240468 - Thunderbird does not delete Junk mail Automatically

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[yalag]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; X11; Linux i686) Opera 7.23  [en]
Build Identifier: Thunderbird 0.5

In the preference, there is an option in junk mail to automatically delete mails 
in the junk folder after so many days. I have set it to one day and it does not 
work. There are clearly mail in the junk folder older than one day.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

It appears that:

1.  Thunderbird only automatically deletes mail from the junk floder if it has
Junk status set.

2.  Thunderbird turns off junk status when the message is moved to the junk folder.

Therfore ...

3.  Thunderbird never automatically deletes junk mail from the junk folder.

My junk mail folder is on an IMAP server so this might have something to do with
the issue.

I have this problem on windows so this should be marked as status=new and OS=ALL.

Comment 2

[Matt]

I can confirm that this bug exists. However, it seems that Mr. Gianopoulos
explanation of the problem is incorrect. I you look carefully at the messages in
the "Junk" folder, it is clear that they are still marked as junk. This problem
may simply be the result of Thunderbird failing to check the junk folder to see
if it needs to delete anything.

I found this bug on a Win XP SP2 system in Thunderbird 0.8.

Comment 3

[yalag]

Could someone please take a look at this. This is rediculous, a clear out bug on 
every release. Whats going on?

Comment 4

[David :Bienvenu]

this works fine for me. If I could reproduce the problem, perhaps I could fix
it. Bear in mind we'll only delete mail that has the junk mail icon from the
junk mail  folder. Does the mail that's not deleted have the junk flag set?

William's problem is because his imap server doesn't support user-defined
keywords, which is what we use to store the fact that a message is junk on an
imap server...

Comment 5

[yalag]

The emails are indeed marked as junk. This have been an obvious bug reported by 
too many users (a quick google in various mozilla forums reveals this). Could 
someone please fix it.

Comment 6

[kenneth]

hmm, i cleaned out my junk mail folder and set about monitoring it. it started
out fine, filling up at a usual rate. but after some time it hit the point where
it was supposed to clean itself out, that didnt happen. but all the mails in
there was still marked as junk. but now suddenly 99% of the mail had become
unmarked as junk. the only ones marked as junk was the most recent ones, and
only about half of them.

i see this as a confirmed bug. only thing im wondering about is if people have
had this problem with newly created account or if its only happening with
accounts copyed over from the suite (that is what i did).

one other factor is if people are useing the ability to merge all accounts into
the local folder one. im useing it. can people that are seeing this problem say
if they are or not?

Comment 7

[kenneth]

just want to add something to may comment:

i just switched my account over from being stored in local folders to being its
own "tree". i then spotted that i had allmost 200 old junk mails in that
accounts junk mail folder. suddenly tb found out that those mails where old and
went about deleting them automaticly! looks like the bug is on the combo of
account and the ability to have said account stored in local folders or
something. maybe the logics of the junk mail checker gets confused somehow?

Comment 8

[yalag]

Again, someone please fix this obvious bug. Heres some proof

My email is MARKED as junk
http://gary.fung.name/desktop/markedjunk.png

And options is to tell it to delete it after 1 day
http://gary.fung.name/desktop/options.png

But as you can see, the junk mail dates are older than 1 day.

Please Fix!!

Comment 9

[David :Bienvenu]

that screen shot is blury enough that I can't really tell if you have the box
check marked, next to the 1 day age limit.

Comment 10

[yalag]

There isnt a checkbox, its either pressed in or sticking out.
It is checked as it is now and not working.

Comment 11

[kenneth]

thunderbird just deleted some junk mails uatomaticly here now that im have every
account use its own folder tree. i smell a bug with automatic junk mail deletion
and local folders...

as for those images, they looks to be from gnome useing a classical gtk theme.
basicly the checkboxes dont have checkmarks but a sunk when checked, mutch like
a old radio that had buttons on while pushed in and off when sticking out...

