262972 - Deleting an IMAP folder fails when server does not support folders containing folders

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(MailNews Core :: Networking: IMAP, defect)

Description

[Thomas Rutter]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041002 Firefox/0.10.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041002 Firefox/0.10.1

I created a new IMAP folder, the tried to delete it and received an error message:

'Alert: The current command did not succeed.  The mail server responded: RENAME
failed: Can't create mailbox node /home/arcticfo//mail/Trash/: File exists.

Looks like Thunderbird is trying to create a Trash folder, but one already exists.



Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create new folder on IMAP account
2. Delete that folder
Actual Results:  
Above error message shown, folder not deleted

Expected Results:  
Folder is moved to Trash

Comment 1

[Thomas Rutter]

Sorry,

If you cannot reproduce this problem on an IMAP server of your own, I would be
willing to open an account on my server and give access to the developers so
they can test my server.  By email.

Comment 2

[Rob Janssen]

This is a limitation of your IMAP server.
It cannot have folders that can contain both folders and messages.
So when you move a folder to trash, it always fails.
Select "remove immediately" in the server settings and you can remove the folder.

Comment 3

[David :Bienvenu]

Or, better, you should go into the client advanced imap server settings for your
server and uncheck the box that says "server supports folders that can
contain...". Your server does *not* support folders like that.

Comment 4

[Thomas Rutter]

Thanks - amending bug title.  It would seem, then, that the way to fix this
would be to have the account automatically fall back to as if "Server supports
folders that contain sub-folders and messages" were set to false when creating
the folder fails.

I've filed bug #263098 (enhancement) for this.

Comment 5

[Rob Janssen]

>amending bug title

Actually your server probably supports folders containing folders.
What it does not support is folders containing both folders and messages.
When you create a folder, you indicate if it is a folder for folders or a folder
for messages.  The Trash folder was created as a folder for messages, so you can
drop messages into the Trash, but not folders.

If this seems strange, here is how it is implemented:
Messages are stored in a file.  There is one file for each folder, named like
that folder.  So there is a file named INBOX, one named Trash, etc.
Each "folder that can contain only messages" corresponds to one such file.
"Folders that can contain folders" are implemented as a directory.  Such a
directory can hold "folders that can contain only messages" (files) or more
subdirectories.  So there can be multiple levels of folders, but once there is a
folder with messages it is a file, and thus cannot hold more subfolders.
(because on Unix, and also on Windows, there cannot be a file and a directory
with the same name)

Of course it is an implementation mistake.  Folders should have been implemented
all as directories, with some dummy file (e.g. "mbox") at the lowest level to
hold any messages, and still allowing further subfolders at the same point.

Comment 6

[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 7

[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.