Open Bug 536918 Opened 15 years ago Updated 7 months ago

Wrong Message shown on the reading pane when selected a message item from the Inbox messages

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Message Reader UI, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Message Reader UI
Platform:
x86
Windows 7
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
UNCONFIRMED

People

(Reporter: venkat.sandra, Unassigned, NeedInfo)

References

(Depends on 1 open bug, Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

Attachments

(20 files, 1 obsolete file)

The screeshot clearly shows the bug - that is reading pane message is different from the selected one
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Screenshot of the message selected from the IMAP Inbox folder
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Screenshot of the message selected from the IMAP All Mail folder
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Another Example Of Behavior
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The pane showing the source of another message
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Image of email with content from another email.
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build config
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TBbug1e.png
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TBbug2e.png
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TBbug3e.png
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ThunderBirdVersion78.png
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TBbug91-1.png
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TBbug91-2.png
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TBbug91-3.png
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TBbug91-4.png
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TB91.2.1 64-bit.jpg
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webmail.pdf
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CorruptedEmailAfterFolderRepair.png
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Snímek obrazovky 2022-03-30 143852.jpg
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Snímek obrazovky 2022-03-30 145833.jpg
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User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.6) Gecko/20091201 Firefox/3.5.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091204 Thunderbird/3.0

When I selected a message item from the Inbox, a wrong message was shown on the reading pane as shown from the below pasted screenshot. I am trying to send the screenshot but in vain.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Click on the message item of Inbox
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
Wrong message showed on the reading pane.


Expected Results:  
Correct message should be shown by retrieving the relevant message.
(In reply to comment #0)
>  I am trying to send the screenshot but in vain.

Retry using above "Add an attachment" link
The nessage show in preview pane where is? It's deleted, move, deleted by retention policy, ...
Mail in local mail folder(POP3, Local Folders)? Or mail in IMAP folder?
If IMAP, "offline use" is enabled for the Inbox folder?
(Folder Properties/Synchronization)

What is displayed by View/Message Source?

Same problem occurs on the mail in Inbox displayed by folder view of "All Folders"?
Show "Order Received" column(offset if local mail folder, UID if IMAP), account column etc. to see same mail or not, to check which mail's data is displayed.

If IMAP folder of "offline-use=on", and if Bug 501851 occurs, and if top mail in offline-store(file named Inbox) is multipart mail, phenomenon like screen shot can occur. See screen shot attached to Bug 501851 for "top mail=text/plain mail" case.
Same phenomenon as Bug 501851?

If it's somehow unable to display mail, message pain is not refreshed, then previously displayed mail is kept in message pane(known phenomenon).
This case?
(In reply to comment #4)
> Mail in local mail folder(POP3, Local Folders)? Or mail in IMAP folder?
> If IMAP, "offline use" is enabled for the Inbox folder?
> (Folder Properties/Synchronization)
> 
> What is displayed by View/Message Source?
> 
> Same problem occurs on the mail in Inbox displayed by folder view of "All
> Folders"?
> Show "Order Received" column(offset if local mail folder, UID if IMAP), account
> column etc. to see same mail or not, to check which mail's data is displayed.
> 
> If IMAP folder of "offline-use=on", and if Bug 501851 occurs, and if top mail
> in offline-store(file named Inbox) is multipart mail, phenomenon like screen
> shot can occur. See screen shot attached to Bug 501851 for "top mail=text/plain
> mail" case.
> Same phenomenon as Bug 501851?
> 
> If it's somehow unable to display mail, message pain is not refreshed, then
> previously displayed mail is kept in message pane(known phenomenon).
> This case?

Thank you, WADA.

Today I again tried to see the same message from two different source folders -
1. from Inbox, the result is the message was shown correctly in the reference reading pane.
2. from All Mail, the result is the message shown in the reference reading pane was different. 

I have attached the two screenshots.

All the folders are IMAP
Why Inbox of "Smart Folders" displays same/wrong mail as [Gmail]/All Mail does?
Bug 501851 occurs on [Gmail]/All Mail, and Indexer uses data in [Gmail]/All Mail, and Inbox of "Smart Folders" uses it?

Can you check top mail data in file of ...\[Gmail].sbd\All Mail?
What is file size of file named ...\[Gmail].sbd\All Mail?
(In reply to comment #6)
> Screenshot of the message selected from the IMAP Inbox folder
(In reply to comment #7)
> Screenshot of the message selected from the IMAP All Mail folder

As root-level folder at "Smart Folders" is internaly "Virtual Folder"(saved search folder, see folder propertiees), multi account's Inbox can relate to problem. To make problem anaysis simple, check data at "All Folders" view. And attach(not paste) "View/Message Source" data or mail data saved to .eml, please.
(In reply to comment #9)
> (In reply to comment #6)
> > Screenshot of the message selected from the IMAP Inbox folder
> (In reply to comment #7)
> > Screenshot of the message selected from the IMAP All Mail folder
> 
> As root-level folder at "Smart Folders" is internaly "Virtual Folder"(saved
> search folder, see folder propertiees), multi account's Inbox can relate to
> problem. To make problem anaysis simple, check data at "All Folders" view. And
> attach(not paste) "View/Message Source" data or mail data saved to .eml,
> please.

