578113 - LDAP: automatically use offline copy when server unavailable

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 332169

(Thunderbird :: Address Book, enhancement)

Description

[mmindenhall]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.6) Gecko/20100625 Firefox/3.6.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20100608 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1

My company's LDAP server is only visible within our corporate LAN.  In order to have access when working from home or on the road, I have downloaded a local copy of the directory using the "Offline" tab in the "Directory Server Properties" dialog.  However, this local copy is only searched when I manually go into "Work Offline" mode.  When I am out of the office (but working "Online" in Thunderbird), I get an "<LDAP server connection failed>" or "<LDAP server search problem>" message when I start typing the name of a colleague in the address window.

Rather than displaying one of these error messages, I would like to have Thunderbird automatically use the "offline" copy of the LDAP directory when the "online" directory is unavailable, regardless of whether Thunderbird is set to "Work Offline".


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Configure an LDAP directory server, verify that when online, address completion works.
2. From the "Offline" tab in the "Directory Server Properties" dialog, download the directory contents for offline use.
3. Verify that when set to "Work Offline", address completion still works.
4. Verify that when working online, but with LDAP server inaccessible, the two error messages are produced.
Actual Results:  
Error messages were produced.

Expected Results:  
Offline copy of directory should be searched regardless of online/offline state of Thunderbird if LDAP server is inaccessible.