289375 - Group-by-Sort: selecting an unread message in the message group window forces it to be marked as read/downloaded

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Chase Phillips]

Under certain conditions, selecting an unread email in the message group window
marks it as having been read even when the message pane window is not shown.  I
also suspect that Thunderbird is doing all of the actions necessary to display
the message in the message pane, which means that a "dangerous" message could be
shown on accident even with the prevention of turning off the message pane.

I'm using Thunderbird 1.0 on Windows XP Service Pack 2.  My incoming mail server
is configured for secure IMAP.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Turn off the message pane by selecting "View -> Layout -> Message Pane"
  2. Turn off group by sort by selecting "View -> Sort by -> Unthreaded"
  3. Turn on group by sort by selecting "View -> Sort by -> Grouped By Sort"
  4. Select a message marked as unread with your cursor.

Note that once you do (4) the message appears to be downloaded, but not shown.

Expected behaviour: the program should not mark the message as read, nor should
it download or do any of the steps normally associated with reading an email in
order to avoid the possibility of a mm or specially-addressed virus being run
inadvertently.

Steps to fix the incorrect behaviour once in this state:

  1. Turn on the message pane by selecting "View -> Layout -> Message Pane"
  2. Turn off the message pane by selecting "View -> Layout -> Message Pane"

Comment 1

[Chase Phillips]

Unmarking security-sensitive per conversation with mscott.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

trunk also, version 3 alpha 1 (20060311).

key point is step 3* must be LAST before selecting the message.
*Grouped By Sort

other bugs where message is unexpectedly marked unread:
Bug 284138
Bug 284030
Bug 232967

Comment 3

[Chase Phillips]

> [e-mail]
> 2006-05-20 10:46:28 PDT
> Old summary
>   selecting an unread email in the message group window marks it read even
>   when message pane is not shown
> New summary
>   Group-by-Sort forces selected & unread message to be marked as
>   read/downloaded

The original summary was complex but your summary change doesn't make this bug more identifiable while at the same time making it (more?) ambiguous.  Is the bug reproduced by selecting an unread message and then turning on Group-by-Sort?  No.

My suggestion:

Group-by-Sort: selecting an unread message in the message group window forces it to be marked as read/downloaded

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

iirc the situation correctly, the message not being shown is the bug, not that the message is marked read.  do you still see the problem?

Comment 5

[Chase Phillips]

Yes, I still see this behavior in Thunderbird 2.0.0.6.

The bug is that the message is being marked read.  If the message pane were visible, single-clicking on the message once would cause it to be shown in the message pane.  However, the message pane is not visible in my settings, and without the message pane being visible, single-clicking on an email message should mean I have not yet read the message, only selected it.

In Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 I see Thunderbird's status bar show "Loading message..." for a fraction of a second, the status bar goes blank, and after 2-5 seconds the message is marked as read.

The same behavior occurs when I use the arrow keys on my keyboard to move my message selection up or down.  As I move onto unread messages, the status bar shows "Loading message..." and after 2-5 seconds the message is marked as read.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

ehsan, bienvenu, can you suggest a methodology that might suppress this behavior?  This behavior is well defined, and the upside to fixing it, is it would be one less case to get confused with read/unread flipping caused by other scenarios (imap ones come to mind).

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I should have posted comment 7 in bug 232967

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #7)
> would be one less case to get confused with read/unread flipping caused by
> other scenarios (imap ones come to mind).
another is Bug 495666 - If mark Read/Unread, Add/Remove Tag etc. is executed while "Compact Folder" is running, marking/tagging is lost after end of compaction

Comment 10

[(no longer active)]

Isn't the solution just checking the visibility of the message pane, and skipping to set the message as read when it's hidden?

Comment 11

[David :Bienvenu]

I don't believe this bug as defined in comment #0 still occurs so I believe it's invalid. Wayne, if you can try this and verify that, then we can close this one as WFM.

Comment 12

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I agree, comment 0 is WFM