543374 - Autocompletion of to: & cc: addresses has changed unexpectedly from version 2 to version 3

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 497722

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Don]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.7) Gecko/20091221 Firefox/3.5.7 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: version 3.0.1 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.7) Gecko/20100111 Thunderbird/3.0.1

The address autocompletion protocol has changed between version 2 and 3. In version 2, a couple of letters would reliably return the same address on the top line I commonly use in the To: or cc: boxes (according to some algorithm I can not discern). In version 3, the same initial letters produce addresses in apparently random order, including some names I have not used in years appearing on the top line of the drop-down choices.
This changed behavior of address autocompletion has caused me to misdirect several emails with sensitive information.
I understand this is ultimately my responsibility to check the addressees, but the version 3 behavior seems down-right nasty! ;-)
Any way to revert to the old "version 2" type behavior?

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. type a few letters of a commonly used email address in the to: or cc: boxes of a new or reply message
2. list of known addresses is ordered differently than in version 2 of Thunderbird
3. 
Actual Results:  
"random" order of known addresses in dropdown list

Expected Results:  
ordered dropdown list, as in version 2

Thank you for considering (or redirecting) this comment about the version 3 user interface (even though this is not a crash!)

Comment 1

[Nathan Tuggy (:tuggyne)]

Looks like this is a duplicate of bug 497722. Please re-open if this is not correct.

Comment 2

[Laurent]

I agree 100% and it's a really anoying problem when you have tons of contacts !!!

Laurent