275594 - header-only message disappears after clicking "download the rest"

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Networking: POP, defect)

Description

[Stuart Rogers]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041109 Firefox/1.0 (MOOX M3)
Build Identifier: Thunderbird 1.0 (20041206)

Mail account is set to download headers only.
Junk filter is set to move Junk to Trash and delete after 4 days.
I see a legitimate message in Trash that is mis-identified as Junk, and open it.
Message window says only header downloaded, "Click here to download the rest of
the message." I click. Nothing happens. I close the message. Message no longer
listed in Trash or any other folder -- gone for good. 

This behaviour is not consistent. Some short test messages have worked fine.
Most recent failure was a fairly lengthy text-only message (it was copied to a
co-worker, so I read it in his client).


Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open message.
2. Click link to download the rest of the message.
3. When download fails, close message.

Actual Results:  
Message and header disappear entirely.

Expected Results:  
Full message content should appear in message window.

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

[Stuart Rogers]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915
Firefox/1.0.7

This bug continues unresolved. 

My workaround has been to change the setting so that messages (not just headers)
are downloaded.

Comment 3

[OstGote!]

Do you have the option enabled to delete the msg on the server if you delete or
move the messages from the local inbox?

Comment 4

[Stuart Rogers]

"Until I delete or move them from the Inbox" is selected, BUT it is disabled because "Leave messages on server" is NOT selected. I am now using the Mozilla build of version 1.0.7 (20050923), and I will select "Fetch headers only" again to see whether the problem is still reproducible.
thanks.

Comment 5

[Stuart Rogers]

Yes, the problem is still reproducible. In fact, messages don't even have to be in the Trash folder. I received new messages within the last 18 hours (with the Download Headers Only option selected). I opened a message, clicked on the link to download the rest of the message, and got no response. On closing the message, it disappeared from Thunderbird, i.e., it does not appear in any folder.

I have switched back to downloading entire messages, because I can't afford to lose them!

Comment 6

[andrew.weiser]

Attachment: Mail account settings

Comment 7

[andrew.weiser]

I get this same behaviour, using version 1.5.0.4 (20060516).  The only difference is that I don't have anything sent to the Junk folder, and this behaviour happens with messages in my inbox.  My mail settings are in the attachment "Mail account settings" (Fetch headers only, Leave messages on server).  When I click on "Click here to download the rest of the message." the status bar says "Loading Message..." for a few seconds, but then the progress bar stops and nothing happens.  If I keep pressing on "Click here", the message never loads.  If I alt-tab back to the main inbox window, the message I am trying to open is gone.

The problem happens intermittently.  It happened just now on a second email with the same subject as one I had previously opened and downloaded successfully, although I don't know if it's coincidence that the subjects were the same - I don't know if this is a repeatable pattern.  I just sent myself another mail with the same subject, and I could donwload that one OK.

This is a very annoying bug.

Comment 8

[Stuart Rogers]

I haven't had to worry about this bug for a while because I had simply changed my settings to download the whole message, not just the header.  Yesterday I changed the setting back to test my current installation (1.0.5.4), and I can confirm that the bug still exists. Today I had 2 messages in the inbox; the first one downloaded fine, but the second one failed to download, and when I closed the message window, the header was gone and the message had vanished.

This bug makes it impossible to use the feature "Fetch headers only."

Comment 9

[Dieter]

Same problem in Thunderbird 1.5.0.7:

Mail sometimes disapears from inbox after clicking "Click here to download the rest of the message" if option "Fetch headers only" is activated.

Comment 10

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Seems to be a dupe of bug 265553, which probably should be reassigned to 
Core :: Networking:POP.

As noted there, I'm curious if the Rebuild Index feature (in the folder's Properties dialgo) forces this missing message to show -- those experiencing this problem (with Seamonkey 1.1 or TB beta nightlies) could test this.

Comment 11

[Stuart Rogers]

now using version 1.0.5.9

With settings to download headers only and move Junk messages to trash. I double-click a message header in Inbox, then click the link to download the rest of the message. Often the full message appears in the same window, but sometimes the same message header appears duplicated very briefly in the Inbox, gets tagged as Junk and trashed, and the message never appears in the message window already open. (The message does appear in the Trash folder, though, so it's not getting lost entirely as before.)

Comment 12

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Thunderbird v1.0.x is not supported anymore.
Thunderbird v1.5.x is not supported anymore.

Can you reproduce with Thunderbird v2.0.0.14 ?

Comment 13

[Stuart Rogers]

Can't reproduce in 2.0.0.14.  Seems to work properly now.

Comment 14

[Paul-Gerhard Werner]

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:
- using a http://freemail.web.de freemail account (a popular freemail provider in germany)
- using the option "do not download messages larger than XX kB" (5kB is good
for reproducing) OR "download headers only"
- immediately downloading the rest of all truncated messages without waiting
for the POP3 poll time limit to expire (web.de freemail accounts: 15min) 
RESULT: DATALOSS (the first message may be retrieved correctly, but all others 
are gone / they disappear completely)

using thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (nothing changed since 1.0.3 :-( )

reproducible: always
severity: MAJOR / CRITICAL

duplicates of this bug: bug 118432, bug 225199, bug 275594, bug 322710, bug 337950, bug 362361, bug 368404, bug 265553

Comment 15

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Stuart, thanks for the feedback

=> WFM per comment 13 - and the burden of fixing other ppls related pop issues can be handled in the bugs Paul-Gerhard mentions

Comment 16

[Paul-Gerhard Werner]

WEB.DE freemail account: Retrieving header-only messages works fine now with TB 3.0.1. Messages don't disappear anymore. I can retrieve the messages regardless to the 15min pop3 poll time limit. THX to everybody who worked on this feature.

Comment 17

[Duri Paly]

Hi,

I don't know if my problem is exactly the same as the one in this thread, but I had problem with disappearing messages maybe 5 months ago (with that day updated Thunderbird, I don't know version number) and now I still have it.

5 months ago I though that it could be because security issues with Google mail, so I waited to this summer release. Yesterday I downloaded version 38.1.0 for Mac OS and this problem still exists for me.

In the November 2014 I left some messages downloaded as header only. After that I didn't use TB for some time. Maybe in February 2015 I wanted to download the messages, but they were be disappearing.

I have my profile set in Profile manager to My_profile folder and also I have it saved on different location from the date of November 2014. When I try this issue, I can reuse the saved state of my TB profile from November 2014.
After running TB with my profile, everything seems be good, messages to the date 2014/11 appear, some of them as header only, what I mentioned above.
Now again when I try to download any message of the header only messages, it completely disappear from my TB. Every (header only) message do this.
On the Google server the messages still are (I can see them in the Gmail web client).

My settings are: 
- pop3, port 995
- no download messages on startup,
- download headers only
- leave messages on server
- no trash junk mails

Could you please look at this issue? If you need some special information, I can try to get it.

I need this profile, because I have there many saved messages now deleted from servers.

Thank you!

Best regards,
DP.