274539 - Thunderbird 1.0 - msgFilterRules.dat isn't written to if session ends before filter management dialog is opened/closed.

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Mark Stevens]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Thunderbird version 1.0 (20041206)

If a mail filter is created by clicking on an email address in the message pane
and selecting "create filter from message", the filter management dialog box is
bypassed. However, the msgFilterRules.dat file only appears to be written to
if/when the filter management dialog box is opened and closed.

The consequence of this are that any filters created within a Thunderbird 1.0
session, where the filter management dialog box isn't opened/closed, will NOT be
saved.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Load up Thunderbird 1.0.
2. Bring up an email message in the message pane.
3. Click on the "from" email address in the message pane and select "create
filter from message".
4. Select any options for this filter and click on the "OK" button.
5. Quit Thunderbird.
6. Reload Thunderbird.
7. Go to Tools -> Message Filters and select the account you created the filter
for. The filter is not there.

The only way to ensure that filters are saved is to go to Tools -> Manage
Filters and close the dialog box before quitting the session in which the filter
was created. This ensures that msgFilterRules.dat is written to.
Actual Results:  
The filter created in step 4 is not saved.

Expected Results:  
The filter should be saved without having to open/close the filter management
dialog (Tools -> Manage Filters).

In previous versions of Thunderbird (<0.9), if you created a filter through the
"create filter from message" option on the message pane, hitting "OK" to confirm
creation of the filter would bring up the filter management dialog box (ie, the
dialog box that appears when you go to Tools -> Manage Filters). This ensured
that the filter would be saved.

Thunderbird 1.0 bypasses the filter management dialog box when creating a filter
in this manner. Because it appears that msgFilterRules.dat is only written to
when the filter management dialog box is opened and closed, filters created via
this method are no longer saved.

I have tagged this bug as "critical" because it causes a loss of data (the
filter(s) you created), although it can be downgraded to "major" if necessary.

Comment 1

[Gert-Paul van der Beek]

I can confirm this in Thunderbird 1.0 with the Dutch languagepack installed.

Comment 2

[Jeroen van Baarsel]

(In reply to comment #1)
Once more, easy to reproduce, and very irritating!

Comment 3

[Bill Hartwell]

This also happens in Linux.

Comment 4

[Rob Frohne]

I can confirm that this happens on Mac OS X as well.  Thanks for the details on this bug.  At least I know I 
must open and close the Filters window in order to save my filters.  Also note that if Thunderbird crashes 
while the filters window is open, you will lose your filters (at least the new ones you added, and maybe all 
of them).  In my case I added about 15 of them and lost them all when Thunderbird crashed.

Comment 5

[Denny Schierz]

I can confimed it too. I created several rules via "create filter from message"
and after close TB, all rules are lost

Comment 6

[Mark Stevens]

It looks like this bug will be circumvented in Thunderbird 1.1. In the first
alpha build the filter management dialog box appears after you create a new
filter with this method, thus the filter is saved when it is closed. (Which is
what Thunderbird 0.9 and earlier would do.)

I'm not sure if the underlying bug has been fixed though, so reverting back to
Thunderbird 1.0 behaviour in a future build (ie, not bringing up the file
management dialog box) may cause this to occur once again.

Comment 7

[Matthieu Faure]

I experiment the same bug on a Linux Mandriva 2005LE.

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050317
Firefox/1.0.4
Build Identifier: Thunderbird version 1.0.2 (20050322)

Comment 8

[Graham Klyne]

I am experiencing a problem with Thunderbird 1.06 that may (or may not) be
related:  message filters that I have entered seem to be disappearing.  Most
recently, after an expected filter not bveing applied, I checked the message
filters dialog and noticed that all but one of the previously entered filters
for the personality profile concerned had disappeared.  I routinely create new
filters using method described here, and am repeatedly finding previously
entered filters are no longer being applied.  I haven't yet identified exactly
when problems occur (I use 4 different personality/mailbox profiles, so it's
hard to keep track of where filters have been defined).

Host system is Windowx XP SP1 tablet edition.

Comment 9

[Andreas Kleinert]

(In reply to comment #8)

Same for me with Thunderbird 1.0.6 under WindowsXP.

Furthermore, I do believe that the filter rules do not just stay unsaved until
you open/close the filter management window again. Sometimes they also stay
unsaved if you do that. The only safe way to get them saved is, to manually
"apply" the newly created filter.

Comment 10

[David :Bienvenu]

this is fixed in 1.5beta builds.