I have attached the source file of the message.
I'm seeing this about every other day.  Typically the message body is from a message that I have previously deleted.  View source shows the source of the message displayed and not the message selected.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091204 Thunderbird/3.0

I use the "All folders" view and the folder that I see the problem with is my Inbox on a dovecot 1.2.9 IMAP server on Fedora 12.  I have "Just mark it as deleted" for my delete policy and use the keyconfig extension to map "E" to compact my folder (see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keyconfig_extension ).

When I get into this state, I stop everything and do a "Rebuild Index" (which annoyingly removes my customized column display) to make sure I do not accidentally delete a message.

Next time this happens, I'll save off the local copy of the mail folder for further analysis.
(In reply to comment #11)
> Typically the message body is from a message that I have previously deleted.  > View source shows the source of the message displayed and not the message selected.

If displayed source is mail data at top of offline-store, you are possibly looking bug 501851, as I wrote in comment #4.
I'm still seeing this on a regular basis.  I had hoped to be able to save off a local copy of my ImapMail folder for someone to look at, but at this time I'm never going to be able to get sensitive or confidential information cleared out enough from my Inbox to share.

Looking at bug 501851, the message displayed in error is not the one from the top of my offline store (ImapMail/mail.OrangeBlood.org/INBOX).  The first message in my offline store is Content-Type multipart/mixed.

The message displayed in error is typically a complete message, but has occasionally been an obvious "middle of a message continuing into another one" which would make one thing it is a bad "pointer".

The message displayed in error is almost always a message that I recently deleted.

I'm willing to do whatever it takes to help debug this.
Ah, Crow, do you frequently compact your offline store, then? If this survives restart, it has to be either an error in the offline store, or an error in the disk cache (some messages get into the disk cache despite their presence in the offline store). It's more likely the offline store, however. When you do an imap expunge/compact, we also compact the offline store, which means rewriting it with just the non-deleted messages. The .msf file (which is what rebuilding the index clobbers) stores the offset into the offline store for each message.

Do you notice any pattern with the messages that this happens to? E.g., are they usually larger, and/or contain attachments?
I do very frequently compact my mailbox.  My configuration is described in folder #11.  Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any consistency in what is shown or what I just "compacted out".
I know someone who experiences this issue (apparently even with 3.0.3) under Windows.  They also delete first and then compact, and they do so often.

The IMAP server is a Microsoft Exchange server.  They report that it occurs predominantly after deleting and then compacting HTML messages (so mid to large in size), then attempting to read messages that haven't been read before.  Even after restarting Thunderbird the message still shows the previously deleted/compacted message.  Rebuilding the index, as you said, solves the problem.

I can't provide the mailbox once it's happened, but if there's anything in particular you'd like me to look for, or any other information about the incidents that I can provide, then do please say...  5:)
(In reply to comment #13)
> The message displayed in error is almost always a message that I recently deleted.

It me be next problem.
  If display of newly selected mail fails, message pane is not correctly
  refreshed(not cleared), then previous mail data is displayed.
crow@OrangeBlood.org, when problem happens, what is displayed for View/Msessage Source? Does "click other mail, then click the mail again" still displays wrong mail data?
View->Source matches what is displayed in the window.  If the source is even with an RFC822 message boundary, then the message displays fine.  If it is not, then the message is rendered as the source would dictate.

Yes, what is shown remains consistent.  Even through an application start.

My IMAP server where I see the problem is dovecot 1.2.10 on Fedora 12.  I also use the same TB installation to communicate with Exchange 2007 and have not seen the problem there.  However, the scale of my mailbox and where I am working in the mailbox is very different.  Dovecot is between 50 and 300 messages and I am working all over the mail file.  IMAP is between 600 and 700 messages and I am only working in the last 100-150 messages.
(In reply to comment #19)
> My IMAP server where I see the problem is dovecot 1.2.10 on Fedora 12.  I also
> use the same TB installation to communicate with Exchange 2007 and have not
> seen the problem there.

At which folder pane view does your problem occur?
"All Folders"? "Smart Folders"? If "Smart Folders", at root-level Inbox? Inbox of each account(folder of account name under root-level Inbox)? 

CONDSTORE related?
Get IPAP log, and check capability response.
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging
> http://www.mozilla.org/projects/nspr/reference/html/prlog.html#25328
> SET NSPR_LOG_MODULES=timestamp,imap:5

Tb 3.0 has Bug 524902(fixed by Tb3.1a1).
> Bug 524902 Thunderbird sometimes fetches read/unread flags from the wrong IMAP folder
I'm not sure Bug 524902 is CONDSTORE specific, but bug 517461 comment #10 is;
> YES! Setting mail.server.default.use_condstore to false fixes things.
This kind of issue may produce wrong mail data problem.

Will mail.server.default.use_condstore=false reduce frequency of your problem?
I use All Folders exclusively.

