365877 - Threaded view problems in Saved Search folders that span/search only one folder

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[CJ Smith]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1
Build Identifier: version 2 beta 1 (20061206)

When browsing a Saved Search folder, I am having trouble getting threaded view to work correctly. When I click the 'Threads' column header, they sort into threads in ascending date order, but when I click it again, it just goes in normal descending date order, but not threaded. 

However, when I click on another folder, then back my Search folder, it displays (most of the time) correctly.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create saved search folder
2. Navigate to folder and click 'Threads' (left-most) column header.
3. Click again to reverse direction, and note the lack of threads.
Actual Results:  
Date ordered, but not threaded.

Expected Results:  
Should be threaded.

Comment 1

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

WFM with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1b2) Gecko/20060831 Thunderbird/2.0a1 Mnenhy/0.7.4.0 ID:2007010303

Reporter please try again with the latest 1.8 BRANCH build.

Comment 2

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Ok, I can see this only for collaped threads. If you expand a thread it will be sorted correctly and stays in it's thread view.

This depends on Davids patches on bug 263180.

Comment 3

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

If you have expanded all threads and click multiple times onto the Thread column header less and lesser threads will be rearranged. After multiple times nothing is sorted anymore.

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1. Create saved search folder
> 2. Navigate to folder and click 'Threads' (left-most) column header.
> 3. Click again to reverse direction, and note the lack of threads.
> Actual Results:  
> Date ordered, but not threaded.
> 
> Expected Results:  
> Should be threaded.

So you're expecting the thread column to reverse the sort order?  That's expected if you have
  mailnews.thread_pane_column_unthreads
set to False.  With that setting, the Thread column is a threaded/unthreaded toggle which maintains whatever sort criterion was set previously.  With the preference set True, the first click (from an unthreaded view) puts the view into threaded and sorts threads by Order Received; subsequent clicks reverse the sort order.

However, with the preference set true, clicking other columns unthreads the view, rather than simply reversing the sort order of the threads.

Comment 5

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

(In reply to comment #4)
> expected if you have
>   mailnews.thread_pane_column_unthreads
> set to False.  With that setting, the Thread column is a threaded/unthreaded
> toggle which maintains whatever sort criterion was set previously.  With the

That is not the aim of that bug.

> preference set True, the first click (from an unthreaded view) puts the view
> into threaded and sorts threads by Order Received; subsequent clicks reverse
> the sort order.

No, it doesn't. I can successfully revers the sort direction in threaded view by selecting the sort direction in 'View | Sort by'. Clicking multiple times into the thread header columns seems to raise another action but not switching between Ascending and Descending. Expand some or all threads to see it.

Comment 6

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Oh, I see -- I wasn't looking in a search folder.

If the 'unthreads' preference is set False, the thread-column header behaves as expected, but with threading turned on, clicking the other columns results in the same problem as reported in this bug.

Comment 7

[Jörg von Frantzius]

I'm using TB 2.0 beta2 on openSUSE 10.2 (GTK2), and clicking the "Click to display message threads" column header doesn't seem to do anything at all when I'm *inside a saved search folder*, except for some visual flicker. 

The saved search folder contains (finds) both my sent mails and other people's responses, and it would be really great if they could be displayed threaded!

Comment 8

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

David, how difficult is it to get this in for Thunderbird 2?

Comment 9

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Err, wrong person. David please have a look at comment 8.

Comment 10

[Jörg von Frantzius]

By the way, when I look into the menu "View/Sort by", the "Threaded" and "Unthreaded" options are disabled. Maybe for a reason?

Comment 11

[David :Bienvenu]

If the saved search is across multiple folders, threading is very difficult because threading information is per-folder - it certainly won't happen for 2.0.

Comment 12

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Using TB 2b1-0116, I'm seeing a slightly different behavior than originally reported.  These test are in a single-source search folder, with the 'unthreads' pref set to True (default):

If I view the saved-search folder with, say, Unthreaded, by Subject, then click the Thread column header, it sorts as expected: threaded, by order-received.
Call this view 1.  If I look at the View | Sort By menu, however, it still shows the radio-check next to 'Subject'.

Then as I repeatedly click the Thread column header -- call these view 2, 
view 3, view 4 -- I'm seeing that view 1 doesn't have the same ordering as 
view 3, and view 2 doesn't have the same ordering as view 4, etc.  And then 
at some point -- around view 6 or view 7, with my test folder -- clicking the Thread column header doesn't change the ordering at all.  (Again, no change 
to the radio-check in the menu.)

I see this whether the threads are expanded or collapsed.


I'm also noticing many threads whose messages consistently ordered incorrectly:
   + Reply 1
   |--  Original message
   |--+ Reply 2
      |--  Reply 3

I think this is due to the order of the messages in the source folder, which contains a lot of items that were movedin from Inbox and from Sent in no specific order.  I'll get around to filing a separate bug on this.

