304382 - Message with top-level |Content-Disposition:attachment| appear completely blank (no attachment panel)

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Backend, defect)

Description

[Richard Clauson]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en) Opera 8.01
Build Identifier: Thunderbird version 1.0.6 (20050716)

When I get a specifically formated message confirming that an email I've sent 
has been received I can't see the body of the email in Thunderbird.  If I look 
at the source of the email (using Ctrl-U) I can see the body.  In another email 
application (AMEOL, see www.ameol.co.uk) I can also see the body of the message.

This is at least the second email from the same source that has behaved in this 
way.

See Additional Information (below) for full raw text of message.

(There may be a connection with Bug #290242, possibly.)

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open Thunderbird
2. Select message
3. (optional) Double click on message to open in separate window

Actual Results:  
Message header is displayed, but body of message isn't.

Expected Results:  
Body of message should have been displayed.

From - Fri Aug 12 01:25:09 2005
X-Account-Key: account1
X-UIDL: 188349
X-Mozilla-Status: 0011
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
Received: from mail.cix.co.uk (UIDL=0:_JTF.Wu6-CB.avs02.mx) by virbius.co.uk 
(VPOP3) with POP3 (Thu, 11 Aug 2005 20:45:13 +0100);     Thu, 11 Aug 2005 20:48:
37 +0100
Received: from avs01.mx.cix.co.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1])
	by avs02.mx.cix.co.uk (8.13.4/CIX/8.13.4/CIX_AVS) with ESMTP id 
j7BJmbqw021702
	for <[e-mail]>; Thu, 11 Aug 2005 20:48:37 +0100
Received: from mta05.mx.cix.co.uk ([10.11.33.5])
	by avs01.mx.cix.co.uk (avs02.mx [10.11.33.17]) (amavisd-new, port 10024)
	with ESMTP id 16822-12 for <[e-mail]>;
	Thu, 11 Aug 2005 20:48:34 +0100 (BST)
X-Envelope-From: [e-mail]
Received: from anchor-post-32.mail.demon.net (anchor-post-32.mail.demon.net 
[194.217.242.90])
	by mta05.mx.cix.co.uk (8.13.4/CIX/8.13.4) with ESMTP id j7BJikMu004099
	for <[e-mail]>; Thu, 11 Aug 2005 20:44:46 +0100
Received: from erehwon.demon.co.uk ([80.177.22.48] helo=gateway)
	by anchor-post-32.mail.demon.net with smtp (Exim 4.42)
	id 1E3Iyr-0005nh-99
	for [e-mail]; Thu, 11 Aug 2005 19:44:46 +0000
Message-ID: <004801c59ead$34852900$6702a8c0@gateway>
From: "erehwon" <[e-mail]>
To: "Richard L de S Clauson" <[e-mail]>
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 20:45:12 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: message/rfc822
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: attachment
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1437
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441
X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new-20030616-p10/clamav (Debian) at cix.co.uk
X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.0 tagged_above=0.0 required=4.0 tests=
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Envelope-To: [e-mail]
X-UIDL: _JTF.Wu6-CB.avs02.mx
X-VPOP3-Spam: 0 -
X-VPOP3-Spam2: added bayes ham
X-VPOP3-SpamBayes: 0
Subject: Re: Evening run for Wed 31st August

From: "erehwon" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Thank you for contacting Slipstream
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 18:32:03 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Unsent: 1
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441

Hi,

Thanks for contacting [e-mail].

This message is to inform you that we have received your submission.

Regards

Andy Ball
Editor - Slipstream
Thames Vale Advanced Motorcyclists

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

These headers (in the main message's header block) may be the problem:

Content-Type: message/rfc822
Content-Disposition: attachment

Does there appear to be an attachment in the message when you view it?

What is the state of the menu item    View | Display Attachments Inline   ?
If that's off (unchecked), does the body appear when you turn it on?

Comment 2

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

No response from reporter  => WFM

Comment 3

[Richard Clauson]

(In reply to comment #1)
> These headers (in the main message's header block) may be the problem:
> 
> Content-Type: message/rfc822
> Content-Disposition: attachment
> 
> Does there appear to be an attachment in the message when you view it?

The original posting by me contained the whole of the problem email.  I used the 
CIX offline reader called AMEOL (www.ameol.com) to copy the message from as it 
has no HTML caperbility and therefore could get at the complete raw text.

> What is the state of the menu item    View | Display Attachments Inline   ?
> If that's off (unchecked), does the body appear when you turn it on?

It is kept off (unchecked).  Yes, the body does appear when the the setting is 
checked, as does the 'Attachments' area at the bottom of the message body 
window.  With my normal setting, unchecked, neither appear.  I wouldn't have 
known to check the option if all my emails don't still go to AMEOL until I'm 
happy that Thunderbird can replace it, and therefore seen the not visible part 
of the email.

Comment 4

[Richard Clauson]

(In reply to comment #2)
> No response from reporter  => WFM

Sorry not to have responded before, but I only received an email today detailing 
that you had marked the Bug as WFM.  (I assume that WFM = Worked For Me, which 
in my case it doesn't)

Richard

Comment 5

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #1)
> > These headers (in the main message's header block) may be the problem:
> > 
> > Content-Type: message/rfc822
> > Content-Disposition: attachment
> > 
> > Does there appear to be an attachment in the message when you view it?
> 
> The original posting by me contained the whole of the problem email.

That isn't what I meant.  When you look at the (blank-appearing) message in 
Thunderbird, is there an indication that the message has an attachment?

