645856 - Manage Folder Subscriptions UI does not tell user if server is unavailable

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 534994

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

All,

Version: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110303 Thunderbird/3.1.9

Problem: Manage Folder Subscriptions does not show folders

Steps to reproduce:
1. be connected to several different mailservers
2. click on the name of a mailserver in the tree
3. choose "manage folder subscriptions"
4. List of folders will be blank and thus no subscriptions will be manageable
5. Clicking refresh does not improve things

Annoyingly, this issue seems to be selective; I use TB3.1 with multiple accounts and manage folder subscriptions works with some of them.  Specifically:

Account1: Zimbra, 20 folders: does not work
Account2: Cyrus IMAP, 5 folders: works
Account3: Cyrus IMAP, 7 folders: works
Account4: AOX 3.1, 25 folders: does not work
Account5: AOX 3.1, 5 folders: does not work

Hopefully you can find a pattern here.

I'm fairly sure this feature was working in 3.1.7, but not completely sure.

Comment 1

[David :Bienvenu]

does anything appear on the error console when it fails?

Comment 2

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

Also: my profile has been upgraded several times, since 2.0.  However, one of the accounts which is not working is brand new and was created in 3.1.

Also, advice on a short-term workaround would be very nice.

Comment 3

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

David:

Nothing, it's blank.  Not even warnings.

I just had a friend test on Windows 7 with one of the same mailservers, and they weren't having an issue.

Comment 4

[David :Bienvenu]

Josh, that points to an issue with your profile.  Do you see us try to issue any commands against the server when you pick the folders that fail? You should see status messages when we talk to the server.

Comment 5

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

David,

I spoke too soon:

Error: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80550007 [nsIMsgFolder.getStringProperty]"  nsresult: "0x80550007 (<unknown>)"  location: "JS frame :: chrome://messenger/content/folderPane.js :: getSmartFolderName :: line 2441"  data: no]
Source File: chrome://messenger/content/folderPane.js
Line: 2443

Comment 6

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

This appears to be the failing code:

function getSmartFolderName(aFolder) {
  try {
    return aFolder.getStringProperty("smartFolderName");
  } catch (ex) {
    Components.utils.reportError(ex);
    return null;
  }
}

I have not configured any smart folders for that mailserver.

Comment 7

[David :Bienvenu]

I don't think that's causing the issue. We're just logging an error, but we're also catching it.

Comment 8

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

Well, where would I see the status messages?

Comment 9

[David :Bienvenu]

in the subscribe window itself, does the progress indicator move, and the message "please wait" appear?

Comment 10

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

Yes.  The action is pretty much the same whether it succeeds or fails to retrieve a list of folders.  It spends about 2 seconds checking with "please wait".

Comment 11

[David :Bienvenu]

have you logged onto these servers in the same session, so that TB knows the passwords for the accounts? An IMAP log might be helpful - https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging

Comment 12

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

Yes, I have.  I'm actually saving the passwords for all servers.

So, I have an imap log now.  It's unfortunately around 6.8mb.  What would you like me to look for?

Comment 13

[David :Bienvenu]

Are we issuing LIST commands for the servers that aren't working in the subscribe UI?

Comment 14

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

David,

BTW, I'm on irc.mozilla.org right now, as "jberkus" if you want to debug this faster.

Comment 15

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

Resolution:

The issue was that the client was not connecting to the server, for which reason it was not displaying the subscribe folders list.

The Manage Subscribed Folders interface should warn the user / error out if there is no connection to the server instead of silently failing.  This may be a duplicate of existing bugs about error handling in that UI; checking.

Comment 16

[David :Bienvenu]

Bug 477521 is possibly related.

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to David :Bienvenu from comment #16)
> Bug 477521 is possibly related.

Josh, do you see the following...

I disabled my network connection, entered subscribe:
- subscribe window has "please wait ..."
- error console has 
Timestamp: 11/8/2012 2:03:17 PM
Error: [Exception... "'Component is not available' when calling method: [nsIActivityManager::removeActivity]"  nsresult: "0x80040111 (NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE)"  location: "JS frame :: resource:///modules/activity/autosync.js :: <TOP_LEVEL> :: line 203"  data: no]
Source File: resource:///modules/activity/autosync.js
Line: 203

Comment 18

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

Wayne,

I'll have to disable a mailserver and test.

Comment 19

[[:jberkus] Josh Berkus]

Sorry, I've been travelling too much to test this.  I'll get to it, though.

Comment 20

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Thanks.

Note: when you reply or Save Changes, you can (re)set "Need additional information from reporter" to keep the reminder in force.  I've just tested it on myself

Comment 21

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Sounds dup of bug 534994.

Comment 22

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

trusting wada