I'll change the use_condstore setting and see what happens.
Attached image Another Example Of Behavior (obsolete) — 
I often run into this problem since upgrading to 3.x.  I've attached a screenshot to confirm; the header is for a message my wife sent me, but the message pane shows some other auto-away message sent from a coworker.
Attachment #439912 - Attachment mime type: application/octet-stream → image/png
Sorry; I uploaded the wrong file -- here is the correct one.

I often run into this problem since upgrading to 3.x.  I've attached a
screenshot to confirm; the header is for a message my wife sent me, but the
message pane shows some other auto-away message sent from a coworker.
Attachment #439912 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Should be fixed by bug #474724 (see :dmose comment on bug #481799 comment #3 )

wada what do you think?
I see this all the time, too. When it happens, I see the first part of an incorrect message with limited headers, followed by full headers of the correct message. This is not when viewing source, this is what appears in the message pane. Also, where you should see "from", "subject" and "date", you only see "subject" and the subject line is totally blank.

When it finally shows the correct message, it displays it in "raw" format, so all the HTML tags are displayed. This makes it very hard to read.

If I hit reply, it uses the correct header information (subject line and recipient are correct), but the bad text still shows up in the editor. Compacting doesn't help. Restarting TBird doesn't help.

I mention this, because my symptoms are slightly different (everyone else seems to have a complete incorrect message, and not this half-and-half business that I get, although if I understand it correctly, this could be bug 501851 that I'm seeing. Hard to say, since I don't really understand what bug 501851 is all about.)
I have the same problem, sometimes the displayed content and headers are from a previous mail. When I hit reply also the previous mail is included. It does not always happen directly. The mail might be displayed correctly, but after some time it shows the wrong content. Could not see a pattern there yet.

But there is another pattern. The mail that is wrongly displayed always has the same SIZE as the one that is selected. The problem occured to me around 5 times and there was always the conent shown from an email that was I received some time (e.g. 1day) before the other one and that has the same kb size.

I use Thunderbird 3.1.10 and the mails come from an googlemail IMAP account.
I only saw the problem with the Inbox, when I select the same message in the googlemails "All Mail" folder it is shown correctly. Not sure if that might change. 

The problem stays even when I move the older mail into another folders. Still its content gets displayed.
I have to correct the size relation, this was just also displayed from the wrong mail and thus its the same value... Even the source is from the wrong mail. Only the subject, from, to etc. in the Inbox mail table is correct.
Same problem here. I've got a message I can't see. If I open the link in the inbox, I can see the source of the body of another message, even if I restart the program. Note: when I upgraded Thunderbird, it asked me if I wanted to compact the folders and I did it.
You can see the title of the tab is different from the subject of the message shown in the last line. Of course, the source shouldn't been shown.
Had same issue today with another message from the same sender.
Depends on: 501851
Having the same problem - it currently makes Thunderbird unusable for me.

I am working with a local IMAP server (ClearOS). When I click on some mails in the mail list, a different mail from a different folder is displayed. This applies to a fairly huge percentage of mails stored on the server (I guess about 25%). For one header line I always get the same mail (reproducible).

Some other interesting behaviour: When I tell Thunderbird to download an entire folder, it often displays messages like "Downloading message 412 from 125" so it seems that it counts mails in a strange way... Once it has done this for a while, I get the message that the server has sent an error message "Fetching mail error". From this point on I can not download new mails any more (header lines can be downloaded).

Thunderbird 24.3.0 (German)
OS Windows 8.1
The profile is not in the default location but on D:

Things that I tried and did not help:
Repair folder
Compress
Clear the cache
Delete the entire profile, reinstall Thunderbird and recreate the file - even this did not help

Everything works fine when I work from a different computer with the same mail account but a different profile. My coworkers are not experiencing this problem.
I have a similar Problem with SeaMonkey (2.30 on W7/64) and hMailServer. Every now and then (sometimes within minutes, sometimes it doesn't happen the whole day) trying to access a message of an IMAP account results in an error message "fetching mail error". After that, no communication with the server is possible any more.

After closing down and restarting SeaMonkey, I often get another error message, telling me that the account is already locked. Obviously the communication is not cleanly disconnected from the server then.

(I also tried Thunderbird for a test and it behaves the same.)

The only way to get it working again is to restart Windows. This somehow resets the fail state.

Another similarly configured PC doesn't show this problem, so there seemingly are some unknown (and maybe hard to trace) influences...
Thunderbird 31.4.0 on Win7: same problem...
AddOns:
Automatic Dictionary 1.5.5
Calendar Tweaks 6.1
Chromatasks 1.5
Contact Tabs 2.0.12
Contacts Sidebar 1.7pre
Google Contacts 0.7.12
keyconfig 20110522
Lightning 3.3.2
LookOut 1.2.13
Provider for Google Calendar 1.0.3
QuickText 0.9.11.5
Update Channel Selector 1.6 Set to Official
Hello!

Thunderbird 31.5.0 on Windows 7.

Issue reproduced on a regular basis but very erratic. Happens only with IMAP folder. It seams that it happens when Thunderbird starts and I quickly display a message, new or old. Like if index was not ready or something like this.

When I search for the email, I reply to it or any other action, the wrong content is then displayed. In other words: "once corrupted, for a long time corrupted".