Comment 13

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Attachment: Screen shots of mis-threading

Here's a series of shots of my thread pane after following the steps listed in comment 12 -- this is "View 1" thru "View 5".

Comment 14

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

(In reply to comment #12)
> view 3, and view 2 doesn't have the same ordering as view 4, etc.  And then 
> at some point -- around view 6 or view 7, with my test folder -- clicking the
> Thread column header doesn't change the ordering at all.  (Again, no change 

Mike, that behavior I already described in comment 3. Perhaps you haven't understood it correctly. ;)

Comment 15

[Ziru]

It seemed that if I configured the saved source folder to be based on a single source location, the threading support now works.

A new problem arises: most often my search folder was created based on a tag search.  Though I turned on the FCC option (to place the reply in the same folder as the original message), the reply doesn't appear in the saved search folder due to missing tags in the replies.  Does it make sense to allow users to specify whether they want the FCC replies inherit the tags from the original messages?  That will enhance the threading view for saved search folder a little bit (original+replies in the same virtual folder).

Comment 16

[Bob Horvath]

I have many many similar problems with saved searches and threading.  I only recently made the connection to threading.  The symptoms I see is that saved searches (I have 27 of them at the moment), threaded view, and the Mail Views pulldown don't work at all together.  If I have the Mail Views set to unread, sometimes it shows nothing, sometimes some of the unread, sometimes a mix of unread and read, etc. Once it happens, it seems broken until I rebuild the index, and even then sometimes that doesn't seem to fix it. What does seem to fix it is to go in the View menu and do View/Sort By/Unthreaded. I have only been trying this since finding this bug report, so hopefully I am not speaking too soon.

The way I can reproduce it now is I am subscribed to sipping.  If I have a Saved Search with subject or from set to "sipping", sort by set to Threaded, and Mail View set to Unread, it doesn't show the right thing.  If it does, switching between All and Unread in the Mail View breaks it. 

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Ziru, others - search across multiple folders is Bug 379806 – threaded/grouped-by-sort views unavailable in saved searches across multiple folders


Mike  Have you filed a bug on your comment 12?
...
> Using TB 2b1-0116, I'm seeing a slightly different behavior than originally
> reported.  These test are in a single-source search folder, with the
> 'unthreads' pref set to True (default):
> 
>...
> I'm also noticing many threads whose messages consistently ordered incorrectly:
>    + Reply 1
>    |--  Original message
>    |--+ Reply 2
>       |--  Reply 3
> 
> I think this is due to the order of the messages in the source folder, which
> contains a lot of items that were movedin from Inbox and from Sent in no
> specific order.  I'll get around to filing a separate bug on this.

Comment 18

[Ziru]

@Wayne: How about the tags inheritance?  Assume I have received an email and assigned tag 'FOOBAR' to it, and a saved search folder named 'FOOBAR'.  When I reply to it, I would like very much thunderbird to tag my outgoing email using 'FOOBAR' *automatically* (this feature can be optional, as the 'place replies in the folder of the message being replied to' feature).  In this case, I could use the threaded view on the saved search folder 'FOOBAR' (assume it does not span across multiple folders).  Otherwise, the outgoing email will be missing from the thread.

Comment 19

[Wayne Busuttil]

I'm not sure how exactly related this is, but I have what sounds to be like almost exactly what Bob Horvath mentioned. I am using version 2.0.0.14 (20080501) on Fedora 9 on x86_64.

I set up an IMAP account (the only email account set up, with local syncing for offline viewing), and then create a set of "Saved searches" by clicking the Inbox of the account and selecting File -> New -> Saved search... and add some search parameters, namely a "To or cc contains" and then several "From doesn't contain" lines.

The problem is, when I view the saved search folder in threaded mode (i.e. select View -> Sort by -> Threaded) random messages disappear. In fact I believe all messages from the initial download of the contents to be present in the threaded view (hard to confirm but they all seem to be there) but some of the newer ones disappear. Like Bob, if I select Unthreaded again, the messages come back!

Should I raise a separate bugzilla for this? I really think it's a bug and should be tracked down and fixed. This functionality is extremely useful if working.

Comment 20

[Wayne Busuttil]

Additional information. This looks like a problem with searching in general. I click on the Inbox itself, and attempt to search for a message subject which I know exists, is recent and has been disappearing when I select Threaded view from within a Saved Search folder. The result is I get either (a) nothing, when I know for sure that a message exists containing the subject I entered, (b) the message appears in the list, but clicking on it does nothing, as if it was not there, or (c) the message flickers in the results for a couple of frames and then disappears. Clearly something is broken.

Comment 21

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #20)
> Additional information. This looks like a problem with searching in general. 

If true, then this may be a dupe. You might check bugs listed in the meta bug 236849