377084 - empty message window when opening search results (when the message isn't present in the folder view)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(MailNews Core :: Search, defect)

Description

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

Seeing this seamonkey trunk, but I suspect this is common to Mail/News.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a4pre) Gecko/20070410 SeaMonkey/1.5a

When I double click a message in the search results window, a new message 
window appears that is complete empty (blank) where the message is supposed 
to be.  This is completely 100% reproducible.  

Steps to reproduce:
1. In the main mail window, set a folder to display threads with unread
    View -> Threads -> Threads with unread
This can be a POP folder or an IMAP folder.  The folder should have some
read messages and some unread messages in it.  It should have some threads
that are completely read, some that are partially read, and some that are
completely unread.

2. Right click on the folder, and select Search Messages...
Enter some search criteria (could be "From contains @", and do the search.  

3. In the displayed search results, select (click and highlight) a message
in a thread that is completely read.  Then either click the Open button
at the bottom of the search results window, or double click the selected 
message.

Expected result:  A window appears showing the message and its contents.  

Actual result: A window appears whose contents are completely blank, 
except for the menu bars at the top.  

4. Close that useless empty window.

5. In the same displayed search results, with the same message selected,
click the "Open Message Folder" button.  

Expected result: A new main mail window appears, with the folder for the selected message being selected, and showing the headers and body of the selected message.

Actual result: A new main mail window appears, with the folder for the 
selected message being selected, but the pane that should show the message 
contents is completely blank.  

The expected effect of selecting only threads with unread is an effect on
the message list pane, where all the messages in the folder are shown one
per line.  One does not expect to see messages listed there from threads that 
are completely read.  But in the window that appears when you double-click
a selected search result, there IS NO message list pane, and therefore 
there should be NO PROBLEM showing the contents of the selected message in
that window.  

This is becoming a major hassle.  The only solution is to go to the main 
mail window, select the folder, go to View -> Threads -> All, then return
to the search window and again click on the Open button or Open Message 
Folder button.  NONE of this should be necessary to see the message in the
message window opened from the search results!

Comment 1

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

I don't know if this problem is unique to SeaMonkey, or if it is 
common to all Mozilla mail/news clients.  I run into it EVERY DAY.

It really makes the feature that searches through multiple folders 
very very tedious to use.  To search for a message AND THEN READ IT,
typically requires all these steps:
1) bring up the search dialog, do the search, get a list of messages that 
match the search criteria.
2) Select one of the messages in the search results, and either double-click
it or click it and then click the "Open" button.
3) Get a new message window that displays a completely blank/empty message
4) CLose that useless window, and go back to the search results window
5) Click the "Open Message Folder" button, and see a new main mail window 
appear with that folder selected
6) Change the view options for that folder, so that it views all threads,
not merely threads with unread.
7) close the new main mail window, and go back to the search results window
8) Again, double click on the selected message, or click the Open Button.
9) Now a message window appears with the message body displayed.
10) later, when looking through that folder again, set it back to "show 
threads with unread".

I really REALLY want to see this fixed before the next release of any 
mail/news client in which the problem is seen!

Comment 2

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Yep, thunderbird/linux too.
Error: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED) [nsIMsgDBView.loadMessageByViewIndex]"  nsresult: "0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED)"  location: "JS frame :: chrome://messenger/content/messageWindow.js :: LoadMessageByViewIndex :: line 1147"  data: no]

http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/mailnews/base/src/nsMsgDBView.cpp#979

Comment 3

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

This sounds pretty painful; marking as blocking Tb3.

Comment 4

[Kent James (:rkent)]

I can reproduce this, so let me take it.

Comment 5

[Kent James (:rkent)]

Attachment: Open using messenger when not in view

When a message is opened using the messenger with this patch (which it only does if the message is not available in the view) then the Tag, Delete, and Junk buttons are disabled. I haven't investigated why that is so, but I suspect that the fix for that is considerably more involved than the simple fix here that deals with most of the issues in this bug.

I'll let the reviewer decide if this is sufficient for the current blocker bug.

Comment 6

[Kent James (:rkent)]

I'm changing the Product, because this is a front-end issue with TB. I tried to add the same patch for SM, but found that the open message from the search dialog is completely broken there (bug 455050).

Comment 7

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

Kent, 
As noted in comment 0, I reported this bug because I was experiencing it 
with SM trunk.  This problem is not unique to Thunderbird.

Comment 8

[Kent James (:rkent)]

Attachment: Added SM code with same change

OK here is the same change to SM and TB code. I had some problem with my profile that prevented the SM code from working previously.

Comment 9

[Kent James (:rkent)]

I hate to call the component mailnews core when it is really just forked front end code, but that's what I'm doing.

Comment 10

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Comment on attachment 338428 [details] [diff] [review]
Added SM code with same change

Thx Kent! r=mkmelin too

Comment 11

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Kent, I've just seen this whilst looking at the blocker lists and as there's no comments that needed addressing, I've pushed the patch. Changeset id: 335:f3103aada65b.

I'll let you mark it as fixed, when you're ready.