608381 - problem saving message filter rules in specific conditions - "This filter cannot be saved because some search terms are invalid in the current context."

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Filters, defect)

Description

[Gregory Kramida]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/7.0.517.41 Safari/534.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9) Gecko/20100915 Thunderbird/3.1.4

This is a very stealthy but really annoying bug.

I've reproduced it repeatedly on the latest versions of both Thunderbird and SeaMonkey on the following platforms: Windows XP (NT 5.1), Windows XP 64-bit (NT 5.2), Windows 7 32-bit and Windows 7 64-bit.

This UI bug shows symptoms when I'm editing Filter Rules, which I bring up from the Message Filters dialog. I've set up a rather complex system of filters which includes about 15 or so different ones, with each having about ten to twenty different rules (Conditions should be set to "Match Any of the Following"). Every filter is set to move the incoming messages from the inbox to several folders within inbox or outside (the bug doesn't seem to depend on which folder I move them to).

For certain, *but not all* of the filters, whenever I try to enter a new filter rule and then hit "OK" to finalize it, a Search Terms Invalid dialog pops up saying "This filter cannot be saved because some search terms are invalid in the current context."
However, after I hit "OK" and simply choose **the same** header modifier (i.e. is, contains, begins with, etc.) for some wierd email that a From, a To, or a Subject is supposed to match or contain (i.e. "[e-mail]", see example image), and then hit the "OK" in the Filter Rules dialog again, the mysterious Invalid Terms error just goes away and I continue on editing other filters. This happens *almost* every time when I do filter editing, *every* time when I edit filters extensively.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Create a bunch of filters with custom titles which are applied when "Checking Mail or Manually Run", have "Match any of the following", and have From/To/Subject is/contains a whole bunch of various weird emails (consult legal email character specification on Wikipedia if needed, which I doubt) and, which is possibly unrelated, move the messages into different folders. Add new rules one-by-one to each filter, and close and re-open the Filter Rules dialogs as you  *Run them* on the current folder as you're adding.

2. If you still don't get the error, create one filter that looks like what's shown here:http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/8720/mozillabugreportdetails.png
You might want to do this as you're making other filters as well.

3.You will, eventually, start hitting the bug similar to what's shown in http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/3347/mozillabugreport.jpg, multiple times, as you add filter rules.
Actual Results:  
Got a train-load and a little vagonette of "This filter cannot be saved because some search terms are invalid in the current context."

Expected Results:  
Simply not bringing up this extra dialog would be very nice.

The Thunderbird theme was default, everything was normal, I used classic theme on the OS, latest builds and updates of everything.

Please, forward this bug to the SeaMonkey team as well - they have it too.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Hi,

Can you try to reduce your testcase a bit and provide us with a step of precise step that will trigger the issue ?

When this happens any errors in Tools -> Error console ?

Comment 2

[Gregory Kramida]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Hi,
> 
> Can you try to reduce your testcase a bit and provide us with a step of precise
> step that will trigger the issue ?
> 
> When this happens any errors in Tools -> Error console ?

Sure, I'll try to isolate this step. I have a feeling that this only works when you have a heap of emails in the inbox (maybe this should have gone into the search section). 

I'll need to find a time window in my schedule, which isn't that easy these days. Let me get back to you when I get a more specific step-by-step description.

Comment 3

[Gregory Kramida]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Hi,
> 
> Can you try to reduce your testcase a bit and provide us with a step of precise
> step that will trigger the issue ?
> 
> When this happens any errors in Tools -> Error console ?

Okay, here you go. Just opened SeaMonkey (which has the error cases absolutely identical). The error console does give me some message, see the image at the end of this post. (assuming it's connected with this dialog popping up). Make the filter shown in the picture (see link below message), just don't add the last item. Again, I'm not sure what the order of adding/running things is. You'll have to figure it out, but the good news is that I already had all the rules in there when I fired it up this time, so I don't think it matters. I guess you can just add all the rules and run the filter once, then close and reopen the program with some emails in the current folder.

The error occurred when I re-opened the program and added the 4AllVitamins / From-type rule to the filter, and keep this in mind: I clicked on the plus button not at the end of the list of the rules, but maybe 3rd position down the list, so it inserted a blank rule for me to fill out in 4th position. I tried to save the filter, but the dialog popped up. I didn't even re-run it yet. This should allow you to focus in on the case specific to the error.

Image of the filter:
http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/2724/errorfilter4allvitamins.png

Image of the error console:
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/2724/errorfilter4allvitamins.png

Comment 4

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

(In reply to comment #3)
 
> Image of the error console:
> http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/2724/errorfilter4allvitamins.png

It's missing the last line which might have something.

Comment 5

[Gregory Kramida]

Have you managed to recreate the error case yourself?

I can try to post more pictures for you later, but I don't have time right now. You have the symptoms, it's definitely an error. Or should I start working for the Mozilla Foundation now?

Comment 6

[Gregory Kramida]

I obtained new information about the behavior conditions: 
the "This filter cannot be saved because some search terms are invalid in the current context." dialog appears when there is a bunch of rules already in the filter since Thunderbird's (/SeaMonkey's) last restart. I already have the rules in the filter, I try to add a new one (actually, doesn't matter where I add, disregard my previous notion. I tried to add the rule at the end of the list and everywhere else - same behavior).
The work-around works only if I hit the "contains/doesn't contain/..." drop-down list of the **filter rule entered before Thunderbird's last shut-down.** It doesn't work if I hit the drop-down list for the ones I've just added.

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/5193/errorconsoleexpanded.png

^^I did some compositing of the error console with GIMP, but as you can tell from the slider, there are A LOT of pages there. It'd be nice to add an error-console save-to-text file feature. If you scan down the console, you'll see that there are lots of "unrecognized at rule or error" mixed in with other warnings, but these are for some reason classified as warnings, not errors. There were no "official" errors in the TB console this time, which means that the program "thinks" everything's hunky-dory when it shows me the dialog.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Gregory, this is hopefully fixed by bug 551707. Would you be able (from a risk point of view) to test a development build?

Comment 8

[Gregory Kramida]

Sure thing. How can I obtain the development build?

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #8)
> Sure thing. How can I obtain the development build?

they are at ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-central/
these are UNTESTED development builds, so there may be bugs.  (OTOH many people use them on a daily basis) so make sure you first backup all your thunderbird profile data. and your add-ons won't work unless you override compatibility.

Comment 10

[Gregory Kramida]

Sorry for not getting back to you about the dev. build. 
The new Thunderbird V. 5.0 doesn't exhibit the same error, so I guess the fix for bug 551707 worked.

Thanks!