Shutting TB down and restarting it does not solve the issue. Few days later, my emails are readable again. Very frustrating.


This issue is not new for me: I faced it for years. Whatever TB version I use.
AddOns:
- Lightning 3.3.3
- Provider for Google Calendar 1.0.4
Thunderbird Message Filter Import/Export Enhanced 1.0.3
Hello,

I found a workarround: when a message is lost this way, I right-click on the containing folder then "properties" and here I click on "repare folder" button.
After a few seconds, emails are readable.
(In reply to Paul from comment #35)
> Hello,
> 
> I found a workarround: when a message is lost this way, I right-click on the
> containing folder then "properties" and here I click on "repare folder"
> button.
> After a few seconds, emails are readable.

Have confirmed this works. However this is becoming more and more frequent and I am forced to repair the folder quite often.
I have been using Seamonkey for years on both Win and Linux.

I have started to experience this bug today!
Seamonkey 2.33.1 on Linux Mint 17.2 XFCE on VirtualBox

For gmail a/c (hotmail a/c seems not affected), in the display window, another email is shown in the body while the email's title is the one I selected. I cannot confirm so far whether the emails sizes are the same.
I restarted Seamonkey as well as VirtualBox but it didn't help solve the issue.

I have no idea what triggered the bug. But this bug makes Seamonkey unusable
Update - 2015-10-28

I have tempted to compact the gmail a/c inbox folder. The compacting process started then crashed roughly 10 seconds later leading to the crash of Seamonkey as a whole.

I restarted Seamonkey and it turns out the display window shows back the correct email.
I did the following tests: 
- selection and opening of random messages in the Inbox pane
- use of the search input text in order to display a matching list of email and then selected and opened randomly any message.

For all those tests the correct message was displayed in the display window.

I regularly delete emails.... is that bug triggered after an automated compacting process on the folder? Or does the crash while compacting the inbox folder reset the email index (and therefore disabled the bug)?
I have the same problem.

Using Exchange through IMAP on Windows 8.1.

It only happens when trying to view older emails.

When I scroll back a few months or search and select older messages I get the wrong one but recent messages always work.

And preview, separate tab and view source all show the same wrong message.

One suggestion, the index could keep the messageId and thereby be able to warn if the wrong message is returned by the index.

It would not solve the issue, but at least it could tell the user how to fix the problem instead of having to search the web for the solution :)
Same problem here. Mine happens when I move messages back to an iMAP mailbox Inbox that were previously moved by a filter to a local mailbox on my Mac. My local Mailbox simply stores messages on my Mac and is not associated with any email server. When I manually move messages from my local mailbox back to my main IMAP Inbox (located at verio.com) one or more messages then show wrong headers, or if opened wrong message bodies. This is not corrected by restarting Thunderbird. I've learned to use the properties on the Inbox and force a Repair Folder to set things right again.
Same issue here. 52.7.0, MacOS 10.13.4. IMAP Mailbox. 
Moving an email from Local Junk back to the IMAP Inbox occasionally fails in this manner. The email is not old.
This shows this issue is still happening sometimes in Thunderbird 52.8.0 (32 bit) Windows 7.
I think this can still happen. I had this happen to me with Thunderbird 52.8.0 (32 bit), Windows 7 IMAP Mailbox.
I moved an email from the inbox to another folder and later when I looked at the email it was from a completely different person than the one shown in the top box.
Same bug with Thunderbird 52.9.1 (Windows 7).
The attachment from the original message is lost?!
Same bug here with 60.2.1 (32-bit) on windows 10.

In my case, the bug happens on one specific mail on an IMAP account. The reading pane and also "open mail in tab" whos the content of another e-mail that is in the same imap folder. A colleague of mine, who is accessing the IMAP account on his own computer is seeing the content of that e-mail correctly.
OK, it was the index file that got broken - for whatever reason. This can be fixed by right clicking on the folder, click "properties" and click "repair folder"
I also encountered same issue few time (in 60.0beta1 version I believe, I don't know for sure... could have been in a previous version) but sorted after "repair folder". 

This usually seems to affect users with huge quantity of emails.

In the past, on other user setup, I have seen this issue also affecting the advance search feature where when clicking on message from search result list, a different email opens...

While "repair folder" may sort issue short term, in the long if it keeps happening despite keeping this bug report updated, you may also want to relocate the local cache outside the roaming profile (Bug 1399793 - Change default Imap Local Directory to Local user profile folder instead of Roaming) in case you are in a Windows environment with roaming profile that may help as well prevent indexing issues. I don't use roaming profile on my setup but I know for a fact to have helped other users that do that is helped prevent further issues... while it kept happening overtime at the time...

FYI, Cyrus as IMAP server is in use in all cases, in case that make any difference, though the server shall not affect local indexing by TB in theory.
Severity: major → normal
Attached image build config —

I experienced this bug with 45.8.0 version on Windows 7 (SP1) 64 bits.

The bug occurred while reading the inbox of a pop account : a message is selected in the list of the folder but the content shown is different. I closed Thunderbird, removed the index file (.msf) and launched it again. Then the message list displayed the right information. It seems I lost the former message into the messages list (the one which never appeared into the reading pane).

