271587 - popup login / password window locks up the application

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 560793

(Thunderbird :: Security, defect)

Description

[plop]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041119 Firefox/1.0 (Debian package 1.0-3)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041119 Firefox/1.0 (Debian package 1.0-3)

When a popup asking for login comes out, it locks the whole TB.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. create an NNTP account, and a mail account, only provide pass for mail
2. subscribe a news group
3. refresh the news group, what shall ask for a password
4. try to access mail account

or

1. set up news cdeker to 1 mn
2. start writing a long mail ( more than 1mn )
3. after 1mn, a popup comes and ask for the NNTP login
4. cant write any more the mail, until canceling or giving NNTP login
Actual Results:  
the mail account is unacessible until I close the login(nntp) popup ( either
cancel, or give usable login )

Expected Results:  
any popup should NOT make the rest of the software unusable. especially when
popups come while writing an email ...

If you ever setup TB not to remember passwords, but ask to refresh accounts
every 5 mn, then you are bored with 1000 popups

This bug by itself may not look that ennoiing, but coupled with the one which
let TB forget passwords, and the one which makes TB reprompt for the same login
even when already asking ... it makes TB really difficult to enjoy.

Comment 1

[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 2

[plop]

please, remove that autofix tag ...

Comment 3

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

Reporter, does the issue still occur with the latest supported 2.0.0.x / Shredder trunk nightlies?

(1.5.0.x is now end-of-life and the latest supported Thunderbird version 2 is 2.0.0.16)

Comment 4

[plop]

Yes, it still happens.

example one: you are writing a message, that was using ISO-* as default charset. Using keyboard, spell correction, or pasting text from an other application, you insert a word containing an UTF8 character. On the next time auto-save will want to save the draft, a popup will ask if the user want to convert the whole message to UTF8. This message will appear at any time, even if you are typing a word. If you are using a WM that fucus on the window pointed by mouse, and if the mouse is in the middle of the screen, at the moment this popup comes, the word you were typing will be typed in that popup; it's hell annoying because you have to move the mouse to terminate the word, sentence, or type the idea you have, before you can afforfd brain time to dare reading the message. If the popup does not appear just under the mouse, you can continue typing words, because that pop-up is not fatal. But, if the message is about a password error about a server, then, you can not type anything anymore, and you are interrupted right in the middle of the idea you were writing. This is not acceptable from user point of view: "i was typing a idea, and TB bores me about a server error that has nothing to do with either my idea, or any thing that TB really needs to record me typing my idea". This happens even if the password error is a bout a server different from the one used to store the draft of current email. Still, in many case, i can not continue typing my idea, and this is very frustrating.

An other example: you are reading a technical email containing a tip to help configure TB; the tip says to open the account setting window, and do stuff in there. The email or news or RSS provides a text to put in a text field (login, server name ...) to put at a particular place: as soon as the configuration pannel is open, you can not do anything anymore in the email (no scroll, no text selection, cant copy any thing ...): if the message gives 4 or 5 parameters to alter, you have to copy all of them in an external application (memo, tip manager ...), and copy them back from that app to the conf pannel. This is also really ennoying. Typical example that happens *frequently* to me (several times a month): i am writing a message that i need to post from under a new temporarily identity, at the same time i am writing 3 other new emails: as soon as i open the account manager, i can not continue writing any email, or read any one, or select an other email to read, or select an other directory. TB allows to do many things at the same, except changing anything in the account settings. This is stupid: to validate settings, user will have to reload some parts of TB (save draft and reopen it to be able to use the new id ...), or may not need this if the new idea is only required for only one email, and not for the two other ones ... so any way, not allowing to continue editing messages is stupid and useless: setting are only applied when pressing the "OK" button of the account panel: changing the content of text boxes in that panel can not interfeer in any way with messages.

Various password errors also lock up various things. This is specifically ennoying when reading an email on Imap server A, while server B is broken: TB will keep producing messages about server B (some times immediately as you ack them): as server B breaks down, it comes impossible to read messages on server A, because the pop-up about server B may (in certain circumstances, not every time), lock completely TB. In this case, I have to wait for server B to come back before i can read my emails on server A (what can take hours). This is not user-friendly at all.

Some pop-up now allow to continue to work (and this have been a nice improvement from 1.5 to 2.0); some still don't !

Comment 5

[plop]

Just happened to me yesterday (fresher info in my head than in previous message):

I was writing an email (with autosave on local HDD). Google.imap failed, so, TB pop-me up asking confirmation for password (for Imap auth). I was lasy, I did not take time to click on it. I was writing an email for a friend about a recent news, so, i selected the text of the news in FF ... came back in TB, middle click to paste it in my email ... nothing. Back to FF, select again, do ^C ... back to TB, ^V ... nothing. Nothing until i confirm that stupid pop-up; then, both middle click and ^V worked.

Linux, Gentoo, Enlightenment17 ...

I was really surprised i could type letters for the body content, but not make a middle click paste ... and YES, this bug still bores me, even more than 4y ago; no i still did not get accustomed to this behaviour. By 2004, i was using Linux, Debian, Enlightenment.16.

