300873 - Error in message filters when changing O/S

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Sam]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.3 StumbleUpon/1.9993
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.3 StumbleUpon/1.9993

Hi,

i have mail account with about 20 differents folders and filters to map emails
to each folders.

Emails directory is in a separate FAT32 partition that can be read by WinXP and Fc3

In the two O/S i have thunderbird version 1.0.5


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. In windows
1.1 Create an account with your preferences
1.2 Go in account options -> Server Settings and change Local directory to
something the second OS can read (FAT partition?)
1.3 Create few folders and filters(with  Action "Move to folder".  
1.4 Shutdown windows and boot on linux

2.1 Send a message to yourself that will be filtered
2.2 You should see an alert message "The folder 'MyFolder' could not be found,
so filters ...."
2.3 Click OK and go to filter settings 
2.4 The name of the folder is no longer displayed into the "move to folder" action. 
2.5 Seleect a new folder , press ok , and it'll do the same error when you will
go back to Windows


3.

Actual Results:  
Filters are not compatibles between O/S

Expected Results:  
Compatibles filters

Comment 1

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(1) Did you restart Thunderbird after step 1.2, change of "Local Directry" setting?

If no, restart Thunderbird after step 1.2.
See Bug 2654. 
This is one of the oldest bug, and one one of the most famous bugs among Mozilla
mail&news users, because almost all Mozilla's "Release Notes" has pointer to
this bug in "Known Bugs" section, although this bug is not listed in
Thunderbird's "Release Notes" of any Thunderbird version.

(2) Path of mail directry is saved in mail.server.serverNN.directory-rel,
    and format of it's is as follows(relative from Profile directory) ;
      [ProfD]../../../../../../../../D:/MAIL-NEWS/Mail/xxx.yyy.zzz
       (when located in other than profile directry, on MS Win)
    This is not compatible among OS's, and is one of current restrictions on
    sharing profile among OS's.

Do you know how to mount MS Win's drive as "/D:" on Linux?
Dou you know how to keep "hierarchical depth of profile directry" to be same on
any OS, always, easily?

Comment 2

[Sam]

shIn reply to comment #1)
> (1) Did you restart Thunderbird after step 1.2, change of "Local Directry"
setting?
Yes


> (2) Path of mail directry is saved in mail.server.serverNN.directory-rel,
>     and format of it's is as follows(relative from Profile directory) ;
>       [ProfD]../../../../../../../../D:/MAIL-NEWS/Mail/xxx.yyy.zzz
>        (when located in other than profile directry, on MS Win)
>     This is not compatible among OS's, and is one of current restrictions on
>     sharing profile among OS's.

My profiles are saved into eg :
Win c:/document and setting/user/.../
Lin /home/user/.thunderbird/.../

And from the profile file thunderbird load the email directory
Win f:/email/email/account/
Lin /mnt/diskF/email/email/account/

And filters settings are saved into
Win EMAILDIR/msgFilterRules.dat
Lin EMAILDIR/msgFilterRules.dat


The file containing path to mail directory is not shared between O/S. The only
path that is shared is an relative path to mailbox root.

actionValue="mailbox://user@domaincom/Web/Malling%20lists/Mozilla%20projects"

Thanks
Sam

Comment 3

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to comment #2)
> actionValue="mailbox://user@domaincom/Web/Malling%20lists/Mozilla%20projects"
What value will be set when this filter action is re-defined on other OS?
Go message filter on Linux if the filter was defined on Win, and choose target
mail folder again, then save filter.
Will same "user@domaincom" be set? 

Comment 4

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

"user@domaincom" is determined by mail.server.serverNN.userName and
mail.server.serverNN.hostname.
This means that same value have to be set in both prefs.js for win prefs.js for
Linux.

Comment 5

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Correction of my comment #4.
"domaincom" part in mail:// ... was not mail.server.serverNN.hostname value.

(1) On account definition, directry name for the accout( "/account" portion in 
f:/email/email/account/ or /mnt/diskF/email/email/account/ ) becomes the value
of mail.server.serverNN.hostname if directry of "account"(=server name) doesn't
exist.
(2) If the directry already exists, directry name becomes one with suffix,
xxx.yyy-NN.zzz or xxx.yyy.zzz-NN(depends on version of Mozilla/Thunderbird).
This usually occurs when multiple accounts on same POP3 server. 
(3) And internal mail folder path becomes mailbox://user@<The Directry Name
determined above>/Web/Malling%20lists/Mozilla%20projects.
(4) This internal path format is used in many place to point mail folder and is
written to prefs.js on account definition.
This is used by message filter too.
(5) These pointers(mail://... in prefs.js or filter) are not changed
automatically when "Local directry" setting is changed.
(6) Therefore, if changed "Local directry" setting has different "<The Directry
Name determined above>" part, inconsistency will be produced in prefs.js or
message filter.

Are there any inconsistency like above?

Comment 6

[Sam]

Win : mailbox://[e-mail]/Web/Malling%20lists/Mozilla%20projects
Lin : mailbox://[e-mail]/Web/Malling%20lists/Mozilla%20projects


On win i had originaly created my profile with mail.old-domain.com and when i
change email address (on same POP server / IP ) to domain.com, i just change
values into account settings.

I just deleted my windows thunderbird profile and created a new profile with
'mail.domain.com' server and evrything work fine.


Thanks for your help
Sam

Comment 7

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

As I described in comment #5, initial entry of server name
(mail.server.serverNN.hostname) on account definition has relation to directry
name, and suffix is added automatically when directry already exists.
This causes difficulty in keeping multiple profiles consistent, especially when
multiple accounts on same POP3 server.
But there is an easy way to avoid your problem.
 (1) On account definition, specify dummy server name and user-id.
     These are saved in mail.server.serverNN.hostname/userName
     and this dummy server name is used as directry name(no suffix is added).
     => Real directry name as dummy server name is easiest solution.
 (2) Save the definition.
 (3) Change server name and user-id to real one's thru account definition UI.
     These are saved in mail.server.serverNN.realhostname/realuserName
     and are used in log-in.
     (If realhostname/realuserName is not defined, hostname/userName is used.)

Anyway, this is not Mozilla's problem.
=> INVALID