634853 - imap logins partially broken after changing imap login of existing account

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, defect)

Description

[bugzilla]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101207 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1.7

I have several mail accounts in by TB profile. I needed to change the user name of one of them for some reasons. IMAP/SMTP host name stays the same, just the login changes.
After doing that (IMAP account + SMTP) I could see my folders, but I was not able to drag & drop emails into folders and filters stopped working.
Sending email with copy to outgoing folder worked, though.

Reproducible: Didn't try

Steps to Reproduce:
1. take working email account
2. rename *login* of imap account
3. change name of imap account (after 2 the account is renamed to new login@host)
Actual Results:  
Mail is taken from the new account, but you can not copy mails from inbox to folders, even if folders are correctly subscribed.

Expected Results:  
Working account with drag & drop & filters working as expected.

I looked up my account details in prefs.js and found that for the changed account a new property was created: realuserName.
realuserName has the new login name, userName has the old login name.
Seems for drag & drop and filters userName is used.
Seems for store copy of sent email in outgoing/sent folder the new login name is used.
After fixing manually in prefs.js => set both realuserName and userName to new login, I had to set up all filters again (rules were there, but move target was emptied).

Comment 1

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

I couldn't reproduce problem of "partially broken" in your bug summary by changing user-id for login.

(1) .userName, .hostname vs. .realuserName, .realhostname
Because .userName and .hostname is already used in internal URL for folder etc. at such as message filter vy Tb as you already know, it can not be changed upon user-id change and/or server-name change. So, .realuserName and .realhostname was introduced. Because .userName and .hostname is not altered, messsage filter etc. is not affected. This is current design/implementation, and is never problem.

(2) Quick check result using multiple accounts of Yahoo! Mail.
I have four free Yahoo! Mail accounts.
  Call [e-mail] where N=1 to 4.
So I emulated your case by user-id change between above accounts.
(2-1) Create new Tb profile, define Gmail IMAP account with [e-mail].
      As nothing is changed Tools/options, Account Settings, all mails are
      auto-sync'ed and indexed by Global Indexer. 
      At "All Folders" view ,access all mails in all folders, and all mails
      are sync'ed. Terminate Tb, and restart Tb.
      Note:
      a quick test, message filter is not defined.
      In addition to common/standard folders of Yahoo! some additional folders
      are defined. To check same folder name case, next isdone.
      Y-1 : Inbox2 exists, Y-2 : Inbox2 exists, Y-3 : Inbox2 doesn't exist.
(2-2) Change user-id to [e-mail].
      Account name at folder pane is changed to [e-mail],
      and focus is moved to account from a selected IMAP folder.
(2-3) Click Inbox => Password is prompted => Enter Password
      => folder pane is refreshed, because LSUB is requested after login.
         e.g. if change from Y-1 to Y-3, Inbox2 disappears.
              if change from Y-3 to Y-3, Inbox2 appears.
      View all mails in all folders => normally held.
      Content of any folder is changed to content of new Yahoo! IMAP account.
      All mails are re-fetched and re-sync'ed, because mail of same UID
      doesn't exist in same mail folder of different account's folder.
      It's true for Inbox2 in my test, because creation of same UID is hard.
(2-4) Repeats (2-2)/(2-3) without terminate Tb. Y-1=>Y-2=>Y-3=Y-2=Y-1=>...
No problem was observed in my quick test. Basically, all are normally re-sync'ed by Tb after user-id change at account settings.

However something wrong can happen.

(A) If all folder's attributes is same(next-uid etc.) even after change,
    and if an same UID is assigned to different mail after user-id change,
    Tb may not re-download header, even if size, subject:, ... are different,
    and Tb may not re-download mail data to offline-store when the UID is
    already sync'ed status and mail size is same.

(B) Some issues may occur due to different .userName from .realuserName.
    Tb may confuse on ".userName used in internal URL != .realuserName" in
    very special situation.

