737880 - unseen message indicators (blue folder highlight) not preserved during session restore / restart

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Spun off from bug 408338

The "unseen" status of a folder with new messages in it is not preserved across a restart.  This is the blue highlight on a folder (at least on Mac) that indicates you haven't looked at the folder since the last new message was added to it.

For someone who gets a LOT of incoming mail which is well-filtered, and doesn't always read all of it, this makes it hard to tell where the new messages are if you have to restart before you've at least looked at them.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Dave, unrelated to restart - do you also see the folder blue highlight lost occasionally while thunderbird is running?  For example if multiple folders are blue with new message and you click one of them, do any others change to not-blue?

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #1)
> Dave, unrelated to restart - do you also see the folder blue highlight lost
> occasionally while thunderbird is running?  For example if multiple folders
> are blue with new message and you click one of them, do any others change to
> not-blue?

Comment 3

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Yes.  sometimes it seems to get lost if I hover a folder, too, although I can't reliably reproduce it on command.

Comment 4

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to Dave Miller [:justdave] from comment #0)
> The "unseen" status of a folder with new messages in it is not preserved
> across a restart.  This is the blue highlight on a folder (at least on Mac)
> that indicates you haven't looked at the folder since the last new message
> was added to it.

Does it mean that you saw "unseen status of a folder with new messages in it WAS actually preserved across a restart" at any folder in the past or usually, but you see "not preserved across a restart" recently or at some folders?

IIUC, "new mail" is per mail attribute, and is "newly added new mail after last close/open of mail folder". And "unseen status of a folder with new messages" is set from "new mail status of a mail in the folder".
I guess that "Termination/Restart of Tb" implies "folder close/open" in current implementation from perspective of "new mail status of a mail".

Comment 5

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

This isn't a regression, it's something that's never been implemented at all before, and that would make usability easier.

What I mean is that for good usability, the blue highlight shouldn't go away until the user initiates opening the folder (whether it's opened internally for some other reason is irrelevant).

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Attachment: TB notify optinos

This has bugged me too. Lately for me, using current trunk, this is much better. But it can't be related to session (re)store - there haven't been any changes.  So I am skeptical there is a direct relation to bug 408338.  I think the problems derive from filtering and possibly other areas.

Dave, I don't remember the full history of coloring folders for new messages:

1. Do you recall whether you had this issue prior to bug 408338/release 3.0?  Or, was there an assumption (perhaps reasonable) this could be solved on a technical level by session restore?

2. Do your notify options match this screen shot?

3. What channel builds are you currently running, and have you seen behavior changes (better or worse) in the past year?

Comment 7

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

I have not used Thunderbird in a year or two.  I currently use Postbox.  I switched because Thunderbird was freezing up for several minutes at a time a several times per hour and Postbox had the same freezes, but only froze for 10 or 15 seconds instead of several minutes.

I should probably try Thunderbird again one of these days, but I'm probably too busy to make an attempt at switching back in the next couple weeks.

As for the assumptions, I'm pretty sure this issue was part of my impetus for filing that bug suggesting that Thunderbird should have session restore. :-)  I don't know whether I've used TB since that was implemented.

Comment 9

[Ulf Zibis]

See also bug 1710669.