Jérôme,

If you need to repair a folder index (.msf), I would suggest perhaps to right-click the folder within TB, in context menu go to Properties and then click the Repair button... it may be a better option than to delete manually .msf files...

45.x branch of TB is end-of-life. Any reason why you haven't upgraded to 68.x ESR branch yet?
Upgrading (at your own risk :-) may help sort your problem assuming you are not using any add-on that may not be compatible with 68.x branch or later just yet... Please make sure to either copy/backup your current profile prior upgrade (in case you want to revert back) or install 68.x version in parallel of your current TB version (with new or copied profile).

Unless this issue is observed in TB version 68.x ESR branch or later, I doubt it would ever be fixed in any earlier versions :-)
Hope that help.

Regards,
Richard

Richard, you're right, I haven't the repair function for such an old release. However, I have no choice since the next version in my organization will rely on a 45.x branch (with a specific Thunderbird distribution). This latest distribution will be spread on the computers during the next weeks.

Why do we need a repair function ? Is there a choice anywhere which allows an inconsistent state (speed trade-off, ...) ?

(In reply to Richard Leger from comment #50)

Unless this issue is observed in TB version 68.x ESR branch or later, I doubt it would ever be fixed in any earlier versions :-)
Hope that help.

Regards,
Richard

I've just experienced this bug while reading the inbox of an IMAP'd gmail-hosted account, using Thunderbird release 68.5.0 (64-bit) on Mac running macOS 10.13.6. I found out about the "Repair Folder" option by reading this thread. While running that did fix the problem, I would expect that this basic issue wouldn't languish for 10 years...
Evelyn

I have today seen the same bug. Three emails this morning are involved. The 1st is a correct email from Wells Fargo that correctly displays the message body in the view pane. The second one appears with the subject and correspondent from American Express but incorrectly displays the body of the Wells Fargo message. The third email is correctly from American Express and displays the correct American Express message body in viewing pane.

Attached image TBbug1e.png —

1st screen shot displaying correct display in viewing pane of Wells Fargo message.

Attached image TBbug2e.png —

2nd screen shot showing email subject and correspondent from American Express but incorrectly displaying Wells Fargo message body in the preview pane.

Attached image TBbug3e.png —

3rd screen shot showing subject line and correspondent from American Express with correct American Express message body in the preview pane.

I am using Thunderbird version 78.7.1 (32-bit).

This happened again this morning. The wrong body of the message is displayed from an unrelated email. This bug has existed now for 11 years. Isn't it about time some one fixed it?

Flags: needinfo?(jafredaz)

Add me to the list of users running into this problem. I noticed it for only one email from what I could tell, though I have thousands in that folder. I've never run into this problem before after years of using Thunderbird. I'm running Thunderbird 78.10.2 on Windows 10. Offline emails were synced from personal Outlook.com account using IMAP. I was able to "fix" the problem by right clicking the folder, selecting properties, and then selecting "Repair Folder" button under the first tab ("General Information").

Thunderbird 78.11.0 (64-bit) on Windows 10 version 20H2.
Fixed as per Robert Nargang by right-clicking on the folder for Properties > Repair Folder.

trohib, Robert, Jerome, John, esbmast,

Does this reproduce for you when using version 91?

Flags: needinfo?(trohib)
Flags: needinfo?(robert.nargang)
Flags: needinfo?(jerome.bouat)
Flags: needinfo?(jafredaz)
Flags: needinfo?(esbmast)

Wayne - Yes, I have recently witnessed this bug again in Thunderbird 91 under Windows 10. - John

(In reply to John from comment #62)

Wayne - Yes, I have recently witnessed this bug again in Thunderbird 91 under Windows 10. - John

Have you tried to repair the folder? Right click Folder > Properties > Repair
Does the issue happens still then with the repaired folder?

(In reply to Richard Leger from comment #63)

(In reply to John from comment #62)

Wayne - Yes, I have recently witnessed this bug again in Thunderbird 91 under Windows 10. - John

Have you tried to repair the folder? Right click Folder > Properties > Repair
Does the issue happens still then with the repaired folder?

Richard - No, I have not tried to repair the folder. I will attempt this in the today or tomorrow and I will get back to you. I need to first locate the specific example that most recently occurred. - John

(In reply to John from comment #64)

(In reply to Richard Leger from comment #63)

(In reply to John from comment #62)

Wayne - Yes, I have recently witnessed this bug again in Thunderbird 91 under Windows 10. - John

Have you tried to repair the folder? Right click Folder > Properties > Repair
Does the issue happens still then with the repaired folder?

Richard - No, I have not tried to repair the folder. I will attempt this in the today or tomorrow and I will get back to you. I need to first locate the specific example that most recently occurred. - John

Richard - I have been able to repair the folder, but I was not able to locate the specific example that had the problem, so I do not know if repairing the folder under Thunderbird 91 did any good. I will need to wait until the problem occurs again. - John

I have had this happen recently (in the previous month or two), but I didn't note what version of TB I was using. I just repaired the folder, which seemed to fix it. I'll try to remember to add to this bug if it happens to me again.

