325480 - Arrow keys dont' work properly in compose window

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core Graveyard :: GFX: Gtk, defect)

Description

[psfales]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050927
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050927

Starting in thunderbird 1.5, arrow keys (up and down arrrows) don't seem to work correctly in the editing window.   When going up or down a line, the cursor is placed at the wrong place on the line.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open a compose window and begin entering text
2. Type "Line 1"  then "Enter" then "Line 2" (do not hit enter)
3. Hit left arrow (to positioin the cursor just before the "2", then up arrow

Actual Results:  
Cursor is positioned at the beginning of the first line

Expected Results:  
Cursort should have been positioned on the first line just before the "1"

Comment 1

[zug_treno]

Maybe related to Firefox bug 325155?

Comment 2

[Andy Price]

I'm seeing this in Thunderbird version 1.5 (20060309) under an up-to-date i386 Ubuntu 6.04 (test) install. Up and down arrow keys make the cursor go back to column 1 on the previous and next lines (respectively) instead of staying in the same column.

Comment 3

[Viktor L. Takacs]

I also have found that in my version the arrow keys do not work in composer text area at all. In spite the arrows work in the address and subject fields.

OS info:
Linux vltakacs 2.6.12-9-686 #1 Mon Oct 10 13:25:32 BST 2005 i686 GNU/Linux

Client info:
Thunderbird version 3 alpha 1 (20060310)

Regards,
Viktor L. Takacs

Comment 4

[Max Barry]

Up-down cursor movement problems in Compose appear widespread on Linux distributions. There's a thread about it in the Gentoo forums: 

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=3397038

... and a Red Hat bug:

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=177436

So it's probably safe to call this one "confirmed."

Comment 5

[David Jennings]

Also seen in Ubuntu 6.10: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mozilla-thunderbird/+bug/38758

It's connected to the Pango library. Disabling Pango is a workaround:

$ MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=1 mozilla-thunderbird

or set MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=1 in /etc/environment

There is a patch to fix this from RedHat: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=198759

Comment 6

[Jon duSaint]

Hi,
this issue was identified almost two years ago with version 1.5 and yet still occurs now even in version 2.0.0.9 (latest version I've tried). Is a fix for this in the works? Is there any reason this is still unconfirmed? I personally have seen this on every Thunderbird version since 1.5 and on at least a dozen different Linux distributions. Thanks,

--Jon

Comment 7

[psfales]

For the record, the fix described in comment #5 has been working for us.   It would be nice to get this into the official code base.

Comment 8

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

I presume that since the patch that someone forgot to upstream is against a file that no longer exists on the trunk, that this now works on the trunk, and is 1.8-only?

Comment 9

[Jon duSaint]

This does not work in any version of Thunderbird after 1.5 up to and including 2.0.0.9 (the version I'm currently using).

Comment 10

[Jesper Larsen]

This bug seems fixed in the latest version 2.0.0.16.
Got 3 confirmations (including my own) in Ubuntu bugtacker: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mozilla-thunderbird/+bug/38758

Comment 11

[psfales]

I'm still seeing the bug in 2.0.0.16.  (We've been privately building in the patch mentioned in comment 5, and that's been working for us.  But when I remove that patch and build again, I see the problem.  Is it possible that Ubuntu has pulled this fix into their version?)

Comment 12

[Jesper Larsen]

Yeah seems like it. I downloaded the source from the repositories, and there's a patch.

I've added it as an attachment.

Comment 13

[Jesper Larsen]

Attachment: Patch in Ubuntu to fix

Comment 14

[psfales]

Yes, that looks exactly like the patch that was in comment 5.   

It seems like there is pretty strong agreement both that the problem exists, and that this is a reasonable fix.  If it's in the official Ubuntu release, it's been seen by quite a few "eyeballs."  Here's hoping that someone can get this bug out of the unconfirmed state and put the patch into the official source!!

Comment 15

[Zack Weinberg (:zwol)]

The code that was patched by that patch no longer exists in current versions of the core code, and I am unable to reproduce the problem with thunderbird 3.1.16 nor firefox 8.0.