576471 - thunderbird reports "server does not propose STARTTLS in EHLO" instead of disk full from server's 452 "Insufficient disk space"

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(MailNews Core :: Networking: SMTP, defect)

Description

[Alain Knaff]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.6) Gecko/20100628 Ubuntu/10.04 (lucid) Firefox/3.6.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.9) Gecko/20100423 Lightning/1.0b1 Thunderbird/3.0.4

This morning when attempting to send a mail, I got a message saying (paraphrased) "server does not propose STARTTLS in EHLO".

A quick verification using telnet showed that the server did propose STARTTLS in EHLO.
 
So I tried again sending the mail, this time with a tcpdump running.

It showed that the server does indeed propose STARTTLS, even to thunderbird. However, somewhat later in the dialog, the following error occurs:
452 4.4.5 Insufficient disk space; try again later


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set up a sendmail mail server
2. Configurate that mail server in thunderbird, enable STARTTLS
3. Send a mail, make sure everything works.
4. Fill mail server's root (or /var) partition to the brim
5. Attempt to send another mail
Actual Results:  
Thunderbird pretends that the server does not propose STARTTLS

Expected Results:  
It should just report the actual error ("Insufficient disk space; try again later").

If for some weird reason, there is really no way of carrying the messages from the low levels where it is first seen to the user (but why would there be no way?), at least be honest and say "Unknown error while sending mail".

On the order of preferences, the best is to have a complete, and correct error message. Middle ground is saying "I don't know". The worst is a plausible-looking, but factually wrong error message.

These situations of misreported errors have become quite frequent in Thunderbird lately (see also bug 554055).

What's going on? An error message should convey useful and _correct_ information, and not make up plausible sounding stuff on the spot.

Or is this an issue with translations? I have configured my software in English, so it should be able to continue using the original, unchanged messages.

And even if I had it in German, it could say:

Fehler beim Senden der Mail. Der Server sagte: "Insufficient disk space; try again later"

That way, a German speaker who doesn't speak English can still ask an English speaking friend to help him understand. If you attempt an automatic translation, and get it wrong, there is no way to figure out what went wrong short of using tcpdump. And even that only worked because luckily enough, the error occured before TLS was active.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Please attach a SMTP log:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging

Comment 2

[Alain Knaff]

Attachment: Smtplog of a session where the problem occured

Error message popped up is:

Sending of message failed.
An error occurred sending mail: Unable to establish a secure link with SMTP server localhost using STARTTLS since it doesn't advertise that feature. Switch off STARTTLS for that server or contact your service provider.

Comment 3

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Error code relevant to StartTLS is NS_ERROR_STARTTLS_FAILED_EHLO_STARTTLS only.
> http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mailnews/compose/src/nsComposeStrings.h#77
Mesage for the error code is fully hard coded.
> 77 #define NS_ERROR_STARTTLS_FAILED_EHLO_STARTTLS      NS_MSG_GENERATE_FAILURE(12582)
> http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mail/locales/en-US/chrome/messenger/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties#212
> 211 ## @name NS_ERROR_STARTTLS_FAILED_EHLO_STARTTLS
> 212 12582=An error occurred sending mail: Unable to establish a secure link with SMTP server %S using STARTTLS since it doesn't advertise that feature. Switch off STARTTLS for that server or contact your service provider.

Problem is that this messages is used for both "No STLS in EHLO even though StartTLS" case and "Error response to STLS" case.
(A) Isolate error code.
(B) Use same error code, but change message structure.
    If "error response to STLS", "since ... ..." part is command name and
    error response from server.

Comment 4

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Confirming per attached log.

Comment 5

[Alain Knaff]

When reading comment 3, I get the impression that you are shooting for a solution where the message will be replaced by a vague message.

This is already better than a precise, but misleading message.

However, an even better solution would be a precise, and to the point message.

Are there any technical reason that prevent keeping the original message ("Insufficient disk space; try again later"). If so, what would these be?

Thanks

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

rnons, do you know if this is resolved with smtp-js?
Alain, can you reproduce with version 91?

Comment 8

[Ping Chen [:rnons] (away)]

Attachment: Bug 576471 - Pipe more server message to the error dialog in SmtpClient.jsm. r=mkmelin

Comment 9

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/5628c222d4d2
Pipe more server message to the error dialog in SmtpClient.jsm. r=mkmelin

Comment 10

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

I guess this should go into 91.

Comment 11

[Ping Chen [:rnons] (away)]

Comment on attachment 9239560 [details]
Bug 576471 - Pipe more server message to the error dialog in SmtpClient.jsm. r=mkmelin

[Approval Request Comment]
Regression caused by (bug #):
User impact if declined: Some SMTP server errors are only printed to log, but not shown to the user
Testing completed (on c-c, etc.): beta
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky): low

Comment 12

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Comment on attachment 9239560 [details]
Bug 576471 - Pipe more server message to the error dialog in SmtpClient.jsm. r=mkmelin

[Triage Comment]
Approved for esr91

Comment 13

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Thunderbird 91.1.2:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-esr91/rev/9583f2115ead