463130 - Searching for multiple words in the "From:" field doesn't find any message (IMAP)

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Networking: IMAP, defect)

Description

[Seungbeom Kim]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3
Build Identifier: version 2.0.0.17 (20080914)

When you open Search Messages dialog by Ctrl+Shift+F, and try to search for messages whose "From" field contains multiple words, Thunderbird doesn't find any match even there are. For example, I have lots of messages which have

From: Seungbeom Kim <*****@********.***>

but when I try to find them by choosing "From", "contains" and entering "Seungbeom Kim", I get nothing. When I enter single words like "Seungbeom" or "Kim" one at a time, it works okay.

This happens only on one (sbkim.pobox.stanford.edu) of my two IMAP accounts (both on port 993); I cannot see what distinguishes the two.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Choose and open a folder in an IMAP account.
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+F, choose "From", "contains" and enter a multiple-word name.
3. Press "Search".
Actual Results:  
Nothing shows up in the result, even though there should be some.

Expected Results:  
Those messages with the entered name should show up in the result.

Comment 1

[rsx11m]

As far as I know, searches in IMAP folders are actually performed at the server side, thus Thunderbird wouldn't have much influence on the server's behavior as long as the query is correctly formed. That assumption would be supported by your description of this happening only with one of your two IMAP accounts, on the other hand though contradicted by both of these accounts being on the same server.

Comment 2

[rsx11m]

Forgot to mention, works for me on current branch release and trunk nightly with two different IMAP servers, one of which is Gmail.

Comment 3

[Seungbeom Kim]

Thanks. Is there a way I can check the query sent to the server (and the response)? Maybe I should contact the mail server admin, but I need something to show that it's not Thunderbird's fault but really the server's.

Comment 4

[rsx11m]

Seungbeom, is this still an issue or could you resolve the problem?

Sorry for not replying to your comment #3. Logging of IMAP queries and responses is described in https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging where you should select NSPR_LOG_MODULES="imap:5" to get the correct log.

Comment 5

[Seungbeom Kim]

This issue has not been resolved.

I got the log as you described, and I'll paste the relevant portions here:

################################################################################

### Searching for "Seungbeom":

5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:SendData: DONE

5676[29d1770]: ReadNextLine [stream=27b3cc0 nb=22 needmore=0]
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 12 OK IDLE completed

5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:ProcessCurrentURL: entering
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:ProcessCurrentURL:imap://sbkim@mailserver:993/search%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3ESEARCH%20UNDELETED%20FROM%20%22Seungbeom%22:  = currentUrl
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:SendData: 13 uid SEARCH UNDELETED FROM "Seungbeom"

5676[29d1770]: ReadNextLine [stream=27b3cc0 nb=64 needmore=0]
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * SEARCH 289 296 313 351 381 385 32591 41075 41131 41150 41164

5676[29d1770]: ReadNextLine [stream=27b3cc0 nb=28 needmore=0]
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 13 OK UID SEARCH completed

5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:SendData: 14 IDLE

5676[29d1770]: ReadNextLine [stream=27b3cc0 nb=10 needmore=0]
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: + idling

### Searching for "Seungbeom Kim":

5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:SendData: DONE

5676[29d1770]: ReadNextLine [stream=27b3cc0 nb=22 needmore=0]
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 14 OK IDLE completed

5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:ProcessCurrentURL: entering
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:ProcessCurrentURL:imap://sbkim@mailserver:993/search%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3ESEARCH%20UNDELETED%20FROM%20%22Seungbeom%20Kim%22:  = currentUrl
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:SendData: 15 uid SEARCH UNDELETED FROM "Seungbeom Kim"

5676[29d1770]: ReadNextLine [stream=27b3cc0 nb=10 needmore=0]
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * SEARCH

5676[29d1770]: ReadNextLine [stream=27b3cc0 nb=28 needmore=0]
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 15 OK UID SEARCH completed

5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:SendData: 16 IDLE

5676[29d1770]: ReadNextLine [stream=27b3cc0 nb=10 needmore=0]
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: + idling

################################################################################

I cannot find anything suspicious here. Then is it likely to be a server problem?

