228958 - Import of Netscape 4.x LDIF addressbook corrupts mailing lists

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Address Book & Contacts, defect)

Description

[alb]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031210
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031210

I originally posted this as bug 148801.  It was marked a duplicate of bug
149961, which was claimed fixed in 1.6b.  I have installed 1.6b, but the
bug still exists.

When I import my netscape 4 address book in ldif format, many of my
address lists are corrupted:  some are empty, some contain only a subset
of the original addresses, and some contain addresses not in the original
list.

I will be happy to send my address book to any maintainer who wants to 
look at this continuing problem.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Joe Infla]

Reporter, please read http://www.mozilla.org/quality/bug-writing-guidelines.html
to help you write better bug reports.  Your earlier bug seems to have been duped
incorrectly.  In that case, you should re-open the old bug rather than file a
new one.  Duping to bug 14096, although bug 99701 is another candidate.  Please
add a comment in bug 14096 to mention that import from N4.x is still an issue
for you.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 14096 ***

Comment 2

[alb]

well, i'm reopening this, because i don't see how it is a dup of either bug
14096 or bug 99701.  bug 14096 seems to deal with character set issues, and bug
99701 claims that the entire import failed, leaving the address book empty. 
neither is true of my posts:

the address book imports.
the individual addresses appear to be correct.

it is only the address lists that are corrupted.

Comment 3

[Joe Infla]

Then please read the link I mentioned and completely document this bug to make
reproduction easier.  Please fill out the steps for reproduction.  If you have
the time, make a small test addressbook in N4.x that can reliably demonstrate
the import failure.  Please mention whether this is limited to lists within
lists (bug 133459), or more general.  Please mention exactly which version of
Netscape 4.x you were using.  Please add any other details you think may be
useful...

I've modified the summary to include the details I know.  Please modify further
to correct or include other details.

Comment 4

[alb]

In trying to create a small example, I have a hypothesis as to the problem.

I am now using netscape 4.8.  Some of the entries in my address book, when
exported to ldif, are not consistent, in that the initial dn entry can have
an old cn and mail component, whereas the cn and mail entries are correct.  For
example, one such entry:

dn: cn=Aaron Rosenberg,mail=aer
modifytimestamp: 20021211015411Z
cn: Aaron Rosenberg
xmozillanickname: aer
mail: [e-mail]
xmozillausehtmlmail: FALSE
givenname: Aaron
sn: Rosenberg
xmozillauseconferenceserver: 0
objectclass: top
objectclass: person

note the updated mail entry, which was not updated in the dn header.
in one of my lists, the member entry reads:

member: cn=Aaron Rosenberg,mail=aer

i.e., using the old mail address, although with netscape mail, the list
actually displays correctly in the address book and mail send to the list
works.  it's just the exporting that is corrupted.  Strangely, I cannot recreate
this corruption with a new address card, so I gather this comes from a bug in
older versions of netscape that I once used.

Every single corrupted entry in my lists when imported by mozilla can be 
traced to this type of corrupted in the export.  

i am working on a script to patch the ldif file and will post it if it
solves this problem.

Comment 5

[alb]

Attachment: script to generate sed script to fix ldif file

The problem seems to be as I described above:  corrupted entries by netscape
export are not imported correctly.  I have attached an awk script that
takes an ldif file exported by netscape and generated a sed script to
fix the file.  The fixed file can then be imported by mozilla.

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
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Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 7

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.