280448 - incorrect counts of unread and total messages in newsgroups shown when server expanded

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 108650

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect)

Description

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a6) Gecko/20050111
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a6) Gecko/20050111

My list of accounts and folders in the left-side pane of the main mail-news
window is set to show counts of unread and total messages in folders/newsgroups.
  Normally, when I bring up the main mailnews window, the news servers are all
collapsed, not showing the individual newsgroups in each one.  When I expand
the list of newsgroups for a server, I then see the list of newsgroups, and 
for each one, the count of unread and total messages.  

The counts shown when the list of newsgroups is first expanded are bogus,
generally MUCH larger numbers than the true numbers.  

If I then go and click on each newsgroup, the numbers for that newsgroup
are corrected, and generally appear much smaller after that.  

If I then collapse the list of newsgroups for a server, and then re-expand
the list, the counts go right back to those large incorrect numbers, until
I click on each individual newsgroup again.  

This behavior makes the counts of messages rather useless.  
Perhaps that is why FireFox has no way to display them? 
(If you can't fix them, then shut them off?)

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open mail-news window
2. expand list of newsgroups for server
3. observe unrealistically large message counts.
4. click on each individual newsgroup
5. observe correct message counts
6. collapse list of newsgroups for server
7. repeat at step 2, as many times as you like

Actual Results:  
unrealistically large counts of messages appear

Expected Results:  
correct message counts appear

Here's a capture of the counts for a few newsgroups, as seen when i
first visit that server, before clicking on any of these newsgroups:

     Name                      Unread     Total
     giganews
         n.p.m.c.checkins         989      1994
         n.p.m.crypto             948      2494
         s.crypt                  951     48697
         r.v.cable-tv             868      3916

Then I click on the groups to see the messages in them, and immediately
the counts shrink, e.g.

     giganews
         n.p.m.c.checkins            2       37
         n.p.m.crypto                6      121
         s.crypt                   452     2240
         r.v.cable-tv               17      170

Then I collapse and re-expand the list of newsgroups for that server,
and then see:
     giganews
         n.p.m.c.checkins         989     1994
         n.p.m.crypto             948     2494
         s.crypt                  949    48697
         r.v.cable-tv             868     3916

This problem is seen on numerous news servers, including news.mozilla.org

Comment 1

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

It may be relevant that this occurs on news servers that I have configured 
to "Keep messages which have arrived in the last [ 30 ] days."

In a newsgroup discussion about this behavior, someone suggested that it
occurs in newsgroups that have message filters set to mark some messages
as read, but I observe that it also happens in groups that have no message
filters.  

The unrealistic counts have values that often exceed the total number of 
messages posted into the newsgroup in an entire YEAR.  So, it is NOT the
case that the high counts are correct counts before the message filters
are applied.

Comment 2

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

One more thing.  I do NOT have these newsgroups configured to download
messages for offline viewing.  I limit the number of days that message
headers are kept in order to keep the size of the .msf files from 
growing into hundreds of megabytes.  

Comment 3

[Felix Miata]

I've been seeing this for at least forever, but have been too frustrated in
understanding its semi-random behavior to search for or file a bug.

e.g. in 2005011301 OS/2 trunk on news.mozilla.org:
netscape.public.mozilla.unix
     expand server -> 19 10650 select -> 13 10654  -> collapse/expand 15 10650
select -> 13 10654
netscape.public.mozilla.gtk
     expand server -> 50 2173 select -> 48 2179 -> collapse/expand 48 2173
select -> 48 2179

Comment 4

[zug_treno]

Duplicate of Core bug 108650, related to meta bug 71728?

Comment 5

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

Yeah, it's a dup.  Thanks for finding the other bug.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 108650 ***