Flags: needinfo?(robert.nargang)

(In reply to John from comment #64)

(In reply to Richard Leger from comment #63)

(In reply to John from comment #62)

Wayne - Yes, I have recently witnessed this bug again in Thunderbird 91 under Windows 10. - John

Have you tried to repair the folder? Right click Folder > Properties > Repair
Does the issue happens still then with the repaired folder?

Richard - No, I have not tried to repair the folder. I will attempt this in the today or tomorrow and I will get back to you. I need to first locate the specific example that most recently occurred. - John

Richard and Robert - I have today just witnessed the bug again. The version of Thunderbird is 91. I repaired the folder and it fixed the problem, although it did duplicate one of the messages. See the screenshots. - John
(In reply to Robert Nargang from comment #66)

This status of this bug should be confirmed.

Attached image TBbug91-1.png —

My version of Thunderbird confirming the problem exists in ThunderBird version 91.

Attached image TBbug91-2.png —

Email from Walgreens prior to repair of folder.

Attached image TBbug91-3.png —

Snapshot of email from LinkedIn, but displaying email body from Walgreens, prior to repair of folder.

Attached image TBbug91-4.png —

After repair of folder the email from LinkedIn is correctly displayed and the email from Walgreens is now duplicated.

Attached image TB91.2.1 64-bit.jpg —

Started happing for me when updating to TB 91. Currently on 91.2.1 (64-bit)
This show wrong data for selected mail item. Next image is webmail showing correct data.

Attached file webmail.pdf —

This shows webmail has the correct data.

Repair of folder did NOT fix the problem.

(In reply to bugzilla from comment #75)

Repair of folder did NOT fix the problem.

How often does that happens?
If you select another message and back to the original one again does the correct info appear then?

Is that a POP or IMAP account you are using? Or else, please precise...

If you right click the folder and go to Properties...

  • In General Information tab, does the option to include messages in Global Search is ticked or unticked?

  • In Synchronisation tab, does the option Select this folder for Offline use is ticked or unticked?

Isn't it about time that you guys at Mozilla finally admitted that this is a CONFIRMED bug and change it's status and start working on the fix? Enough people have reported it in multiple versions of Thunderbird.

Hi,

(In reply to John from comment #77)

Isn't it about time that you guys at Mozilla finally admitted that this is a CONFIRMED bug and change it's status and start working on the fix? Enough people have reported it in multiple versions of Thunderbird.

I understand your frustration, myself as an end-users had encountered this issue in the past few times (but not recently that I can recall) my understanding is that confirmed bug are those that can be reproduce at will so they can be analysed and fixed.

Correct me if wrong but current issue being so random, it is hard to reproduce... and therefore to find out what is going on to fix... are you able to identify steps to reproduce the issue at will?

Are you able to answer few questions from Comment 76?

Have you tried to update to 91.2.1 version in your case?

Regards,

How often does that happens?
maybe 6 or so times in the last week or so? We are syncing to 3 PCs all using TB. The example I gave was identical on 2 PCs. The problem seems to have self corrected as of today - both emails are now correct. 2 PCs are running 91.2.1 and the 3rd is 68.2.2. She says she has seen the problem over the last week but doesn't believe she saw it on these 2 emails. Sorry for the lack of clarity.

If you select another message and back to the original one again does the correct info appear then?
No.

Is that a POP or IMAP account you are using? Or else, please precise...
All 3 PCs are IMAP to Dreamhost. SSL/TLS port 993 using normal password authentication. Message Store Type is FGile per message (maildir).

In General Information tab, does the option to include messages in Global Search is ticked or unticked?
Ticked on mine. I can find out about the other 2 if it helps.

In Synchronisation tab, does the option Select this folder for Offline use is ticked or unticked?
Ticked on mine. I can find out about the other 2 if it helps.

(In reply to Richard Leger from comment #78)

Hi,

(In reply to John from comment #77)

Isn't it about time that you guys at Mozilla finally admitted that this is a CONFIRMED bug and change it's status and start working on the fix? Enough people have reported it in multiple versions of Thunderbird.

I understand your frustration, myself as an end-users had encountered this issue in the past few times (but not recently that I can recall) my understanding is that confirmed bug are those that can be reproduce at will so they can be analysed and fixed.

Correct me if wrong but current issue being so random, it is hard to reproduce... and therefore to find out what is going on to fix... are you able to identify steps to reproduce the issue at will?

Are you able to answer few questions from Comment 76?

Have you tried to update to 91.2.1 version in your case?

Regards,

Richard,

I am already running 91.2.1 (32-bit) on 64-bit Windows 10 and the last time this happened I was running 91.2.1. The first time it happened to me while running 78.7.1 so it is not a new bug.

In answer to questions in comment 76:

How often does that happens? Only 3 times that I know of over the years. It is infrequent.

If you select another message and back to the original one again does the correct info appear then? No, it does not.

Is that a POP or IMAP account you are using? Or else, please precise... pop.cox.net, port 995, SSL/TLS, normal password.

If you right click the folder and go to Properties...

In General Information tab, does the option to include messages in Global Search is ticked or unticked? Inlcude in global search is checked.

