533719 - Wording on Incorrect Password Dialog maybe confusing to some

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Networking: POP, defect)

Description

[Steven Hunter]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.0.8 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091204 Thunderbird/3.0

When TB3 fails to authenticate to the mail server, it throws up a dialog that reads "Login to server <<servername>> failed" with buttons "Retry", "Enter New Password", and "Cancel".

The middle button, "Enter New Password" is potentially confusing to the technically disinclined (eg: users). I would suggest changing this button to read "Re-Enter Password" or something similar. I can only imagine the calls we'll get when people ask why they "have to change their password".

PS: I'm assuming that this issue is cross-platform but I have not installed TB3 on any other system as of yet so I've marked this as Win7/x86.

Thanks!

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Launch TB3.
2. Enter incorrect mail server password.
3. Weep tears of sadness when you realize that you know people who really truly will be confused by this.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

interesting point. don't know if there is a duplicate bug.
better component escapes me, account mgr?

Comment 2

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

I agree to Steven. It's polish issue. Changed component.

Comment 3

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

It'd be great to get some suggestions.  Note that this dialog is the best we can do as far as knowing if this was just any type of error or a password error.  i.e. the IMAP server doesn't reliably let us know the difference.

There might be something we could do in a separate bug where we record the previous successful attempts with the current password versus this attempt and try to differentiate that from other possible errors.  Bienvenu would know if I'm off my rocker here. :)

Comment 4

[Steven Hunter]

My suggestions for the button text:
"Try A Different Password"
"Retype Your Password"
"Reenter Your Password"

(I don't really like the last one.)

You might consider going back to what TB2 did, which was to simply re-show the Password dialog. That seemed to work OK but I suppose there may be other reasons to not do this.

Comment 5

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

Thanks for the suggestions!

The old dialog had the problem that it tricked people into thinking they needed to change their password or enter a different one.  In reality it's usually just an issue connecting with the mail server.  So this new dialog was meant to show that we're having trouble connecting which _could_ be a password problem but likely you just want to retry... *sigh*


IMAP!!!!  (say it out loud in a captain kirk, KHAN!!! voice)

Comment 6

[David :Bienvenu]

99% of the time, the user has not changed their password. I think some sort of persistent history would probably be very helpful here, but I suspect it might be more along the lines of "we have successfully authenticated with the current user name&password combo" instead of trying to keep track of the various errors we get from the server.

Comment 7

[Tom Holub]

By far the most common cause of this dialog box is that the user typed in the password incorrectly.  Having to click on "Enter New Password" is an extra, unnecessary step; it would make more sense if the that button were replaced with a password box, with the box filled in with the password which has just been entered (hidden by dots).  The rest of the dialog box could remain the same.

Comment 8

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Removing myslef on all the bugs I'm cced on. Please NI me if you need something on MailNews Core bugs from me.