Comment 6

[Andy Robinson]

Every popup dialog since Thunderbird auto-upgraded to version 2.0.0.17 (20080914) (Windows XP professional) causes the application to lock.  The dialog box itself is inaccessible and no other element of the application can be used.  The application can only be terminated through the task manager.

Comment 7

[plop]

1: I am not using Windows (way too much insecure to read my emails under MS OS).

2: it is very annoying that a stupid fetch pop up locks up the whole application because of a server problem (which tend to happen more and more frequently since 2 weeks over the internet, Gmail, Yahoo, my ISP, and all other servers), that will prevent me typing an email. Nothing more frustrating that being forbidden to type an idea only because Gmail authentication server crashed, and the application (TB) will make this problem "critical".

Clicking on the pop up is useless, because, for example, yesterday, the auth server for Gmail was down for over 1h ... => 1h before i could terminate writing my email and send it; it was not an urgent email, but, i had not 1h to loose to wait ... if TB allowed me to finish my email, i could have send it withint 5mn, so that my Dest could get it in time, and, leave my "incoming Gmail" doing what it wanted.

This produces an other problem: having those pop up  locking TB also makes impossible to shutdown the workstation: as i click on the pop up, it comes back. And it is "required" to validate it to close TB the clean way (and ask it to synchronize all servers, i dont use only Gmail, but also other servers) ... what means, if i had power failure (and my computer was on PSU with only 15mn left on batteries), i could not ask TB to "at least sync over the other live servers", and close my box. I would have to just kill TB, and, leave other working servers unsynched. One example amongst hundreds.

Comment 8

[plop]

Just at the moment: NNTP server crashed, and, any time i click on the pop up, i get a new one, what prevented me reading emails and RSS. Any fault on any server of the network renders TB completely unusable.

Comment 9

[plop]

I found a way to repro this easily, something that ALWAYS bored me in TB, since TB1.

Open a folder (Imap for me), view an email, and start an answer. Then, open the account manager ( > file > account).

If you do this from main window, you can continue writing the answering mail, but not view an other mail in the folder. If you open it from the mail editor, it's the editor that is locked, and you can view an other mail.

If you first open the account manager before clicking the answer button, you can start the editor at all.

All this is just stupid: order of matters. And it should not.

The account manager is not really a pop-up, but, illustrate the problem, and, from MY point of view, behaves like a pop-up, even if it's content is very "rich".

Comment 10

[plop]

Other way: create a new account, like [e-mail] , don't enter password (new TB3 interface will fill all server fields, and this is fine for now). Close account manager, click on the account. When prompted for password, can not do anything in the main window. If the mail account is a shared account, and the password is stored in an email sent by a friend ... I need to cancel the pop-up, before I can navigate away. Why would TB force me to cancel it ? really, for which rationnal reason would TB need to prevent me doing anything in the mail window ? but, if i had open an other "main window" before, then they don't lock each other ... prooving that the problem is at GUI level, and that the backend has no problem with this.

Comment 11

[plop]

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; fy-NL; rv:1.8.1.23) Gecko/20100130 Lightning/0.9 Thunderbird/2.0.0.23 Mnenhy/0.7.5.0

so called 3.1.3

I have reproduced what i described in comment #10.

But, if an email editor is open, i can continue writing it. So, partly fixed.

Comment 12

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to comment #11)
> Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; fy-NL; rv:1.8.1.23) Gecko/20100130
> Lightning/0.9 Thunderbird/2.0.0.23 Mnenhy/0.7.5.0
> 
> so called 3.1.3

Side note - See here for how to fix your build id string to the correct value: http://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Build+number+not+displayed

Comment 13

[plop]

Issue again happened today, in circumstances described in bug 612233

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

bug 576380 sounds similar. found via https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?type1-0-0=substring&keywords=hang&keywords_type=allwords&field0-0-0=short_desc&type0-0-1=substring&field0-0-1=keywords&type1-0-1=allwordssubstr&resolution=---&classification=Client%20Software&classification=Components&op_sys=Linux&query_format=advanced&type0-0-0=anywordssubstr&field1-0-0=short_desc&product=MailNews%20Core&product=Thunderbird&field1-0-1=short_desc

Comment 15

[plop]

New example, related to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=612233#c13 . If the active Window was not TB (firefox, chat, OOo), then the pop-up is "minor". If the active windows was the Main TB when pop-up is sent to WM, then TB is locked up.

Can not click on anything, can not scroll any list, can not do anything in main.

Comment 16

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

plop, is this also happening in version 8?
(this might be a duplicate)

Comment 17

[plop]

Still happens in 3.1.10

Did I miss 5 major versions in less than one year ???

Comment 18

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to plop from comment #17)
> Did I miss 5 major versions in less than one year ???

yup (4 actually). Not interested in version 3.x results :)

Comment 19

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

please reproduce in current version

Comment 20

[plop]

The bug is 7y old, and have never been fixed, dispite some people said that TB3 was a complete rewrite not using any bit of source from TB2 .. and still. I wonder how the bug could propagate if all source was really re-written.

I can not update TB for the moment, probably not before end 2012 or begin 2013.

Any way, Moz team policy is to ... never fix broken code, and just tag bugs as closed.

Comment 21

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

This bug will be fixed once the async password stuff for NNTP gets checked in.