(C) Bug 520437 can happen, because internal unsubsribe/re-subscribe can occur upon user-id change while Tb is accessing folders using old user-id.
> Bug 520437 Garbage file/directory of {foldername}-{suffix}.msf and
>  {foldername}-{suffix}.sbd is created upon each unsubscribe / subscribe
In my test, Sent-1.msf and Sent-1 was really created by Tb 3.1.7.
Bug 520437 itself doesn't produce problem directly, because Tb uses file/directory of Sent-1.msf/Sent-1/Sent-1.sbd for IMAP folder named Sent.
However, by Bug 520437, next situation can happen.
   Folder name: Used file/directory
   Sent       : Sent-1.msf/Sent-1/Sent-1.sbd
   Sent-1     : Sent-1-1.msf/Sent-1-1/Sent-1-1.sbd
   Sent-1-1   : Sent-1-1-1.msf/Sent-1-1-1/Sent-1-1-1.sbd
   Sent-1-1-1 : Sent-1-1-1-1.msf/Sent-1-1-1-1/Sent-1-1-1-1.sbd
Rename/folder open etc. expects "folder name" in some places. If Sent-1 is renamed to Sent-1X, folder of Sent-1 doesn't exist at server any more. Tb may try to use Sent-1-1.msf/Sent-1-1/Sent-1-1.sbd upon folder open of Sent-1-1. This forces re-sync of all mails in Sent-1-1.

(D) Bug 534994 may be relevant, because just after user-id change.
In my test, account was automatically selected by Tb after setting change and password was requested upon first click of Inbox after user-id change. This is similar to "account is selected, no folder is opened, just after restart of Tb" case.
> Bug 534994 Strange behaviour when selecting "Subscribe" with no folder selected.
> (IMAP, blank subscription list is shown, because login for LSUB is required
> if no cached connection is available but it fails)

(E) Saved Serch Folder, Consolidated Folders etc. may be affected, as they are "Virtual Folder".
Next is known on local mail folder.
(E-1) Message filter is not affected by manual deletion of XXX.msf.
1. delete XXX.msf manually. message filter has "move to XXX". Restart Tb.
2. Run filter on folder => "move to XXX" opens XXX intenally, and internal Repair Folder is invoke by folder open, then "move to XXX" is successful.
(E-2) On the other hand, next occurs if Saved Search folder.
3. delete XXX.msf manually. search target folder of a saved search folder=XXX
4. Restart Tb, click the saved search target folder
   => Nothing is shown at thread pane.
5. Click folder XXX at folder pane => folder is opened, and Repair Folder is
   invoked internally due to deleted XXX.msf
   => Saved search folder can be accessed normally.

> After fixing manually in prefs.js => set both realuserName and userName to new
login,
> I had to set up all filters again (rules were there, but move target was
emptied).

It's not suprizing, As you changed .userName manually, outside of Thunderbird,  you have to manually reflect the change by you to string in message filter rule, by manual editing of msgFilterRules.dat, or by re-selection of folder via filter UI after Tb started to use the changed new .userName. 

> Actual Results:  
Mail is taken from the new account, but you can not copy mails from inbox to
> folders, even if folders are correctly subscribed.

As seen in my test, re-login using new userid(string newly set in .realuserName) is executed by first click of mail folder(Inbox in my case) after the change.
Was password prompted after user-id change at account settings before your attemt of mail copy?

As I wrote, something wrong may happen on Consolidated Folder if re-login with new user-is is not executed yet.
Did you check with Consolidated Folders view?

Are there any <folder-name>-<suffix>(no extention, .msf, .sbd) generated by Tb in you ImpMail directory of Tb?

Please note that "user-id change only of existent account at IMAP server" is same as "differnt IMAP account at IMAP server for mail client".

Can you use both old user-id and new user-id alternatively?
If yes, can you get IMAP log for your user-id change of IMAP account in Tb?
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en/HTTP_Logging

Comment 2

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In addition to comment #1)
After user-id change and selection at folder pane was automatically moved to the account from a folder, and before first click of any folder, phenomenon of Bug 534994 was observed.
I think some of "partially broken" you saw were variants of phenomenon which we can observe when Bug 534994 occurs.

Comment 3

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

[e-mail](bug opener), could you please describe detail of "partially broken" in your bug summary? (please rule out .realuserName/.realhostname related phenomenon you saw which is current design)

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

reporter appears to be gone