Comment 12

[kenneth]

just found another piece of the puzzle.

whenever some mails gets deleted from junk and i run compact folders, all the
mails in junk are no longer marked as junk...

i say this bug should be tagged confirmed...

Comment 13

[Oliver Feiler]

I can confirm this bug on Mozilla Thunderbird 0.9 (Macintosh/20041103).

I too have two accounts that use a common Inbox and a common Junk folder. Auto
delete is set to 1 day as well, but the messages despite having the junk icon
flag pile up in the folder. Running "Tools->Delete Mail Marked as Junk in
Folder" moves all the mails in the Junk folder to the Trash. I'm using POP3, all
my accounts were newly created with an earlier version of TB.

This should really be looked into before 1.0.

Comment 14

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to comment #1)
> 1.  Thunderbird only automatically deletes mail from the junk floder if it has
> Junk status set.
> 2.  Thunderbird turns off junk status when the message is moved to the junk
folder.
(Say aboves COND-1 & COND-2).

There are other conditions, at least next three, when Juck Purge is not kicked.
(COND-3) Junk Purge is initiated after 5 minutes from restart. See Bug 228512.
(COND-4) "Junk Purge" can not be enabled if inconsistency of mail related
         definition was broken by manual editing of prefs.js by user,
         or change(corruption) by mai scan function of anti-virus fosftwares.
         These are already many Mail&News bugs for this problem.
(COND-5) Contention of folder possibly disturb Junk Purge. See Bug 242744.
         Although the bug is not confirmed yet, and I am not experiecing
         this problem now, this occured in the past in my environment.

COND-1 and COND-2 is result of other bugs, and many Mozilla Mail&News bugs are
already opened for these symptoms, and can be recovered by setting back all
mails as Junk manually.
But COND-3 can not be cleared by other than keeping Thunderbird up more than 5
minutes, even after manual recovery of Junk status.
For COND-5, I am not experiencing that situation any more, but folder contention
between Junk filtering and Junk Purge maybe occurs if Global Inbox is used. 

What is the exact problem of this bug?

Comment 15

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Correction. Sorry for sapm.
(After correction)
> (COND-4) "Junk Purge" can not be enabled if consistency of mail related
(Invalid)
> (COND-4) "Junk Purge" can not be enabled if *in*consistency of mail related

Comment 16

[Oliver Feiler]

Here's another screenshot that clearly demonstrates the problem:
http://kiza.kcore.de/stuff/tb-bugzilla-20041118.jpg

Auto delete is set to 1 day, current date is 18th, yet there are messages from
16th in the Junk folder _and_ they all have the junk status set. There is also
no difference between mails that automatically get marked as junk and the ones I
manually mark (which the spam filter didn't catch).

Comment 17

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to comment #16)
Oliver Feiler, can you get protcol log of MsgPurge?
See http://www.mozilla.org/quality/mailnews/mail-troubleshoot.html#pop for
protocol log.
 (1) Set Environment variable
      - NSPR_LOG_MODULES=MsgPurge:5 is required instead of POP3:5 or IMAP:5.
 (2) Start Thunderbird with this ENV: setting. (See 'Mac:' section)
 (3) Keep TB active at least 5 minutes.
      - First Junk Purge task is kicked.
 (4) Keep TB active more minutes (Maximum minutes setting of "Check for new
     messages every NN minutes" among accounts).
      - At least one more Junk Purge task is kicked for all accounts.
 (5) Keep TB active more minutes if acceptable.
 (6) Shutdown Thuderbird.
 (7) Save protocol log file.
     Please note that, protocol log file is overlayed when restarted.
 (8) Attach protocol log file to this bug(text/plain;").

See also my Bug 242744 and attached MsgPurge protocol log in it.
There are 2 cases - Contention(probably) case and insufficient Junk Score
case(lost junk status).

Comment 18

[Oliver Feiler]

Ok, here's the log (will attach shortly). The description page about how to
obtain the log has a problem in the Mac description. Under what filename should
the file be saved and put into the package? Didn't get it to work so I started
TB from the console and set the ENV variables there.

