257461 - MSAA loses folder contents after folder switch

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 246236

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[parente]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040707 Firefox/0.8
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040707 Firefox/0.8

I'm working with Thunderbird using Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA). When
Thunderbird first starts and goes to a default folder, I can inspect the entire
object model of the Thunderbird main window using MSAA, including the list of
email messages in the selected folder. After selecting a different folder, the
part of the MSAA object model that describes the messages in the chosen folder
disappears. Only the column header labels (subject, sender, date) appear in the
object model. Choosing any number of folders after this does not remedy the problem.

This bug may be related to a similar bug in Firefox that was fixed in the 0.9
release. In Firefox, the MSAA object model for the default webpage would show up
properly when the browser first opened. After navigating to a new web page by
clicking a link or typing a new URL, the part of the object model describing the
web page pane was lost until the browser was restarted. (I can't find the entry
in Bugzilla, otherwise I would include it.)

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
Start Thunderbird.
Select a folder with email in it.
Run the accessible explorer MSAA utility from Microsoft.
Use accessible explorer to inspect Thunderbird.
Note that the email items show up in the object model (in path from root
/client/window/pane/outline[1]/*).
Choose another folder with email in it in Thunderbird.
Use accessible explorer again to inspect Thunderbird.
Actual Results:  
The email items in the newly selected folder do not show up in accessible explorer.

Expected Results:  
The items in the newly selected folder should be listed in the report from
accessible explorer.

I'm running Thunderbird 0.7.3 on WinXP.

Comment 1

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

That may have been bug 225724.

Did you use an installer build or the all-in-one package?  (did it download
stuff from the net after you ran the installer as part of installing it?)

The situation in Firefox with bug 225724 was that the installer builds were
getting built with --disable-accessibility.  That could be what's happening
here, too, though I don't have a checkout to look at the build script...  (and I
don't use Windows, either, just happened to run across this while searching for
something else).

Comment 2

[parente]

(In reply to comment #1)
> That may have been bug 225724.
> 
> Did you use an installer build or the all-in-one package?  (did it download
> stuff from the net after you ran the installer as part of installing it?)
> 
> The situation in Firefox with bug 225724 was that the installer builds were
> getting built with --disable-accessibility.  That could be what's happening
> here, too, though I don't have a checkout to look at the build script...  (and I
> don't use Windows, either, just happened to run across this while searching for
> something else).

I believe it's an all-in-one package. It's the Windows installer for Thunderbird
0.8 I downloaded from http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/

Comment 3

[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:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 4

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

This bug still exists in the latest trunk (I am currently running version 1.6a1 
(20051003)). I am a blind user using JAWS, and while JAWS can still read the 
highlighted text on screen through other means, the MSAA info disappears and 
reading the message list is therefore rather tedious. Displaying the MSAA 
object list (using utilities in the screen reader) before another folder has 
been displayed shows the message list, but once the folder has been changed, 
the message list is completely removed with the exception of the column headers.

Comment 5

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

This still exists in version 1.6a1 (20060221).

Additional info:
The bug is not simply related to switching folders. If two folders are set to the same thread sorting options (in View->Sort by), switching between them will cause this bug to manifest. If, however, one switches to a folder with different thread sorting options, the bug does not occur until one returns to a folder with sorting options that have already been used. For example:
1. There are three folders: x, y and z.
2. x is set to sort by threaded, y is set to sort by threaded and z is sorting unthreaded.
3. Restart Thunderbird.
4. Access the message list for x. The MSAA list works as it should.
5. Access the message list for y. The MSAA list misbehaves.
6. Access the message list for z. The MSAA list works as it should.
7. Access the message list for x, y or z. The MSAA list misbehaves in all cases (both types of sorting have been viewed already).

To confuse matters even more, it would seem that when the MSAA list is misbehaving, information for some messages will be accessible via MSAA but not for others. I can't seem to reliably replicate this, and when it does occur, there is only one item in the list instead of n, where n is the number of messages in the folder.

Comment 6

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

I'm not certain of this and don't have any real way of testing it, but I think this bug also causes major instability. Once it has been reproduced (see my steps for reproducing above), opening a message often causes Thunderbird to crash. This occurs for me very frequently; once the bug occurs (a very frequent occurrence for me because I use multiple folders all the time), opening a message causes a crash more often than not. It almost makes Thunderbird unusable for me, though I can work around it by restarting Thunderbird and jumping directly to the folder from which I wish to read a message, thus avoiding the bug. Tested with Thunderbird 1.5.0.2, Thunderbird version 1.5.0.4pre (20060516) and various nightly trunk builds.

Comment 7

[Aaron Leventhal]

This was fixed in a very recent buuld. Will show up in the next Thunderbird alpha release. Or you can test the unstable nightly build from here:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/nightly/latest-mozilla1.8/

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 246236 ***

Comment 8

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

Sorry. I just tested version 2 alpha 1 (20060524) and version 3 alpha 1 (20060524) after placing my last comment and it is indeed fixed. My bad for not checking the latest build before commenting again! :)
Is there any possibility of this fix being included in 1.5.0.4? Imho, it is a rather serious issue for anyone using a screenreader, especially as it seems to cause stability issues.

Comment 9

[Aaron Leventhal]

Sorry, 1.5.0.x releases only get security and crash fixes.

Comment 10

[Aaron Leventhal]

(In reply to comment #8)
> it seems to cause stability issues.
If it really fixes instability (please test thorougly) then note that in bug 246236 so we can get it into 1.5.0.4. 

Comment 11

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1527381