requests more information in the status bar while polling. This can help in this issue (if the status bar is displayed).

Comment 10

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

One of my goals is to update the news authentication as the other protocols' auths were, which would probably fix this bug by proxy.

The reason for the current news auth implementation is that NNTP can be used unauthenticated, with only a username, or with a username and password. Not to mention that you can have multiple groups each with different authentication, and that only some actions may require authentication. In POP and IMAP, authentication is generally the first thing you do and required for everything else.

In practice, though, different groups requiring different credentials is rare, and authing with just a username is even rarer.

Comment 11

[JC Dill]

It's been EIGHT YEARS and this bug has still not been fixed.  I have been vexed with this bug many times over the years.  Is it really that difficult to include the account name (and usename if it has already been provided for the account) in the password requested prompt box?

I'm having a problem where I get the box twice in succession, and no amount of entering a password and checking the "save" box is working.  I've deleted my second usenet account so that I can be certain I'm entering the right password for the single account that remains.  This is a real bear of a bug, when it crops up it makes my day maddening because it keeps interrupting other work, swapping back to Thunderbird to demand the password (which it doesn't save), and having to remove my second account to make sure I'm entering the password for the sole account (which I have just re-verified thru the account's web interface) and yet it doesn't work and doesn't save.  Maddening, I tell you.  If you could fix THIS bug then I could at least be certain that there isn't some ghost account requesting a password instead of the account I have remaining in my accounts list.

Comment 12

[John David Galt]

Comment 11 appears to be bug 702038.

Comment 16

[Ronald Killmer]

(In reply to Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer] from comment #10)
> In practice, though, different groups requiring different credentials is
> rare, and authing with just a username is even rarer.

While generally true for public NNTP servers, there are some semi-private servers which host blocks of groups with distinctive authentications. An example is news.annexcafe.com which hosts groups for AA, yet the moderator also has a separate auth for Admin groups.

As a first cut, just getting the master server level reported correctly in the dialog would be a great help to users troubleshooting NNTP auth errors. Capability for group level reporting would be +10.

Comment 17

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

This bug has been fixed by dependency.

(In reply to Ronald Killmer from comment #16)
> As a first cut, just getting the master server level reported correctly in
> the dialog would be a great help to users troubleshooting NNTP auth errors.
> Capability for group level reporting would be +10.

If you inspect the patch on bug 201750, you'll find that I already change the strings depending on whether or not the server is set up for per-group reporting or not. The last time I had looked at this bug, I had forgotten that we already have per-group support (we just have no UI for it).