476135 - Clicking on bad newsgroup link messes up Thunderbird's accounts

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, defect)

Description

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Yesterday I clicked on the following newsgroup link:

nntp://mozilla.dev.tree-management

At the time it created an invalid server with a newsgroup subscribed below it. I didn't think much about it at the time (except, I guess the link is wrong), and so didn't fix it.

Today when I start up, I get the account wizard displayed - its is on the second page, asking for my name and email address.

I can proceed through it, however once I get to completing it, I get nothing in the three pane window, its just blank.

I go to Tools -> Account Settings and everything is there.

From inspection of prefs.js there is a mail.server.server8 which was added for the incorrect news link, and a line:

user_pref("mail.server.server8.valid", false);

If I remove that line Thunderbird starts up as normal (expect its forgotten how the folders were collapsed/expanded) and I can do work again.

I expect I could have also removed the account from the account manager.

Nominating for blocking as this gives a really poor user experience and can make the user think they've got a real problem.

Comment 1

[David :Bienvenu]

mrbkap just got bit by this as well. I'll look at fixing it.

Comment 2

[David :Bienvenu]

Attachment: proposed fix

the idea is that we don't bring up the account wizard unless we don't have any valid accounts; we check this by comparing the invalid count vs the total count.

Comment 3

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Comment on attachment 360243 [details] [diff] [review]
proposed fix

Yep, that's a lot better, and the folder pane stays valid as well so we don't loose the expanded/collapsed state.

Comment 4

[David :Bienvenu]

fix checked in.