Comment 6

[rsx11m]

Yes, this looks like a server issue to me. I've tried searching for "From" "contains" with both "Name" and "First Last" and two different IMAP servers. I'm getting correct results for both searches on nightly trunk and branch releases. Your log clearly shows that the server does not return any results for the latter case, thus Thunderbird won't report anything.

Can you try with a different IMAP server, or do you know which type of server you are connecting to? If you look at the beginning of the log, it should introduce itself and report its capabilities.

I'm moving this from Search into the IMAP component as this appears to be an IMAP-specific issue.

Comment 7

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

Seungbeom Kim, please, could answer to comment #6?

Comment 8

[Seungbeom Kim]

I have several lines with the word "capability":

################################################################################

5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:NA:SendData: 1 capability
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:NA:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 AUTH=PLAIN AUTH=GSSAPI AUTH=X-ZIMBRA ACL BINARY CATENATE CHILDREN CONDSTORE ENABLE ESEARCH ID IDLE LIST-EXTENDED LITERAL+ LOGIN-REFERRALS MULTIAPPEND NAMESPACE QRESYNC QUOTA RIGHTS=ektx SASL-IR SEARCHRES UIDPLUS UNSELECT WITHIN
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:NA:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 1 OK CAPABILITY completed
5676[29d1770]: 29f3258:mailserver:NA:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 2 OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 ACL BINARY CATENATE CHILDREN CONDSTORE ENABLE ESEARCH ID IDLE LIST-EXTENDED LITERAL+ LOGIN-REFERRALS MULTIAPPEND NAMESPACE QRESYNC QUOTA RIGHTS=ektx SASL-IR SEARCHRES UIDPLUS UNSELECT WITHIN] AUTHENTICATE completed
################################################################################

Does this help? Let me know if you need further information. Thanks!

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Seungbeom, still see this problem?

rsx11m, does what's in the capability list change the diagnosis?

Comment 10

[Seungbeom Kim]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #9)
> Seungbeom, still see this problem?

Surprisingly, no. I don't know whether it's because of the server change or the client change; now I'm using Thunderbird 13.0.1, and the IMAP log has the following lines with the word "capability":

################################################################################
2812[dac4e40]: db01800:mailserver:NA:SendData: 1 capability
2812[dac4e40]: db01800:mailserver:NA:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 AUTH=PLAIN AUTH=GSSAPI AUTH=X-ZIMBRA ACL BINARY CATENATE CHILDREN CONDSTORE ENABLE ESEARCH ESORT I18NLEVEL=1 ID IDLE LIST-EXTENDED LIST-STATUS LITERAL+ LOGIN-REFERRALS MULTIAPPEND NAMESPACE QRESYNC QUOTA RIGHTS=ektx SASL-IR SEARCHRES SORT THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT UIDPLUS UNSELECT WITHIN XLIST
2812[dac4e40]: db01800:mailserver:NA:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 1 OK CAPABILITY completed
2812[dac4e40]: db01800:mailserver:NA:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 2 OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 ACL BINARY CATENATE CHILDREN CONDSTORE ENABLE ESEARCH ESORT I18NLEVEL=1 ID IDLE LIST-EXTENDED LIST-STATUS LITERAL+ LOGIN-REFERRALS MULTIAPPEND NAMESPACE QRESYNC QUOTA RIGHTS=ektx SASL-IR SEARCHRES SORT THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT UIDPLUS UNSELECT WITHIN XLIST] AUTHENTICATE completed
################################################################################

Comment 11

[rsx11m]

At some point around the introduction of the Gloda search subsystem and the related IMAP synchronization by default, also searches in the "classic" dialog were switched to be performed locally rather than through the server. This is still an option but has to be invoked manually by a check box in that dialog. Thus, the problem as described for 2.0 for different servers providing different results does no longer exist unless server-side searches are selected (and even then I don't know if there's still such a difference - in theory, it might).

Comment 12

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Thanks. Let's call this WFM.