In Synchronisation tab, does the option Select this folder for Offline use is ticked or unticked? I do not seem to have a Synchronization tab, I guess because I am using POP3 rather than IMAP.

I hope my comments are helpful.

I upgraded from the 32-bit to 64-bit version of Thunderbird 91.3.0 and the problem persists. I've had it happen twice since I last commented. This is all under Windows 10 64-bit. I will begin researching an alternative to Thunderbird. I have accounts on AOL.com (Verizon.net) and COX.net. Any suggestions will be welcome.

(In reply to John from comment #82)

I upgraded from the 32-bit to 64-bit version of Thunderbird 91.3.0 and the problem persists. I've had it happen twice since I last commented. This is all under Windows 10 64-bit. I will begin researching an alternative to Thunderbird. I have accounts on AOL.com (Verizon.net) and COX.net. Any suggestions will be welcome.

I forgot to mention: repairing the folder fixes the problem although it still duplicates one of the messages.

Problem happened again today. This time repairing the folder did not completely fix the problem. The message was scrambled.

Corrupted email after folder repair.

Same on my side, last message follwed with nonse characters. I did also folder repair.
Is there any workaround how to refetch all emails again like when account is added?
Seems to be a bug in folder repair function.
TB 99b2

One of common signs is that all those corrupted messages have the same Subject and From.

If I look to the message source, it shows it's joined with the message that follows the message inside INBOX file. Seems there is corrupted information about the length of the message.
When I try to view that message the UI freezes very often.

After another sets of tests, the only thing that helps is to create a new profile.
Even when I copy whole email account folder from ImapMail folder the old profile, some new emails are shown corrupted. All email account suffer with that, so it's not provider related.
The common sing of all of those is that those emails are mostly simple plain text with quoted-printable or base64 encoding, html emails doesn't suffer with this bug.
The main problem is obviously that there is wrongly recognized size of an email and TB shows in addition the following email starting with sth like "From - Wed Apr 20 11:47:04 2022 X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000", sometimes more than one email together.
I don't know what can affect that, I've disabled all addons, anti viruses, etc.
Can anyone from devs advise what settings can cause that email size is calculated incorrectly? It works fine with a new profile, so it can be fixed somehow. I'm not willing to recreate a new profile with many email accounts and settings, it's incredible amount of work.

Update, even html emails are affected. Loading that email takes minutes and TB freezes for that time, shown content is huge according scrollbar, many emails shown together.
Please tell what details you need to know to track that bug.

It has to be something within prefs.js file.
I've created a new profile, copied all important files, key4.db, cert9.db, secring.gpg, openpgp.sqlite, pubring.gpg, logins.json, ... created account folders (with copied msgFilterRules.dat) within ImapMail and copied whole prefs.js. The same problem, then I copied only keys starting "mail." from old prefs.js and everything works, no corrupted emails!!!

The problem happened several times during last months for me. The workaround which Paul mentioned works, but still, this 13 years old bug makes working with Thunderbird quite annoying.

(In reply to Paul from comment #35)

I found a workarround: when a message is lost this way, I right-click on the
containing folder then "properties" and here I click on "repare folder"
button.
After a few seconds, emails are readable.

Severity: normal → S3

(In reply to Moein Alinaghian from comment #93)

The problem happened several times during last months for me. The workaround which Paul mentioned works, but still, this 13 years old bug makes working with Thunderbird quite annoying.

(In reply to Paul from comment #35)

I found a workarround: when a message is lost this way, I right-click on the
containing folder then "properties" and here I click on "repare folder"
button.
After a few seconds, emails are readable.

Yeah, I too am finding this occurring ~monthly with my IMAP connection to fastmail. The work-around works, but with large folders it can be pretty tedious.

I can't test it because my organization has a version 60 derivative.

(In reply to rich from comment #94)

Yeah, I too am finding this occurring ~monthly with my IMAP connection to fastmail. The work-around works, but with large folders it can be pretty tedious.

Monthly? Wow, you're lucky. With the latest version of Thunderbird on Mac, I have to repair the folder every 20 minutes due to this 13 year old bug. It's good for about 20 minutes before it starts again. I have no other issues with my disk drive at all, and I've been an IT consultant for 25 years, I know how to keep a computer running and do proper maintenance.

I am trying to collect important emails for a lawyer meeting tomorrow and I can't because of this.

We are getting this more and more now, on Windows and Mac. I take it there's not going to be any movement on this, after 14 years has no one from Mozilla ever seen this?

I see three requests for info, the issue for us is our users are non-technical, so getting them to do any debugging is a non-starter.

Maybe an auto repair may be an option?

(In reply to osavill from comment #97)

We are getting this more and more now, on Windows and Mac. I take it there's not going to be any movement on this, after 14 years has no one from Mozilla ever seen this?

I see three requests for info, the issue for us is our users are non-technical, so getting them to do any debugging is a non-starter.

Maybe an auto repair may be an option?

