310454 - Can't set address book location

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Address Book, defect)

Description

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7

I need to store the address book outside the TB profile folder (just like the
mail folders can be stored elsewhere).

In TB the personal address book name is configured in this preference:
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.pab.filename", "abook.mab");

In TB 1.0.6, this can be a relative path, like so:

user_pref("ldap_2.servers.pab.filename",
"..\\..\\..\\..\\..\\..\\..\\HENKADDRBOOK\\abook.mab");

On Windows you don't seem to be able to specify a drive name, but anyway, the
relative path is OK for my purposes.

In 1.5 Beta 1, the relative path doesn't work any more.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. edit preferences as described, start TB, check whether personal address book
is there.
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
Relative path to address book works in 1.0.6 but not 1.5 Beta 1. Absolute path
don't work at all.

Expected Results:  
Should be able to specify a relative or absolute path to address book.

Sorry, I can't find any documentation about this. Anyway, I noticed that a
feature (?) stopped working in 1.5 beta 1.

Comment 1

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Theres an existing bug on this somewhere. AFAIK we've never supported address 
books outside of the profile folder.

Comment 2

[zug_treno]

Related to Suite bug 143451?

Comment 3

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

> Related to Suite bug 143451?

Yes. But I noticed that the relative path feature in 1.0.6. doesn't work in 1.5
any more, so thinks have gotten worse.

Comment 4

[Håkon Waage]

The matter has been confirmed and is present in the final release of TB 1.5 see this thread:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=2030615#2030615

Hope it can be corrected.

Thanks.

Comment 5

[beaglecat47]

I have been looking for an email client that supports global folders and contacts.  I finally found it (TB), but reports say global contacts no longer work in 1.5  I hope this gets corrected.  I want to move away from Outlook as my email client and start using TB, but may have to wait to see what happens with this.

Comment 6

[Michael C. Venner]

I transitioned to Thunderbird in January of 2005; aware of, and distressed by, Suite bug 143451 (the inability to target an address book via an absolute path) but tolerant on account of the viability of relative-path (vis-à-vis the user's profile directory) targeting.  Unlike the reporter (Jorg K), I only download final releases so my experience with Thunderbird v1.5 can be measured in mere minutes but, confirming his comment of 2005-09-30, things HAVE gotten worse in this regard.  

Why, after nearly four months, is this bug (310454) still tagged UNCONFIRMED?  Lack of a feature is one thing but loss of a feature, especially when inadvertent, is quite another.  Is this to be addressed?

Comment 7

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

*** Bug 329420 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Matt Coe]

Okay, seriously, this bug is still out there. I'm trying to share my email folders between Ubuntu and WinXP partitions (out of necessity, they're stored on the XP partition), and I can't see anything when I pull up Thunderbird in Ubuntu. All the folders are there, but when I open one up, I get the throbber and nothing happens. This is blocking my use of Thunderbird!

Comment 10

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

Reporter, does this issue still occur in the latest 2.0.0.14 / trunk nightlies?

Comment 11

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

No additional useful information since last comment -> resolving incomplete.

Please comment if the issue still occurs in the latest supported 2.0.0.14 / trunk nightlies.