242536 - when composing mail, the View->Character encoding menu and the Options->Languages - Outgoing mail combobox is empty

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 245552

(Thunderbird :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[Bela Bardoczi]

User-Agent:       Opera/7.50 (Windows NT 5.0; U)  [en]
Build Identifier: version 0.6 (20040502)

When composing mail in Thunderbird, the character encoding menu (View->Character 
encoding) is empty. Only a "Customize..." menu option is shown, which is also 
empty: the "Available Character Encodings" and the "Active Character Encodings" 
listbox contains no items.

The Tools->Options->Fonts->Languages - Outgoing mail combobox is also empty. 

When reading incoming mail, both the character encoding menu, and the incoming 
mail combobox in the preferences dialog work correctly.

See this topic in the Thunderbird support forum for a bit more details:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=62652

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start a new message
2. Go to View->Character encoding (it's empty)
3. Go to Tools->Options->Fonts - Languages (the Outgoing Mail combobox is empty)

Actual Results:  
Character encoding for outgoing mails cannot be changed. If a message contains 
non-ISO-8859-1 characters, the only way to send it is by converting it to 
Unicode (UTF-8).

Expected Results:  
The character encoding menu should work the same as for the incoming mails: it 
should list all the available character encoding methods.

If I remember correctly, this bug had shown up somewhere between the first and 
the second weekly build of Thunderbird 0.5.

Comment 1

[a_ber]

Confirm existing of this problem I have it with both thunderbird 0.6 official
and May 1 nighty build, but thunderbird 0.5 works well from the same profile...
 The work around is to store in Drafts folder and use View-> Character encoding
menu of Main window (it still works)... The same sub-menu in message view window
works well, but in composing window it is empty...

Comment 2

[Bela Bardoczi]

ningning said:

"When I go to View -> Character Encoding -> More in the main or incoming mail 
window, I see all available encodings some of which should not be listed there 
by default. When I go to View -> Character Encoding and choose "Customize", I 
just see "Available Character Encodings" and "Active Character Encodings" 
listbox contain no items, like in the outgoing mail window."

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=62652

Comment 3

[victor roetman]

This same problem existed for me both under Linux and Windows Thunderbird 0.6
(20040502).  As far as I can tell, the problem happens when using an existing
profile.  When using a newly created profile, things seem to behave just fine. 
Under Windows I was able to, using the ProfileManager, delete the old profile
but not delete the files, and then create a new profile of the same name in the
same place, and then my previous prefs and mail files were all used again, but
this time there was no encoding problem.

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 245552 ***