224335 - Cannot reach newsgroup by selecting a link to it.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 226890

(MailNews Core :: Networking: NNTP, defect)

Description

[David E. Ross]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007

If I select a link of the form [news://rec.gardens/], MailNews attempts to find
it on the wrong news server.  I have accounts with three news servers.  In the
order listed by MailNews, they are: news.vcnet.com (a commercial service through
my ISP), secnews.netscape.com, and msnews.microsoft.com (yeah, yeah, but I use
Windows and Office, not Outlook or IE).  If I select a newsgroup link, MailNews
keeps trying to find it on secnews.netscape.com.  This happens even if I am
already subscribed to the newsgroup on news.vcnet.com.  

This problem might be a consequence of not properly implementing default
accounts.  (See bugs #16343, #134753, etc.)  However, this needs to be fixed
whether or not default accounts is not completely implemented.  Thus, this is a
distinct bug.  

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Have accounts for more than one news server, including secnews.netscape.com.  
2.  Go to indicated Web page.  Select link to Newsgroups.  
3.  Select any newsgroup on the list.  

Actual Results:  
Whether or not you are subscribed to the newsgroup on another server account,
you will be asked by a popup if you wish to subscribe to the newsgroup on
secnews.netscape.com.  If you select OK, the attempt to subscribe will fail
because the newsgroup does not exist on secnews.netscape.com.  If you select
Cancel, you get other popups.  In the end, you cannot reach the newsgroup via a
URL link to it.   

Expected Results:  
Without a default news server account, MailNews should have given me the choice
of which server account I wanted to use for finding the newsgroup.  

With a default news server account (which for me would have been
news.vcnet.com), the attempt to locate the newsgroup should use that account.  

Note:  The URLs to newsgroup on the cited Web page do not indicate servers. 
That is necessary so that other individuals who have accounts with other
commercial news servers can use the links.  This did work with Netscape 4.79. 
This particular Web page was actually working with even earlier versions of
Netscape.

Comment 1

[Hermann Schwab]

seeing this with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.6a) Gecko/20031028
added #favoritenews to the link so testers can find the news links faster.

I´ve got some netscape newsgroups, and i´ve got asked to subscribe to rec.gardens,
and then been told it couldn´t be found on the server, and asked, if I want to
unsuscribe.

Comment 2

[David E. Ross]

Still a problem:  
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910

Test case in original description of this bug is still valid.  

Comment 3

[David E. Ross]

Still a problem:  
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217

Test case in original description of this bug is still valid.  

Someone please confirm this bug.  

Comment 4

[David E. Ross]

Still a problem:  
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050319

Test case in original description of this bug is still valid.  

Comment 5

[David E. Ross]

This is a problem in Thunderbird 1.5.  Changing Product to Thunderbird.  

Comment 6

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

The 'favoritenews' URL provided above returns 404.

(In reply to comment #0)
> Actual Results:  
> Whether or not you are subscribed to the newsgroup on another server account,
> you will be asked by a popup if you wish to subscribe to the newsgroup on
> secnews.netscape.com.  If you select OK, the attempt to subscribe will fail
> because the newsgroup does not exist on secnews.netscape.com.  If you select
> Cancel, you get other popups.  In the end, you cannot reach the newsgroup via
> a URL link to it.

That's basically the symptom described at bug 41133, which is a Core bug (suite and TB).  I suggest duping this to that.  


> Expected Results:  
> Without a default news server account, MailNews should have given me the
> choice of which server account I wanted to use for finding the newsgroup.

That's bug 64142.


> Note:  The URLs to newsgroup on the cited Web page do not indicate servers. 

Technically speaking, a URL of the form
  news://group.name/
is invalid.  See <http://rfc.net/rfc1738.html#s3.6.>.
Servers (hosts) may be specified in nntp: URLs.  Practically speaking, the URL with the slash delimiters is treated as one without; in fact, the test document for these URLs (which currently appears gutted) seems to expect slashes:
 <http://www.mozilla.org/quality/mailnews/tests/sea-mn-newsgroup-function.html>

Comment 7

[David E. Ross]

Cited URL corrected.  

This is not quite a duplicate of bug #41133 since I have this problem even if I am properly configured for the target newsgroup and configured for a server hosting that newsgroup.  

I am not trying to access, for example, <news://rec.gardens> (newsgroup after //).  I am trying to access <news:rec.gardens> (without //).  

In my own case, I could access <news://news.vcnet.com:119/rec.gardens> okay.  But how would I convey that to someone who does not have an account at news.vcnet.com?  Are you (comment #6) saying that the news.vcnet.com would be ignored for someone already configured for a different news server?  Would that work if that other person were configured for a different news server hosting the rec.gardens newsgroup but the user were not already configured for this specific newsgroup?  