> > What is the state of the menu item    View | Display Attachments Inline   ?
> > If that's off (unchecked), does the body appear when you turn it on?
> 
> It is kept off (unchecked).  Yes, the body does appear when the the setting is 
> checked, as does the 'Attachments' area at the bottom of the message body 
> window.  With my normal setting, unchecked, neither appear.

Are you getting many of these messages?  The problem really is on the sender's 
side; altho Mozilla doesn't get this completely right either, a message which 
flags the sole MIME part of the message as 'attachment' is supposed to be 
treated as if it has an attachment and no body.

Mozilla provides a workaround: Display Attachments Inline.  What else do you 
want?  If we automatically displayed the part, we'd be getting complaints -- 
better justified complaints, at that -- that Mozilla was ignoring the headers.

Comment 6

[Richard Clauson]

(In reply to comment #5)
> (In reply to comment #3)
> > (In reply to comment #1)
> > > Does there appear to be an attachment in the message when you view it?
> > 
> > The original posting by me contained the whole of the problem email.
> 
> That isn't what I meant.  When you look at the (blank-appearing) message in 
> Thunderbird, is there an indication that the message has an attachment?

Ah, I see what you mean.  No, there is no indication of an attachment in the 
space at the bottom of the message body window.  The indication of an attachment 
only appears when as suggested I check Display Attachments Inline.

> Are you getting many of these messages?  ...

No, I've only had 2 or 3 that I know of, and they are all 'auto-response' 
messages from [e-mail], which is the email address of the editor of 
the TVAM (www.tvam.org.uk) monthly magazine.

> ... The problem really is on the sender's 
> side; altho Mozilla doesn't get this completely right either, a message which 
> flags the sole MIME part of the message as 'attachment' is supposed to be 
> treated as if it has an attachment and no body.

Oh I see.

> Mozilla provides a workaround: Display Attachments Inline.  What else do you 
> want?  If we automatically displayed the part, we'd be getting complaints -- 
> better justified complaints, at that -- that Mozilla was ignoring the headers.

I definitely don't want to incure the wroth of the mass of Thunderbird users. :
-)

I hadn't looked closly at the Content-Type etc in the email header, and if I had 
I wouldn't have understood it.  I just saw, via AMEOL, that my 'blank' email 
really did have a 'body' hence raising this bug.

I guess if Thunderbird could flag up that there was an attachment, when Display 
Attachments Inline was unchecked, I would be happy as I could see that there was 
more than meets the eye to the 'blank' email.

Thanks, Richard

Comment 7

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #6)
> (In reply to comment #5)
> > (In reply to comment #3)
> > > (In reply to comment #1)
> > > > Does there appear to be an attachment in the message when you view it?
> > > 
> > > The original posting by me contained the whole of the problem email.
> > 
> > That isn't what I meant.  When you look at the (blank-appearing) message in 
> > Thunderbird, is there an indication that the message has an attachment?
> 
> Ah, I see what you mean.  No, there is no indication of an attachment in the 
> space at the bottom of the message body window.  The indication of an
> attachment only appears when as suggested I check Display Attachments Inline.

OK, I can reproduce this: TB 1.6a1-1201, Moz 1.7.12, Win2K.  
Updating summary, moving to Core.

Note there is a patch pending at the similar bug 182627, but I suspect that won't fix this problem.

Comment 8

[Richard Clauson]

(In reply to comment #7)
> (In reply to comment #6)
> > Ah, I see what you mean.  No, there is no indication of an attachment in the 
> > space at the bottom of the message body window.  The indication of an
> > attachment only appears when as suggested I check Display Attachments Inline.
> 
> OK, I can reproduce this: TB 1.6a1-1201, Moz 1.7.12, Win2K.  
> Updating summary, moving to Core.
> 
> Note there is a patch pending at the similar bug 182627, but I suspect that
> won't fix this problem.

Thanks for being able to reproduce this problem.  I've looked through bug 182627 and even though it looks similar I didn't look too closely to see if it was the exact same bug.  As long as you've been able to reproduce the bug I've raised and agreed that it is a bug that needs fixing I'm happy.  If it helps track down other similar bugs, all the better.  As it isn't a real show stopper for me, I'll await the next non-Beta release.

As an aside, the much more important 'problem' for me is that threading of messages isn't real threading.  If I have several non-reply messages with exactly the same Subject line, Thunderbird will thread them even though none has a 'Reply-To:' (or whatever) header line.  Have a look at the now free email and CIX conferencing package AMEOL to see what I mean by real threading of messages.

Comment 9

[buovjaga]

I copied the email source from the description to an .eml. I can see the message body and attachment "Thank you for contacting Slipstream.eml". Both with opening directly or after copying to an IMAP folder. Closing as WFM.

Thunderbird 52.1.0 (32-bit)
Windows 7 64-bit

Comment 10

[Richard Clauson]

buovjaga - what gives you the right to Close this Bug Report?  Looking at your profile you have only ever reported ONE bug, and made a few hundred comments.  You don't sound like an official of Mozilla.  You also weren't around when I reported the bug some 12 years ago.

Comment 11

[buovjaga]

(In reply to Richard Clauson from comment #10)
> buovjaga - what gives you the right to Close this Bug Report?  Looking at
> your profile you have only ever reported ONE bug, and made a few hundred
> comments.  You don't sound like an official of Mozilla.  You also weren't
> around when I reported the bug some 12 years ago.

Mozilla does not limit the right to edit bugs to its employees. I closed the bug because I tested it on the same platform, Windows, and the bug did not appear. Did you test it with the latest version and confirmed it still happens for you?