474790 - mails with References: to itself break threading in thunderbird mailnews DB view backend

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(MailNews Core :: Database, defect)

Description

[Alexander Sack]

From ubuntu bug (https://launchpad.net/bugs/320034):

Thunderbird threading doesn't work well for Launchpad bugmail. All the bugmail for one bug is in a thread, except the initial mail, which is sepparated.

Looks like the issue may be the initial mail having a References header referencing itself, e.g.:

Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:35:44 -0000
From: muadnem <hidden>
To: [e-mail]
Reply-To: Bug 319820 <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
[...]
References: <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: [Bug 319820] [NEW] ubuntu 8.10 - gstreamer - totem - internal data
 stream error

Comment 1

[Alexander Sack]

Attachment: ignore self-References

fix by ignoring references identical to current message-id.

The other place to fix this would probably in the threading algorithm itself. I can take a look at that if we don't want to ignore self-references in msg headers completely

Comment 2

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Thunderbird threading doesn't work well for Launchpad bugmail. All the bugmail
> for one bug is in a thread, except the initial mail, which is sepparated.
> 
> Looks like the issue may be the initial mail having a References header
> referencing itself, e.g.:

RFC 822 states "4.6.3. REFERENCES
The contents of this field identify other correspondence which this message references. Note that if message identifiers are used, they must use the msg-id specification format." (http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc822/#z33).

Personally, seems like Launchpad is doing something wrong here by referencing itself in the first mail. Can't this be fixed at the Launchpad level? If Launchpad was open source, I'd even submit a patch.

Comment 3

[Alexander Sack]

(In reply to comment #2)
> (In reply to comment #0)
> > Thunderbird threading doesn't work well for Launchpad bugmail. All the bugmail
> > for one bug is in a thread, except the initial mail, which is sepparated.
> > 
> > Looks like the issue may be the initial mail having a References header
> > referencing itself, e.g.:
> 
> RFC 822 states "4.6.3. REFERENCES
> The contents of this field identify other correspondence which this message
> references. Note that if message identifiers are used, they must use the msg-id
> specification format." (http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc822/#z33).
> 
> Personally, seems like Launchpad is doing something wrong here by referencing
> itself in the first mail. Can't this be fixed at the Launchpad level? If
> Launchpad was open source, I'd even submit a patch.

... LP will be opened on 21st Jul 09!

Anyway, even though we can fix this on launchpad side too (and yes, we should) all other mailers i have tested get this threading right; just tbird is confused by a References: to itself.

Comment 4

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

Comment on attachment 358181 [details] [diff] [review]
ignore self-References

bienvenu is a better reviewer than me for this, sorry for not shifting it over earlier.

Comment 5

[David :Bienvenu]

Is this still broken in TB 3.0 b4?

Comment 6

[David :Bienvenu]

Comment on attachment 358181 [details] [diff] [review]
ignore self-References

Thx for the patch - I like it and I'm going to clean it up a little and land it.

Comment 7

[Alexander Sack]

thx. in case you give credits in commit use [e-mail] ;) ...

Comment 8

[David :Bienvenu]

thx for the fix, Alexander, credit noted and change pushed.

Comment 9

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

(In reply to comment #8)
> thx for the fix, Alexander, credit noted and change pushed.

http://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/70552ed90c20