259581 - Non-ASCII support broken for IMAP trash_folder_name in user.js / prefs.js

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Marcus]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10

It is no longer possible to set your IMAP trash folder to a name containing
German Umlaute like ä, ö, ü. Probably this applies to all non-ASCII characters.

Before you could do that by adding a user_pref to user.js (see below).

It still worked in earlier versions like 0.5 or 0.6, but for a while now, it has
been broken. If your trash folder name has no non-ASCII characters in it,
everything still works fine.

The topic is being discussed in this thread:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=789089#789089



Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Add a line like this one to user.js: 
user_pref("mail.server.server1.trash_folder_name",
"imap://[e-mail]/Gel&APY-scht"); 

2. Start Thunderbird

3. You can see the problem now.

Actual Results:  
In TB 0.7+ as well as in 0.8, adding that line generates a new folder called
"Gel&APY-scht" instead of TB using the existing "Gelöscht" for Trash (like it
did in earlier versions).

Expected Results:  
Use the existing "Gelöscht" folder.

Related bugs are:

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=222798
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24064
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=182274

The last bug is about the implementation of a frontend, which I believe is long
overdue. It should be possible without too much effort to make a button for
specifying the trash folder, no?? Thunderbird's deficiency in that matter is an
annoying work blocker for many people around the world who want to use IMAP.

Comment 1

[Gerald Vogt]

Please also check bug 255541 in relation to this. I think this one is a duplicate...

The problem is related with the UTF-8 encoding of some settings in prefs.js and
the "move to trash folder" setting for deletion of mails. There is a workaround
for mozilla 1.7 by converting the prefs.js to UTF-8. This does not work for TB
though. As a temporary workaround in thunderbird I would recommend to set the
mail account to "mark as deleted". If you do that TB does not create the bogus
folder, ie:

user_pref("mail.server.server3.delete_model", 0);
user_pref("mail.server.server3.trash_folder_name", "Gel&APY-scht");

This does work for me even though it is a little bit inconvenient to manually
have to move mails to the trash folder and compact the folder in the end.

Comment 2

[Oliver Kötter]

Problem mit non ASCII-chars could be solved:

Edit prefs.js with a UFT8-aware text editor (I used Textpad).

Enter
user_pref("mail.server.server1.trash_folder_name", "Gelöscht");

Save as UTF-8. 
Delete panacea.dat, open Thunderbird. 
Sometimes you have to close TB and open it a second time. Works fine for me
(Tested on 0.9 (20041103)).

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:
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Comment 4

[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.

Comment 5

[Lennart Kruse]

The bug is still actual. It is not possible to work with Thunderbird 1.5 and the big german e-mail-provider gmx, which calls its trashfolder "Gelöscht" and its draftfolder "Entwürfe". This is *very* annoying. And I can not understand why Firefox is so good in using special characters (for example in URLs) and Thunderbird not. Please fix it.
Thanks!
Lennart

Comment 6

[Harald]

(In reply to comment #5)
> The bug is still actual. It is not possible to work with Thunderbird 1.5 and
> the big german e-mail-provider gmx, which calls its trashfolder "Gelöscht" and
> its draftfolder "Entwürfe".

No problems on my machines. GMX via IMAP works nicely with TB 1.5 (English) on Ubuntu-Linux and TB 2.0 (German) on Windows 2000. I followed the instructions at :
http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP_Trash_folder

The was no need to reencode prefs.js. I simply pasted "Gel&APY-scht" in the proper section. It appears als "Gelöscht":
user_pref("mail.server.server3.trash_folder_name", "Gel&APY-scht");

"Entwürfe" (Drafts) has nothing to do with this bug. You can choose them in Thunderbirds user interface. No need to mess with prefs.js.