460078 - saving draft to IMAP folder reports failure instead of prompting for password

Status: REOPENED

(MailNews Core :: Networking: IMAP, defect)

Description

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

recent SM trunk nightly

I recently switched from POP to IMAP for my primary email account.
Now, when I first fire up SM, and start to compose an outgoing email
without first logging into the IMAP server, after about 5 minutes,
while the mail composition window is still on the screen, an error 
dialog pops up which says (something like)

   Error copying message to SENT folder.
   Retry?
   [ OK ]  [ Cancel ]

It's actually trying to save the draft to the drafts folder.

There are two problems with this:

1. It should prompt me for my IMAP password, rather than just failing
and then displaying this silly dialog
2. The dialog should accurately report the name of the folder to which 
it is trying to copy the message.  

As it is, it always makes me wonder: "Why has it tried to send a message?
I haven't clicked send.  I don't want it to send the message now."  and
"If I click cancel, will my message composition disappear and take my 
partially composed draft with it?"

Comment 2

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

This bug reported two problems with the same action.
One of those problems is a duplicate of bug 354064. The other is not.
So, I am narrowing the scope of this bug to the problem that is not a dupe.

Comment 3

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

Bug 409516? Or have you entered the master password, just not that server's password?

Comment 4

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

I don't have FIPS enabled.
I do save passwords for web sites, and I do have a "master password",
but I do not use the password manager to save passwords for IMAP mail 
accounts.  So, when an email server needs a password, I have to type it.
But I can't do that unless and until I get a prompt.

Comment 5

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

Attachment: IMAP log of failed attempt to save draft

Here is an IMAP log file.
I started SM, and started composing a message to be sent via an 
identity associated with the IMAP account.  Then I waited 5 minutes
for SM to attempt to save the draft.  When SM asked if I wanted to 
retry or cancel, I clicked cancel.  Then it showed me another dialog
which I didn't save.  Then I shut SM down.  Here's the log.

Comment 6

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Wouldn't block for this.

Comment 7

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

Looking at the log, it appears that the log does not record the requests
that we send, but only the responses.  The only activity we see on the 
IMAP connection is a response

  OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 STARTTLS CHILDREN NAMESPACE] Courier-IMAP ready. 
  Copyright 1998-2004 Double Precision, Inc.  See COPYING for distribution 
  information.

followed by a log entry that says:

  ProcessCurrentURL: aborting queued urls

I can't tell from that why the "abort" happens.  
Did we not like that CAPABILITY response?  
Did we send another request and lose the connection?

Comment 8

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Attachment: IMAP log, first SUBSCRIVE/Save As Draft login fail, login by Junk Purge, no append by second Save As Draft, appended by third Save As

Problem is reproduced with next build. 
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b4pre) Gecko/20100806 Shredder/3.2a1pre

(0) Preparations
(0-1) As Gmail IMAP, hide [Gmail]/Drafts by Gmail Lab's Advanced IMAP feature,
      to prohibit unwanted fall back to [Gmail]/Drafts.
(0-2) Drafts choice : Drafts folder of: of this IMAP account (not Others:)
> mail.identity.id1.draft_folder;imap://[e-mail]/Drafts
> mail.identity.id1.drafts_folder_picker_mode;0
(0-3) "Drafts" is newly created (Gmail Label of [Imap]/Drafts is newly created)
(0-4) "Drafts" is unsubscribed.
(0-5) New mail check is disabled.
(0-6) IMAP account is selected at folder pane, to avoid folder open at startup.
(0-5) At this step, Tb is terminated.
(1) Restart Tb. IMAP account is selected at folder pane. No access to server.
(2) Accounts's property, subscribe. Nothing is shown.
    Login fails. AFAIR, known bug.
(3) Compose a mail(subject-0), Save As => Copying..., didn't complete
    Login failed. It looks same issue as (2).
    Cancel => Compose window is locked out. Subject fieled was grayed out.
    Nothing could be put in mail body part. Add To: button worked.
(4) Close compose window(subject-0).
(5) Login by Junk Purge happened. (login is successful)
(6) Open new compose window(subject-1), Save As.
    Login is successful, and dialog for successful copy appeared,
    but APPEND was not issued by Tb. (Known issue when newly created Drafts)
(7) Chang subject(subject-2), Save As => mail is normally appeded.

Note:
"Sent" in dialog of "Save failure, retry?" even when error for Draft Save is Bug 354064, as you know.
If Drafts doesn't exist, fall back to "sent folder" is executed. So, problem like next can happn.
- Draft is not created
- Sent folder for "fall back to sent" is unpredictable, if multiple identities
  of the IMAP account point different folders to save sent mail copy.
- If "fall back to sent flder" fails, dialog also shows "Sent".
  - It's very confusig.
  - If permanent failure, no way to save draft or sent mail copy(Bug 28211)
- As auto-save invoked even when after Send is invoked(Bug 413165), contension
  between "fall back to sent folder" and "save sent mail copy" can happen.

Comment 9

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

FYI.
"No append to Drafts folder if first save after folder creation" was Bug 243184.

Comment 10

[Cedric Knight]

I's like to document what I think is a more complex variation on essentially the same bug.  Thunderbird 10.0.2 or 3.1.18 on Ubuntu 10.04 show the same behaviour:

1) Create IMAP account A which logs in automatically.
2) Create IMAP account B which does not log in periodically or on TB start and do not save the password.
3) Save a draft in account A.  This works.
4) Find the Draft in Account A, click Edit and rewrite the draft.
5) Change the From line to Account B.
6) Close the compose window.
7) In response to "Message has not been sent. Do you want to save the message in the Drafts folder?" select Save.

Expected behaviour: TB prompts for IMAP password for Account B.  Or at least gives informative error message such as "You are not logged into Account B".
Actual behaviour:
8) "There was an error copying the message to the Sent folder. Retry?"  Select OK (Note this still references the wrong folder)
9) "Error sending" dialogue box appears (actually since the only option is "OK", maybe dialogue is a misnomer here.  It's more of a monologue box. :)
10) "Copy failed" appears on the status bar, but the progress bar makes it appear that some transfer is in progress.
11) Closing the compose window produces "TB is currently in the process of sending a message.  Would you like to wait..."  Click Quit.
12) "...error copying the message to the Sent folder.  Retry?" You want to save your changes, so click "OK".
13) repeat step 12 again.  And again.
14) compose window disappears.  Dialogue appears one more time.  Click OK.
15) Message changes have not been saved.

Note that when *sending* from Account B, TB does correctly prompt for the password.