78356 - News server authentication data is not preserved properly

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 36816

(MailNews Core :: Networking: NNTP, defect, P3)

Description

[Brandon Ehle]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:0.8.1+)
Gecko/20010430
BuildID:    20010430

When enabling the check box "Use Password Manager to remember this value" on a
Secure Newsgroup, the next time you start Mozilla up, it does not remember the
when you check messages on the Secure Newgroup.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Add a Secure Newsgroup
2. Set your usename, click the "Use Password Manager to remember this value" box
3. Set your password, click the "Use Password Manager to remember this value"
box yet again (I think this is a bug as well)
4. Subscribe to a forum in the newsgroup
5. Exit & Restart Mozilla
6. Get new messages from the forum to which you subscribed

Actual Results:  It will ask for user and password again

Expected Results:  Automatically entered the user and password for you

Comment 1

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

My apologies for not looking at this sooner.  However, this is working for me
with build 2001050904 using secnews.netscape.com on 563 with authenticated
newsgroup, "netscape.champions".  When I enter my username and password, and use
the dialog to save both, upon re-launch of Mozilla I am not prompted for this
information on reading of messages.   This is using Collabra 3.52.  Brandon, can
you try this again with a later build, and perhaps give us a protocol log?  You
can find instructions for doing so at:
http://www.mozilla.org/quality/mailnews/mail-troubleshoot.html#imap

Thanks, please re-open this if with a current nightly this is still not working
for you.

Comment 2

[Brandon Ehle]

Latest build seems to work now

Comment 3

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

Yup, for me too.  Thanks for reporting back.  verified.

Comment 4

[Brandon Ehle]

This bug has reappeared again, but it is seemingly random now, but I think it
might be related to having multiple threads being accessed at once, only the
first thread remembers the password, additional threads require you to re-enter
the saved password.

Comment 5

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

Can you give me a possible testcase for this?  Threads don't cause my user/pass
prompts to re-occur, everytime I select a message in my authenticated newsgroup,
it downloads the message body without questioning.

Comment 6

[Brandon Ehle]

Subscribe to about 6-10 newsgroups on the same secure news server.  Click on the
first one, enter your username and password, click the "Remember password"
button.  Once it downloads the headers, exit mozilla and restart (just to be
safe).  Now click on all 10 newgroups as fast as you can and let mozilla set
there and crunch.  The first couple of groups you clicked on will work ok, but
then the last few will each ask you for a name and password again.

Comment 7

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

I'll take a look at this, in the meantime can you give us a logfile?  See 
http://www.mozilla.org/quality/mailnews/mail-troubleshoot.html#imap for 
instructions.  Thanks!

Comment 8

[Brandon Ehle]

Attachment: NNTP log from Windows Mozilla 20010921

Comment 9

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

Cool, so I think I've narrowed this down (I don't believe it's limited to Secure
newsgroups, as snews:// and news:// urls I think are passed onto Password
Manager in nearly the same structure):

1.  Authenticate with a newsgroup on a server, and choose "Remember these
values...".
2.  Bring up the subscribe dialog and add another newsgroup.
3.  Click on the postings in the newsgroup from step #2.  You'll get asked to
authenticate, but instead of doing so, just click on the newsgroup in step #1.
4.  Now, go back to the 2nd newsgroup (step #2), and note that it works.

The problem is that Password Manager stores for each newsgroup, instead of
per-server.

news://[e-mail]:119/netscape.public.mozilla.mail-news#password
news://[e-mail]:119/netscape.public.mozilla.mail-news#username

Seth, I'm pretty sure this is the bug we talked about once on the way to Burrito
Real ;-)

Comment 10

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

*** Bug 122476 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 11

[Vadim Berezniker]

*** Bug 136863 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[Greg K.]

I encounter this problem with nonsecure servers, so I'll edit the Summary to
reflect this.

Also setting All/All as my configuration is FizzillaCFM/2002040908.

Comment 13

[ketil]

I had the same problem previosly, but build 2002040410 have "reduced" this to a
alternating bug (sometimes it works, sometimes it dont). This bug is NOT
restricted to Windows, I got it on RedHat Linux 7.2 and SuSE Linux 7.3. I have
met the bug in NS4 and NS6 on Win98, NT and 2000 (SP3), and RH6.2, 7.0 and 7.2
plus Mandrake 7.2, so I have always considered this as a "feature".

I posted an suggestion for enhancement (bug 136873), what I suggest is something
similar to this:

+-----------+        +-------------+         +-------------+
|readNews() |--------|newsGroup    |---------|newsAccount()|
|-----------|        |-------------|         |-------------|
                                             |+accountName |
                                             |-userName    |
                                             |-password    |
                                             |-------------|

The diagram is ment to describe that the identification of the newsgroup should
be based on the identification of the account, in contrast to today, where you
do have to set a separate username and password for every single newsgroup in a
newsaccount.

I do not know why you have to assign a separete identification for each
newsgroup, but it shouldn't be neccesary.

Comment 14

[Manuel Lemos]

I think I know what is happening. If you let the password manager store your
authentication details you can see it too (make sure you enlarge the Password
Manager window). I did it and could see more than one autentication entry for
the same news server, but for different newsgroups. See the attached screen shot.

So, it seems the bug is that Mozilla is not treating these authentications as
equivalent and if you ask to get in a new group, it stores a new authentication
entry in the password manager that will not be used.

Comment 15

[Manuel Lemos]

Attachment: Screen shot of the password manager window showing the bug

As you may see, the Password Manager stores more than one authentication
credentials for the same news server but for different groups.

Comment 16

[ketil]

The problem about the password manager is implemented in such way that it 
fooled me to consider it a stupid feature, not a bug. I have had the 
authentication stored separately for each single newsgroup, in all versions of 
netscape I have used to look for this "feature".

The authentication problem described initially is not related to windows, or a 
specific version of neetscape 7 mozilla, I have had it in netscape 4.5, 4.75, 
6, 6.1 and 6.2 (and many of the versions of mozilla I have used over the last 
years). The difficult thing about it is that it is NOT a easily reproduceable 
bug, it just exists sometimes.

(I have reprodused it in Win3.1, 95, 98, 98se, ME, NT 3 & 4, 2000 SP1&3, RedHat 
6.2, 7, 7.1 and 7.2, SuSE 7.0 & 7.3 and a few other OSes...)

Comment 17

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

I'm pretty sure now that this is really just bug 36816...

Comment 18

[ketil]

This IS in fact bug 36816, or a side effect from it. Bug 36816 got a strange
response originally... VOTE FOR IT!

Comment 19

[Brandon Ehle]

I am not so sure this is related to that other bug.  One thing that I've noticed
recently is that this bug only happens on SMP systems when your trying to access
multiple newsgroups at once.  It appears as if browser is opening a second
connection to the news server and on this second connection, the password
manager is not remembering your username & password.

Comment 20

[Andrew Hagen]

Dupe.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 36816 ***

Comment 21

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

Verified dup