  

Comment 8

[David E. Ross]

Still a problem with Thunderbird version 2.0.0.6 (20070728).  

Because of the long delay in fixing this, I removed the links to newsgroups in the previously cited URL.  Thus, I removed the URL.  If requested, I can create a test page with links to newsgroups.  

RFC 3986 (which obsoleted RFC 1738) indicates a URI for the news protocol is valid without specifying an NNTP server.  See the example in Section 1.1.2.  Yes, there are no slashes in the example.  Slashes would be required if the NNTP server were included in the URI.  

In any case, Thunderbird does not handle URIs for newsgroups where the NNTP server is omitted.  Such omission, as I indicated before, is necessary if the URI is at all useful.  Otherwise, I would have to specify the server I use, for which other users might not have accounts; those other users might have accounts at other servers.  

Comment 9

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to comment #8)
Actually, both kinds of URIs are useful, but not for the same newsgroups. For "true" usenet newsgroups, such as news:soc.culture.esperanto , the server should be omitted because they are mirrored on many different servers worldwide. For "private" newsgroups such as nntp://news.mozilla.org/mozilla.general , it is better to mention the (unique) server.

Now's the big question: Will Bugzilla convert these two URIs to links? (I think it will).

Comment 10

[Karsten Düsterloh]

Also related: bug 89939.

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Karsten, any chance some of this can get sorted and still done in the gsoc "Make SeaMonkey Not Suck As A News Reader"?  Including bug 16343/bug 324353.

Comment 12

[David E. Ross]

Re comment #9:  

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070802 SeaMonkey/1.1.4 

I get no response at all for either the news: or the nntp: links.  Is this a new bug in SeaMonkey?  Is there a bug report?  

Comment 13

[Karsten Düsterloh]

(In reply to comment #11)
> Karsten, any chance some of this can get sorted and still done in the gsoc
> "Make SeaMonkey Not Suck As A News Reader"?

I don't think so. :(

Comment 14

[David E. Ross]

Re comment #9 and my comment #12.  I have submitted bug #392729.  

Comment 15

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

David Ross, could you pls test if this still occurs in the latest trunk nightlies and clarify your testcase / steps to reproduce?

Comment 16

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

I am 95% sure this still exist in latest trunk from poking around so much in news code.

I also think this bug is misfiled (it's a news bug, not an account manager bug AFAICT). In any case, I'm sure I can dig up one or two other (older?) bugs that this is a dupe of.

Comment 17

[David E. Ross]

I have a dial-up connection and therefore do not download nightlies.  

I rewrote my <http://www.rossde.com/internet/surf.html> Web page to delete all links to newsgroups since, with this bug, I cannot test those links.  

Anyone can test this bug by selecting the link <news:rec.gardens> when their Thunderbird setup includes an account at a public NNTP server.  rec.gardens is a very popular newsgroup that is not excessively burdened with spam; most public servers should have it.  However, this test requires bug #392729 be fixed.  (I will leave to the experts to decide whether that means 392729 blocks this bug.)  

Comment 18

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

Just tested using SM trunk build from last night. news:rec.gardens is rewritten as news://news:119/rec.gardens.

See also bug 64142, bug 327885, and bug 167991 for more news URI problems.

Comment 19

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

So this bug is a duplicate of bug 64142 then, no?

Comment 20

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

Yes, 64142 does seem the best bug.

Comment 21

[David E. Ross]

This is NOT a duplicate of bug #64142.  This bug refers to a problem when a user has already subscribed to a newsgroup.  Selecting a link to that newsgroup does not work even though the newsgroup appears in the list of subscribed newsgroups for a server for which an account exists.  

Bug #64142 refers to the situation when the user has not yet subscribed to a newsgroup.  In this case, the newsgroup does not exist in any server account.  

Reopening.  

Comment 22

[David E. Ross]

Regarding comment #18:  

Gecko (or one of its toolkits) now changes the well-formed URI <news:rec.gardens> into the invalid <news://rec.gardens>, thus changing the newsgroup term into a server term.  I see this in the status area when I put my cursor over the link.  I also see it if I right-click over the linke, select Copy Link Location, and paste the result in the window of a text editor.  

According to the draft RFC at <http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ellermann-news-nntp-uri-11.txt>, the // is only used as part of a server term.  However, a URI using the news protocol can be written without a server term.  Being able to omit the server term is important as explained in the Note at the end of the original Description of this bug report.

Comment 23

[David E. Ross]

The draft RFC I cited in comment #22 is now formal RFC 5538 at <http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5538.txt>.