  • Are you able to identify the steps to reproduce the issue?
  • Which Mac,Windows and TB version do you see the issue on (Menu > Help > About)?
  • Which type of mail account (IMAP, POP, Gmail, etc...)?
  • Does it still happens after Menu > Exit and full restart of TB?
  • Does it happens in a new clean profile?
  • Which folder view are you using the default one from TB or another one like the Unified View?
  • In the Folder View if you right click on the folder in which you encounter the issue, if you go to Properties > Synchronisation is the Select this folder for offline use option enabled (ticked) or disabled (unticked)?
  • If you open the TB Error Console (CTRL+SHIFT+J), press the bin icon top left corner to clear the console, and then click on the message not loading properly, do you see any errors?

(In reply to Richard Leger from comment #98)

I'm not a programmer but let me try to answer some of these questions. I've also added my own observations to this problem at the end of this reply. (Sorry for being so long.)

  • Are you able to identify the steps to reproduce the issue?

No. It just happens randomly. I've never been able to manually reproduce the issue on my own.

  • Which Mac/Windows and TB version do you see the issue on (Menu > Help > About)?

I'm running Windows 10. I've only used the stable release channel of TB. I keep both OS and TB up-to-date using their respective automatic software update features.

  • Which type of mail account (IMAP, POP, Gmail, etc...)?

I use IMAP Outlook.com (Microsoft's consumer email service) and IMAP Gmail (personal account). I've only noticed this problem with IMAP Gmail. I used to have an education Gmail account (synced via IMAP) but never noticed the problem with that account.

  • Does it still happen after Menu > Exit and full restart of TB?

A full restart of TB will not fix the problem. I've tried repairing the folder with mixed results. Repairing doesn't always correct the problem.

  • Does it happen in a new clean profile?

Don't know, never tried a new, clean profile. I think I deleted Gmail from TB and re-added it to fix the problem. (It's been a year or two since I last tried that. Not sure if I'm remembering that part correctly.)

  • Which folder view are you using the default one from TB or another one like the Unified View?

I've never used Unified View, so I'm guessing it was the default view.

  • In the Folder View if you right click on the folder in which you encounter the issue, if you go to Properties > Synchronisation is the Select this folder for offline use option enabled (ticked) or disabled (unticked)?

I've never checked this to make sure, but I always synchronize my emails for offline use. I'm guessing it was enabled because the emails were always available offline.

  • If you open the TB Error Console (CTRL+SHIFT+J), press the bin icon top left corner to clear the console, and then click on the message not loading properly, do you see any errors?

I've never looked at this when I noticed this problem.

I've noticed one thing about this problem that may provide some insight into what could be causing this. As noted earlier, I've only seen this occur when using IMAP Gmail. (Bear with me as I try to explain what I've observed.) As everyone should know, labels in Gmail are virtual but treated as folders in TB. That means an email can exist multiple times in different TB folders even though it exists as an individual email in Gmail. I bring this up because I occasionally archive to offline storage Gmail emails. If I forget to remove the Gmail label, TB will leave another copy of the email in a different folder. I end up with duplicate emails moved because I'm doing a bulk transfer and can't easily check for individual duplicate emails in different TB folders. I just clean up the duplicates later. (Maybe TB will eventually purge the multiple copies when I move just one, but I'm impatient and want to make sure it's permanently moved as I'm doing it.)

A few months ago, I was reviewing emails to archive offline (checking for corrupt emails before moving them) and noticed this problem again. I went to Gmail online to view the email in a browser to decide if it was an email I could live without and just delete. It was something I wanted to keep so I didn't delete it, but I also noticed that the email and several others had a label, so I removed the label to avoid duplicate emails when I move them. I went back to TB to figure out what to do with that corrupted email and realized the email was normal again! Somehow, removing the Gmail label fixed the problem. I didn't need to restart TB or repair the folder.

Unfortunately, I haven't had another opportunity to test this. The problem happens randomly, and I moved a lot of my personal emails to Outlook.com because the problem never happens with that account and I wanted to consolidate emails into one account. If I had to guess, how TB handles Gmail labels is somehow related to this problem. I just haven't had another example to test or an error log to refer to. Hope this helps!

Golden, osavill, rich,

Does this reproduce for you when using version 115?

Flags: needinfo?(trohib)
Flags: needinfo?(rich)
Flags: needinfo?(osavill)
Flags: needinfo?(mozilla-sp)
Flags: needinfo?(jerome.bouat)
Flags: needinfo?(esbmast)

As far as I know this is still an issue, but I'll need to contact the person concerned. We had another person report this, but by compacting the folder concerned the issue went away. I'm not clear as to why T'bird needs to ask to compact folders since it seems to cure so many ails!

The person this hasn't fixed the issue for is on macOS. I'm using Ubuntu and have never seen this issue.

Flags: needinfo?(osavill)

I have not observed this yet with 115.

Flags: needinfo?(rich)

(In reply to osavill from comment #101)

As far as I know this is still an issue, but I'll need to contact the person concerned. We had another person report this, but by compacting the folder concerned the issue went away. I'm not clear as to why T'bird needs to ask to compact folders since it seems to cure so many ails!

The person this hasn't fixed the issue for is on macOS. I'm using Ubuntu and have never seen this issue.

I heard back from the person I referred to. They say it happens all the time, but the instructions on how to compact at the folder level work so they do at least have a workaround.

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