448951 - IMAP folders with names containing '>' character cannot be accessed

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 23789

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Marco Ippolito]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1
Build Identifier: Thunderbird 2.0.0.16

Labels/folders starting with certain ASCII characters (example: at-sign or "@") cannot be accessed if using Gmail over IMAP. Reproducible with "@ Switzerland > Zurich".

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Marco Ippolito]

Attachment: Error message

Comment 2

[rsx11m]

I'm wondering if an IMAP mailbox name (to which Gmail labels are mapped) is allowed to contain '@', '>', and white-space characters, as in your example. According to RFC 3501, there are a couple of characters with special meanings, but I don't see either of those listed. Also, Section 5.1 states that any non-graphic characters should be avoided, but not explicitly disallows them.

Comment 3

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

> Reproducible with "@ Switzerland > Zurich".

(1) ">" is illegal file name character on MS Windows. It may cause problem.
(2) "@" is used in mail address. It may cause parsing/escaping related issue.
(3) Space is permitted. "[Gmail]/All Mail" is working well.
Error message says "Unknown Mailbox: @ Switzerland (Failure)."
I suspect (1).

How did you create the mail folder(==Gmail's Label)?
(a) Gmail's web interface (created as Label)
(b) Tb + Gmail IMAP (created as mail folder)

What is internal path for the folder?
  - "Copy folder location" in Context menu of folder
  - Open text editor and paste

What file name is used by local ".msf" file for the folder?
> DIR <Tb's profile directory>\Mail\ImapMail\*.* /S > X:\...\DIR-LIST.TXT

Get IMAP log, and check flow. See meta Bug 402793 Comment #1 for getting log.

Comment 4

[Brian Kennelly]

Thunderbird uses the '>' character (0x3E) as a path separator in the mailbox and IMAP URIs.  Using it in a folder name causes a parse error.

This is not a Gmail problem, it will be a problem with any IMAP server that allows the creation of a folder name with '>'.

Comment 5

[Brian Kennelly]

It is only IMAP, not regular mailboxes. 

In nsImapCore.h:

#define IMAP_URL_TOKEN_SEPARATOR ">"

Comment 6

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Removing bug 402793 from dependency.

Comment 7

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

DUP of old Bug 23789. (listed in dependency tree for meta Bug 124287)

Comment 8

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to comment #5)
> It is only IMAP, not regular mailboxes. 

FYI.
Local mail folder version is Bug 436032. (separator of '/').
Local virtual folder(search folder) version is Bug 286523 (separator of '/').

Comment 9

[Brian Kennelly]

The bug description should be changed to something like: "IMAP folders with names containing '>' character cannot be accessed".

Comment 10

[rsx11m]

If the '>' is the only character where the problem occurs, and also not for any other character which doesn't have a special meaning according to RFC3501, this should be a duplicate of bug 23789 as suggested in comment #7.

Marco, can you give some further examples where you see the issue?

Comment 11

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Changing bug summary according to comment #9, and closing as DUP of Bug 23789.

To bug opener:
If problem occurs with "@" in name too, open separate bug after search bugzilla.mozilla.org well, please. If you find problem with other special character, see dependency tree for meta Bug 124287, search bugzilla.mozilla.org well, and open new bug if(and only if) new problem.