280328 - File -> Get New Messages for -> ALL Accounts (and its variations) does not work

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 262457

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect)

Description

[Andy]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8a6) Gecko/20050111
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8a6) Gecko/20050111

WIth multiple POP3 accounts set up (that do work), if Mozilla can't check for
new messages or you tell it not to at first and then use "File -> Get New
Messages for -> ALL Accounts" (or it's hotkey 'Ctrl+Shift+T' OR click the Get
Messages toolbar button's drop down and select "Get All New Messages" there) it
does nothing.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Set up multiple POP3 accounts and have Mozilla ask for the password for each
(don't save the password for the accounts)  I don't believe the password part is
part of the bug, just makes it easier to see that the 'Get messages for all
accounts does not work.  You can actually (and I have) make sure there are new
messages on the servers for those accounts and see that it doesn't get those but
it not asking for the passwords shows the bug is earlier anyway.
2.Exit Moz completely
3.Start Moz and go into mail
4.It should ask for the password for each account set up, one right after the
other: **click cancel on each password dialog**
5.Then use "File -> Get New Messages for -> ALL Accounts"
Actual Results:  
Nothing

Expected Results:  
Just like when I entered mail it should have asked for the passwords for each
account and as I enter each password it should start getting the messages for
each  account.

It doesn't ask for the passwords and therefore isn't trying to get the messages
for the accounts.  If you Get New Messages for any of the individual accounts at
that point, it asks for the password for that account and gets the messages just
fine.


The way I ran into this bug and it may be a more likely route that others might
hit it: I run SAProxy for extra spam filtering.  It runs as a proxy and my mail
accounts point to it at localhost (127.0.0.1) then the real server is passed in
the user name somthing like this: [e-mail]:pop.somepop3.com
This all works wonderfully normally: if SAProxy is running when I go into Moz
email, it asks for each account's password (and asks for them all) and proceeds
to get the messages for all of them.
But if I don't have SAProxy running when I go into Moz email, I don't get
prompted for my passwords because the proxy server isn't running.  If I then
start SAProxy I want to 'get new messages for all accounts' but with the above
bug I've got to get them for each separate account.  (Or exit moz completely and
go back in after I've started SAProxy)


I say I don't think it has to do with the passwords: I have not saved my
passwords for my accounts and tried this sequence to see if it still doesn't
work yet.  For security sake I don't want to save my passwords and couldn't find
anywhere in "Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings..." to clear the passwords if I
do save it (so I didn't want to get stuck with my passwords saved just to test
this bug.)

Comment 1

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

Reporter: It DOES make a difference if passwords are saved and/or mail was
checked before. When the password isn't saved and you haven't checked mail
before, these accounts are skiped. I think this has been done intentional, so it
doesn't ask the user for each (in some cases many) password. So likely this
behaviour won't change.
This here is probably the Mozilla version of Bug 259212.

Comment 2

[Andy]

OK: I can confirm that if passwords are saved it looks like 'Get New Messages
for all accounts' behaves correctly.. (I saved my passwords after figuring out
that email passwords do show up in the password manager and tested it with them
all saved.)

It still seems like the wrong way to behave.  If someone uses the 'Get New
Messages for all accounts' and haven't entered or saved a password for a/some
accounts, they should expect to be asked for those password(s).  Otherwise they
should use the 'get new messages' for individual accounts.


From the someone's reply in bug 259212:
"I think this feature
deliberately skips servers where we don't have a password, to avoid prompting
the user for a bunch of passwords, so it can run unattended."


If allowing it to run unattended is the reason then the timed/automatic function
that gets new messages should only get messages for accounts it already has
passwords for, wether saved or logged into during the current session.


I'm not sure bug 259212 is the same situation but may be related.  It seems to
be referring more to how the program behaves during the timed/automatic message
retrievals, not the user initiated "Get All", and it almost sounds like that
part works the way I just mentioned but it's not clear if Trix had logged in for
the account he/she had problems with.

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #2)
> I'm not sure bug 259212 is the same situation but may be related.

That bug started getting comments about different problems, but originally, it 
was the same.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 262457 ***