644785 - message pane columns change order when changing column to sort by

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 80936

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Jon Grossart]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110303 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1.9

I usually keep my mail sorted by descending date (newest first).  However, occasionally, I sort by the other columns in order to process a bunch of mail.  I always return the the view back to date sorted.

However, when I click back on the date tab, it doesn't just switch the sorting, it also changes the sorting order back to ascending.  I then have to click on the date tab again to restore the sort order I want.

It is actually true for the other tab combinations as well.  As long as you leave the tab in the default sort order, that is restored when you click on the tab.  If you change the default sort order, then every time to resort by that tab, it goes back to the same default sort order rather than what you left it in.

This may be the expected behavior, or it may be a bug.  If it is the expected/desired behavior, is there a way to change the default sort order?

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. sort by descending date (newest at top -- assuming this is what you have setup)
2. switch to another column (say name)
3. click back on date column to resort by date
Actual Results:  
1. items sorted by descending date
2. items sorted correctly
3. items sorted by ascending date

Expected Results:  
1. items sorted by descending date
2. items sorted correctly
3. items sorted by descending date
4. need to click on the "date" column again to switch sort order

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Look at http://superuser.com/questions/13518/change-the-default-sorting-order-in-thunderbird this should help you.

If t doesn't try to specify what is missing.

Comment 2

[Jon Grossart]

Well, that does answer part of the question, but the bug is still there.  If I change both to use "2" instead of "1" for default descending, the same thing still happens.

The problem is still that regardless of the "Default" view type, when switching between tabs, the date tab always reverts to ascending order, regardless of the default view or the previous setting of the column.