621272 - Copying an imported folder does NOT copy sub-folder contents!

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Edwin Bruckner]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; de; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; de; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101207 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1.7

Contents of folders that have never been visited do not get copied.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Import mails with folder-containing-sub-folder structure from outlook.
2. Do NOT visit sub-folder contents.
3. Copy folder from "outlook import" to local mailbox.
Actual Results:  
Sub-Folders get created, but contents (mail) within sub-folders do not get copied.

Expected Results:  
Folder contentes must be copied completely including ALL mails within sub-folders!!

Major issue, causes loss of data if one deletes "outlook import" folder after copying it into local mailbox.

Comment 1

[Edwin Bruckner]

Attachment: Screenshot after issue has occured

Folder "...FIRMA" has been copied after outlook import.
Contents of sub-folders "Accounts", "Develop", "Infos", .... did NOT get copied into local mailbox.

My suggestion is, this is because the folders have never been visited after import.
Note: Before taking the screenshot, the folders have been visited to see its contents.

Comment 2

[Edwin Bruckner]

Attachment: Screenshot of situation where the issue does not occur

Repeated the same action, but this time visited all imported folders after import and before copy. If folder contents have been shown after import and before copy, all sub-folder contents get copied.

Comment 3

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

It's probably next.
(1) Import doesn't execute internal rebuild-index. Rebuild-index is executed
    upon explicite folder open only(e.g. folder click at UI). It's known bug.
    Until rebuild-index, "number of mails in folder" is ZERO for Tb.
(2) "Folder copy between accounts" copies already known mails only.
    If "number of mails in folder" is ZERO for Tb, no mail is copied to copy
    target folder.
    IIRC, improvement is already requested, because similar issue can happen
    if IMAP mail folder(e.g. someone added mails after Tb opened last time.)

Comment 4

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Issue of (1) : bug 478627
For issue of (2). Copy of link written in bug 469455 comment #13.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?type1-0-0=nowordssubstr;type0-1-0=nowordssubstr;field0-1-0=component;short_desc=drag;field0-0-0=short_desc;bug_severity=major;bug_severity=normal;resolution=---;query_format=advanced;value0-1-0=imag%20%20address%20compos%20attach%20eml%20rss%20feed%20icon;value1-0-0=closeme;short_desc_type=allwordssubstr;type0-0-0=nowordssubstr;value0-0-0=imag%20address%20compos%20attach%20eml%20rss%20feed%20icon%20header%20;field1-0-0=status_whiteboard;product=MailNews%20Core;product=Thunderbird

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

there may be duplicates to this bug

Comment 6

[Martijn]

I just ran into this problem as well, and I was lucky to double check everything and not loose a lot of my clients e-mail because of this.

I imported from Outlook for one of my clients. He uses a structure with a few hundred folders and subfolders (up to three levels deep). All the folders that Thunderbird didn't create an index for, didn't have any content after copying except for (empty) folders.

Because the folders get moved, others may have the impression their content did get moved or copied correctly.

This may also happen when importing messages and folders using any import/export plugin I guess. All in all, this really is a problem for migrating stuff. I can't start clicking all those folders one by one, three levels deep until I think I got them all.

This is on the lastest stable Thunderbird release: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.17) Gecko/20110414 Lightning/1.0b3pre Thunderbird/3.1.10

Comment 7

[Martijn]

Has this been worked on, perhaps in another bugreport?

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Martijn from comment #7)
> Has this been worked on, perhaps in another bugreport?

don't know. 

do you still see problem when using current version?

Comment 9

[Martijn]

Sorry for not replying earlier. I just came across the message asking for more info.

I'm currently not in a position to do a full reproduction of this, particularly since I've switched to OS X and don't have any Outlook installs or licences available to me. It's possible I may be able to try and reproduce this with the latest version of Thunderbird some time in the future when I'm helping the same client. I can't say when this will be.

Comment 10

[[e-mail]]

I ran into the same issue, as I have a busy folder structure with at least 3-4 sublevels.
Those folders did not get imported from outlook. I just stumbled on the problem while trying to deal with another issue I am having with TB.
My observations are as follows:

1. Folders that have subfolders with messages in them will not get copied, if they have not been visited (no index).
   The technical translation of this is: those folders do not have msf files and TB is ignoring the messages if no msf file is found.

2. I also did encounter mails missing from copies, where the original msf files where corrupted.

A proposed solution to this would be, to recursively index/repair the source folders prior to copying them. This would make sure that all msf files are intact and all messages are being copied without any losses. (Maybe also the destination folders, after each copying is finished?)

I am available to run some more tests to help debug this issue.