235369 - Address import from Outlook ignores Notes field

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Address Book, defect)

Description

[mark.nospamplease]

User-Agent:       
Build Identifier: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5 (20040207)

Address import from Outlook ignores Notes field

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.Import an address book from Outlook that has records containing notes
2.Observe that those notes are missing in the TB address book entries
3.

Actual Results:  
Notes field is blank in TB

Expected Results:  
Should properly import field from Outlook

Comment 1

[Mark Ellse]

I, too, have been afflicted by this bug and, therefore, confim its presence.
(Was just about to report it when found this report.

Bug also evident in Windows 2000

A pity. The rest of the import seems to work well.

Comment 2

[Ed Magin]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Reproducible: Always
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1.Import an address book from Outlook that has records containing notes
> 2.Observe that those notes are missing in the TB address book entries

Me too, Reproduce on Outlook 2000 and Outlook Express 6 on Windows 2000.
A shame really because it's stopping me from fully switching over to Thunderbird.

Comment 3

[Jo Hermans]

*** Bug 247824 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Jo Hermans]

*** Bug 259261 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[Mark Ellse]

This bug is still present with Thunderbird 0.9. Please, please, please solve. It
is an important issue, a broken feature, and severly limits migration from Outlook.

This bug seems to be present on all Windows versions.

Comment 6

[David Fraser]

Have checked out the code ... it looks like the code in
mailnews/import/outlook/src/nsOutlookMail.cpp is importing the PR_COMMENT field
into field 35, which is the number used by
mailnews/import/src/nsImportFieldMap.cpp to set the Notes property.

After a bit of testing it looks like this should really by PR_BODY instead as
this seems to contain the comments ...

Going to try and see if that fixes it...

Comment 7

[David Fraser]

Attachment: Patch to use PR_BODY instead of PR_COMMENT for importing outlook contact notes

This seems to be the required change, taking this bug ...
I just need to test it now :-)

Comment 8

[David Fraser]

Just for reference, relevant documentation / code on the web:
MAPI Properties:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/mapi/html/_mapi1book_properties.asp
Message / Body of Outlook Item: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=201105
Address Book Quick Start:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/mapi/html/_mapi1book_finding_information_about_a_user_in_the_address_book.asp?frame=true
Access Windows Address Book (C++):
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread8737.html
Access Address Book (Python):
http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/2000/10/swap/pim/lookout.py?rev=1.4
(alongside http://www.boddie.org.uk/python/COM.html)

Comment 9

[David Fraser]

If anyone wants to patch this, here's the relevant diff from a hexdump of
import.dll (TB 0.9) on Windows, from my build (I have to wait to get access to a
machine with Outlook to test this on, I could attach import.dll if required):
 0081760 7325 000a 7243 6165 6574 2064 656e 2077
 0081770 4d53 5054 7320 7265 6576 3a72 2520 0a73
 0081780 0000 0000 0000 0000 0023 0000 fffe ffff
-0081790 001e 1000 0006 0000 ffff ffff 001e 3a08
+0081790 001e 3004 0006 0000 ffff ffff 001e 3a08
 00817a0 0007 0000 ffff ffff 001e 3a09 0019 0000
 00817b0 ffff ffff 001e 3a16 0017 0000 ffff ffff
 00817c0 001e 3a17 000a 0000 ffff ffff 001e 3a1c

Comment 10

[David Fraser]

Tested with Outlook 2000 SR-1 (9.0.0.3821) and works fine.

Comment 11

[David Fraser]

Comment on attachment 165375 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch to use PR_BODY instead of PR_COMMENT for importing outlook contact notes

Requesting review for this as it works well for me...

Comment 12

[David Fraser]

Comment on attachment 165375 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch to use PR_BODY instead of PR_COMMENT for importing outlook contact notes

requesting review from mscott

Comment 13

[David Fraser]

Just for fun, a simple python program that will automatically patch
thunderbird.exe (for a static build, like the distributed one) or import.dll
(for a non-static build - change the filenames):

code = open('thunderbird.exe', rb).read()
searchfor = "\x23\x00\x00\x00\xfe\xff\xff\xff\x1e\x00\x04\x30"
replacewith = "\x23\x00\x00\x00\xfe\xff\xff\xff\x1e\x00\x00\x10"
print "found %d occurrences" % code.count(searchfor)
code = code.replace(searchfor, replacewith)
open('thunderbird-236369.exe', 'wb').write(code)

Comment 14

[Scott MacGregor]

Comment on attachment 165375 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch to use PR_BODY instead of PR_COMMENT for importing outlook contact notes

Thanks David. I'll check this in for you.

Comment 15

[Scott MacGregor]

fixed branch and trunk