47123 - Running a news://host/newsgroup url shouldn't display a blank Account Wizard Dialog with hang

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 48438

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Account Configuration, defect, P3)

Description

[Karen Huang]

Used Linux 07-31-04-M17 & WinNT 07-28-12-M17 commercial builds:

Running a news://host/newsgroup url shouldn't display a blank Account Wizard 
Dialog

1) Created a new profile for only with mail account but without any news 
account.
2) Actual Results: Tried to run a news://host/newsgroup url from browser will 
display a blank Account Wizard Dialog with a hang -- click any buttons (Cancel, 
Back, Next & Finish) of Account Wizard Dialog is no useful at all.

Expected results: shouldn't display a blank Account Wizard Dialog with a hang

Additional Info: This problem is occurring when I am trying to verify bug 36661.

Component is setting to Account Manager, please change to the correct component 
if I was wrong.

Comment 1

[Karen Huang]

Not sure this is nsbeta2 or not -- let developer to decide.
But for sure this should be fixed on nsbeta3 -- adding nsbeta3 on the keywords.
Recommend nsbeta3+ to PDT team.

Comment 2

[Karen Huang]

This bug blocked 36661 currently - adding the blocked bug 36661 here

Comment 3

[Karen Huang]

Selecting the "x" on the upper-right corner will dismiss this Blank Account 
Wizard Dialog for Linux platform . But there is no way to dismiss this Blank 
Account Wizard Dialog for WinNT platform.....

Comment 4

[Alec Flett]

no, let's not worry about this for beta2.
It sounds like this is a modal dialog issue. since it's happening on Win32 and 
Linux, it's probably some XP code from danm. Reassigning.

Karen - is mail already open at the time? My guess is that the docloader is 
opening the mail window, and the mail window is opening a modal dialog, if that 
helps you (danm) at all..

Comment 5

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

rkaa: is this the problem we were discussing earlier today?

Comment 6

[R.K.Aa.]

SE: only the mere beginning of it if so, but i don't see a hang.

Here the blank dialogue is not a problem - the problem is that user is given no
clue about what to do. If there are accounts configured from before, the dialog
isn't ALL blank - there are *buttons*. And if you press "cancel", wizard will
thereafter promp for a POP or IMAP account to be set up each time mailnews is
started. If you give in and click "next", you're opted to set up a mail-account
(pop or imap) and if you DO set up an account and "go through with it" - more
mishap can occur:

-if you set up an account identical to an existing account (moz actually allows
that to happen) - the newsgroup can be read, you get an extra mailserver added
in left threepane (which you already have another place). If you are silly
enough to delete that second instance your "mail account", the first instance of
it - your REAL mail account, folders and all, will also get deleted.

That is bad.

-If you get streetwise and do NOT name the mailaccount the same as it is already
named, you may wind up not being able to read the newsgroup at all: When i tried
this, it appeared moz confused the mail-account server for the newsgroup server,
and just hung there, finally presenting an "unknown error" message. Note: This
latter part i only tested once: it MAY be that the newsgroup server was down at
the time, but it worked half an hour earlyer. (was news.mozilla.org and when i
tested this variant it was a day or two AFTER all the moving/DNS mess was sorted
out. Somone should give this routine a full run-through though. It's flaky and
confusing and most likely redundant.

I fail to see why wizard insists on attaching a mail-account to a new
news-server in the first place. If it is to make user able to post TO the
newsgroup it's *half* understandable, but in my opinion the wizard shouldn't
consider that possability before i actually try to post to the newsgroup.

I would much prefer if wizard took for granted that my "sender" address was
simply the mail-account set up with an outgoing mailserver.

It should be an OPTION to define a mail address for a newsgroup account. (For
instance for those who want to appear as "[e-mail]"
Whatever becomes the solution: the way it works now is highly confusing.

I assume (!) there must be a bug filed about moz allowing two identical accounts
to exist, and that it furthermore will delete both when you thought you were
about to delete only one, so this isn't a bug about data-loss. But it's very
annoying. If user is supposed to set up a new mail-account for each newsgroup on
a unique news-server, threepane can wind up looking very crowded very quick.
THe way the mail-account in these cases is placed under the newsgroup is also
...looking weird. The mail data ought to be a property of the news-server, not
visible as a separate entry. Items under a newsgroup server should IMHO be
newsgroups, not mail-accounts.

(If i sound confused it's because i am, but test this and i think you'll see why.)
But what that mail account setup has to do with a newsgroup beats me.
Perhaps i'm too dumb for newsgroup setups, but if so, it's the wizards job to
aid me. As it is now, that wizard is only "in the way" here.

The behaviour is identical in the latest M17 and M18 builds. Don't think it's
new, but only noticed it for a week, from first time i tried adding a
newsgroup/server simply by clicking on it.

Comment 7

[Peter Trudelle]

I just see a normal, functioning Mail account wizard dialog, which seems bogus
but is certainly not an XPToolkit bug.  I couldn't reproduce any hang.
reassigning to default owner.

Comment 8

[lchiang]

Update: this bug appears to be causing 
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48438

Comment 9

[Karen Huang]

Updating this bug status:
This used to be a problem on the builds(Linux 07-31-04-M17 & WinNT 
07-28-12-M17)that I described, but by using current build 08-17-08-M18 , it 
seems that it is not displaying blank Account Wizard Dialog with hang, but as 
Ninoschka described, there are still some other issues existing(probably related  
other bugs currently)...

Comment 10

[Ninoschka Baca]

Marking this a duplicate of bug# 48438. 

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 48438 ***

Comment 11

[Karen Huang]

Verified as dup.