Anyway, I see the problem might be here:

-1610571284[150cdd0]: [2] Local Folders (none)
-1610571284[150cdd0]: [2] canGetIncomingMessages=false (if false, don't purge)

So the Junk mail folder in "Local Folders" will never be purged? Why does it
depend on canGetIncomingMessages?

Comment 19

[Oliver Feiler]

Attachment: NSPR_LOG_MODULES=MsgPurge:5 LOG

Comment 20

[David :Bienvenu]

well, that explains it, I think.  I'll see if I can fix it...

Comment 21

[David :Bienvenu]

Attachment: proposed fix

ignore canGetIncomingMessages attribute...

Comment 22

[David :Bienvenu]

clearing blocking aviary since this has been checked into the aviary branch

Comment 23

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Oh, I forgot my Bug 233439.
>233439 Junk mail prefrence delete junk after x days doesn't work on dummy account

Additional conditions.
(COND-6) Dummy account (login will never be done). See Bug 233439.
(COND-7) Loclal Folders (This is design). See Bug 233439 Comment #4.

(In reply to comment #21)
> ignore canGetIncomingMessages attribute...
David, will your patch effective on dummy accounts too? 

Comment 24

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Correction. Sorry for spam.

(COND-7) Loclal Folders (This is design). See Bug 233439 Comment #6.

Comment 25

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to comment #18)
> The description page about how to obtain the log has a problem in the Mac
> description.
> Didn't get it to work so I started TB from the console
> and set the ENV variables there.

I saw some posts saying "drag&drop way doesn't work on Mac" at MozillaZine forum
in tha past.
Oliver Feiler, if the problem still exists, open a bug, please.
(Product=Documentation, Component=Mozilla Dveloper is appropriate, I think)

Comment 26

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Sorry, Bug 227981 was already opened for "trouble shooting on Mac", although no
action during one year... 

Comment 27

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

yalag(reporter), Matt and kenneth, which is your case?
Oliver Feiler's case has been found to be (COND-7), "Local Folders" case, but I
can not believe initial problem of yalag is "local Folders" case, because
"Global Inbox" had not been implemented yet on Thunderbord 0.5.

Comment 28

[yalag]

I think mine is cond-3, at least until further testing. But why is junk mail not 
deleted on exit, or on start? If a user opens thunderbird for less than 5 
minutes each time, what happens? Makes no sense.

Comment 29

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to comment #28)
> If a user opens thunderbird for less than 5 minutes each time, what happens? 
> Makes no sense.
It is the reason why bug 228512 was opened and will be kept open until fixed.

Comment 30

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

According to Comment #28, this bug is found to be dup of bug 228512.
But this bug is a good reference, I think, for people in trouble of "Thunderbird
does not delete Junk mail Automatically", which is the summary of this bug.
yalag, how about keep this bug as "Meta-bug" until Thunderbird 1.0 will be released?

Comment 31

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Daid, Bug 242744 I wrote as (COND-5) has been found "Not contention problem".
Problem was "Junk mail search is done only for last Junk purge required account".
Could you check new attachment(MsgPurge protcol log) of Bug 242744?.  

Comment 32

[David :Bienvenu]

fixed on trunk as well.

Comment 33

[Oliver Feiler]

Just to confirm that junk mail is now deleted from the "Local Folders" junk
mailbox. Release TB 1.0. This one seems to be fixed now.

Comment 34

[jiro]

This problem has reappeared. I am using Thunderbird 1.5.0.3 on several different computers running both WinXP and Linux. Until the most recent upgrade Thunderbird automatically deleted my junk mail fine. It no longer automatically deletes any junk mail. My email accounts use IMAP and are configured to auto-detect junk mail, flag it, and move it to a junk mail folder. So far so good. But then I've configured Thunderbird to auto-delete the junk mail after 4 days. This has stopped working. I believe this bug has reappeared only since the last Thunderbird upgrade.