629272 - Email notification preferences not respected when an email address that I'm watching gets CCed on a bug

Status: NEW

(Bugzilla :: Email Notifications, defect, P3)

Description

[(no longer active)]

Attachment: My email prefs (screenshot)

Here's the situation that I'm dealing with.  I don't want to get email notification for CC field changes on bugs, *unless* that change was made by me.

Now, I'm also watching a bunch of email addresses, and I do want to get email notifications when those email addresses are CCed on a bug.

Bugzilla tells me:
"If you watch a user, it is as if you are standing in their shoes for the purposes of getting email. Email is sent or not according to your preferences for their relationship to the bug (e.g. Assignee)."

So, email should be sent according to *my* preferences for the CC field change on the column corresponding to *their* relationship to the bug (CC).  I've enabled getting CC emails for when "I'm added to or removed from this capacity", so I think bugzilla is wrong in skipping to send me emails when someone on that address gets added/removed from the CC list.

Comment 1

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

Hey Ehsan. Thanks for the bug report.

In fact, Bugzilla is behaving appropriately as far as the documentation goes. When it says "my" that is always you, never the person you're watching. So Bugzilla does send you mail, because somebody else has been added to the CC list who isn't you. Perhaps that's not the best way to go about things, and perhaps it does cause some surprising situations like this one, but it's also possibly the desired behavior in some other situations.

Comment 2

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Hey Ehsan. Thanks for the bug report.
> 
> In fact, Bugzilla is behaving appropriately as far as the documentation goes.
> When it says "my" that is always you, never the person you're watching. So
> Bugzilla does send you mail, because somebody else has been added to the CC
> list who isn't you. Perhaps that's not the best way to go about things, and
> perhaps it does cause some surprising situations like this one, but it's also
> possibly the desired behavior in some other situations.

So, should this be morphed to cover the use case of what I expected in comment 0?  Because as I understand it, that's what I want, and currently this bug is preventing me from receiving bugmail when somebody I'm watching files a bug, for example (which is basically the only reason I watch many people in the first place).

Comment 3

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

Oh! I didn't realize the exact nature of the bug you were reporting. You're saying that its treating "I" as *them*? So you *should* be getting email and aren't. Hmmmmm...that does seem wrong.

Comment 4

[(no longer active)]

OK, I'm kind of bending the edges of my English knowledge here, and it's so confusing, so let me try again.

Let's say I ([e-mail]) is watching you ([e-mail]).

Now, I've set my prefs so that if I cc myself on a bug, I don't get a bugmail, but if somebody else CC's me on a bug, I want to get that bugmail (to know that I'm CCed).  So far so good.

Now, let's say *you* CC [e-mail] on a bug.  In this case, "their relationship to the bug" is "CC", and "the change was NOT made by me", so I _should_ be getting the email, right?  But I won't.  I think the reason is that bugzilla knows that "the change was made by THEM", so it treats it as the exact same case of me CC'ing myself.

So effectively if somebody CC's themselves on a bug, and I'm watching them, I don't get the bugmail.

Now, I _think_ there are more cases in which I'm missing the bugmail.  I'm not exactly sure why (because I usually miss what has happened before, until somebody comments on the bug and I suddenly get an email out of the blue).  I'll try to watch my bugmail more closely for the next instance of this problem and file more precise bugs for other cases...

I hope this makes some sort of sense.  :-)

Comment 5

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Now, let's say *you* CC [e-mail] on a bug.  In this case, "their
> relationship to the bug" is "CC", and "the change was NOT made by me", so I
> _should_ be getting the email, right?  But I won't.

  Ah ha! I totally understand the bug that you are describing now. We need to check that twice: (1) does "me" being the watched person prevent me from getting email? (2) does "me" being "me" prevent me from getting email? We should only fail to send email if both of those are true.

> So effectively if somebody CC's themselves on a bug, and I'm watching them, I
> don't get the bugmail.

  That sounds like a separate problem. You're saying two things:

  1) mkanat CCs mkanat, you don't get email.
  2) mkanat CCs ehsan, you don't get email.

Comment 6

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #5)
> (In reply to comment #4)
> > Now, let's say *you* CC [e-mail] on a bug.  In this case, "their
> > relationship to the bug" is "CC", and "the change was NOT made by me", so I
> > _should_ be getting the email, right?  But I won't.
> 
>   Ah ha! I totally understand the bug that you are describing now. We need to
> check that twice: (1) does "me" being the watched person prevent me from
> getting email? (2) does "me" being "me" prevent me from getting email? We
> should only fail to send email if both of those are true.

Given "Email is sent or not according to your preferences for their relationship to the bug", why is the second check necessary?

> > So effectively if somebody CC's themselves on a bug, and I'm watching them, I
> > don't get the bugmail.
> 
>   That sounds like a separate problem. You're saying two things:
> 
>   1) mkanat CCs mkanat, you don't get email.
>   2) mkanat CCs ehsan, you don't get email.

Actually I'm only talking about the first case.  I have not tried the second case, so it might also be a separate bug.

To give you a concrete and recent example, this just happened on bug 632778.  [e-mail] CC'ed himself on 2011-03-04 10:30:06 EST, for which I didn't get any email.  Then, Waldo posted comment 4, for which I got a bugmail including these headers:

X-Bugzilla-Reason: None
X-Bugzilla-Type: changed
X-Bugzilla-Watch-Reason: CC [e-mail]
X-Bugzilla-Classification: Components
X-Bugzilla-Product: Core
X-Bugzilla-Component: JavaScript Engine
X-Bugzilla-Keywords: assertion, testcase
X-Bugzilla-Severity: critical
X-Bugzilla-Who: [e-mail]
X-Bugzilla-Status: NEW
X-Bugzilla-Priority: --
X-Bugzilla-Assigned-To: [e-mail]
X-Bugzilla-Target-Milestone: ---
X-Bugzilla-Changed-Fields: 

Is that enough information for this problem?

Comment 7

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

(In reply to comment #6)
> >   1) mkanat CCs mkanat, you don't get email.
> >   2) mkanat CCs ehsan, you don't get email.
> 
> Actually I'm only talking about the first case.  I have not tried the second
> case, so it might also be a separate bug.

  Okay. The first case is a bug, yes.