78524 - Messages disappear from my Inbox

Status: VERIFIED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Backend, defect, P1)

Description

[selmer (gone)]

4/30 win98

(I think that's the right build, but I'm at work and that machine is at home.  I
grabbed the first good build that the new Modern theme in it.)

Paul Hangas sent out some emails about the theme landing.  Esther replied to
that email and had the multiple copies problem.  My problem is that when
Esther's mail showed up Paul's disappeared out of my Inbox.

Varada said he had the same problem on a different message.

I have no idea how to reproduce this or even convince you I didn't delete the
messages myself :-(  All I can do is say:  I didn't delete the messages myself
because I hadn't read them yet and then they weren't there when I went to read them.

Comment 1

[scottputterman]

reassigning to naving

Did the messages disappear for good?  Or did they show up the next time you
started up?

Comment 2

[scottputterman]

Let's investigate.

Comment 3

[selmer (gone)]

I saw them (or copies of them) in one of my folders at work yesterday.  I don't
see them from home at all.  I'll try nuking the msf files...

Comment 4

[Navin Gupta]

Does the message show up in 4x ? If it shows up in 4x we know that it is on the 
server and can proceed from there. 

Comment 5

[selmer (gone)]

Not visible on 4.x from home either.  Does anyone still have a copy of the
message?  Could you send it to me again?

Comment 6

[selmer (gone)]

Running 5/03 04, this just happened to me again but in a different way.  I was
talking on the phone and just watching the screen for a moment when some new
mail arrived (based on hearing the system beep and watching the 3 pane move
around.)  When I looked closer to find the new mail, I noticed that an unread
message was gone.

I've been sending out my bug stats mails and I had a copy of apps bug stats and
a copy of embed bug stats one right after the other in my inbox.  The apps bug
stats was the selected message and displayed in the message pane.  The embed
message was the very next message in the thread pane.  When the new mail
arrived, the embed message disappeard.

I think this means incorporation of new mail is doing something to the message
after the one selected in the thread pane when that window is open.  

My previous theory about delete or other user initiated events being involved
was probably spurious and simply prevented me from noticing a new mail event.

Comment 7

[scottputterman]

I still haven't seen this.  Esther or Sheela, can you try reproducing this?

Comment 8

[Navin Gupta]

I am not able to reproduce this. 

Comment 9

[selmer (gone)]

I haven't seen this recently, perhaps we should close it invalid now?  Has
anyone else seen it?

Comment 10

[scottputterman]

It doesn't look like anyone has seen this. I'll mark it WFM and if we get more
reports of this we can reopen.

Comment 11

[esther]

I will mark this verified, but I would really like to find out what happened.  
The only close scenario I have is when I thought I was losing messages.  When I 
realized the messages missing had "Esther" in the subject, I remembered testing 
a filter several weeks ago with that criteria and found the profile that had 
that filter and  found the messages.  I didn't remove one of the test filters on 
one of my systems.  I'll keep an eye out for this.  The only other thing I can 
think of is a while back (after the performance was added) IMAP delete model 
wasn't showing the icon tagging the messages for deletion.  This caused reports 
from downstairs that messages were missing.  Turned out they had the delete 
model on but the visual wasn't there when they deleted messages.  When they 
closed down and opened up again messages were gone (to the trash).   

Comment 12

[selmer (gone)]

I'm not using IMAP delete model, I use move to trash.  The messages did not
disappear between starts, I actually saw one disappear before my eyes while
running the app!

(I still think this is related to which message is selected and possibly the
place in the thread pane where the new message(s) will be inserted.)

Comment 13

[selmer (gone)]

I saw this again with the 5/22 build.  Esther suggested it might be a window
paint problem solvable by reflowing.  That did not work in this case.  Perhaps
deleting the msf file would have brought it back, it may be too late to try that
but I'll give it a whirl.

In this case, a new unread message was sitting at the bottom of the thread pane
waiting to be read.  I was working in the nav window but the thread pane was
only partially obscured.  The repaint of the mail window drew my eye and I saw
that message just disappear.  I forced a refresh and it did not just come back.

Luckily, in this case, I didn't need that message.  In general, I *do* need all
of my messages.  We need to come up with some theories for this one even if we
can't reproduce it.  Consumers will stop using the product the first time they
notice this happening to them.

Comment 14

[scottputterman]

moving to 0.9.2 We can think about it without blocking beta.

Comment 15

[Sheela Ravindran]

builid: 2001052308 linux, 2001052506 windows.
I had a profile open on both my machines with the same default account. I have a 
filter on my windows machine to filter out all the bugzilla bugs to a local 
folder.  On my linux machine I don't have any filters for this account.  This is 
my imap email account.  I was watching my linux machine for a while trying to 
send some messages and watch the behavior. I noticed that my bugzilla mails 
showed up on my linux machine and after every test message I sent from windows 
machine would remove the bugzilla bug. I spoke to esther about this and she 
reminded me about the filter. But the first time I saw the message disappear 
from the thread pane it kind of surprised me.  So it appeared as though the mail 
disappeared when a new mail arrived but the fact is that I was filtering 
bugzilla mail on my windows machine into a local folder. Seeing the same account 
from another machine appeared to me as though I was loosing message every time I 
received a new message but the fact was that I was filtering these messages to a 
local folder. This is the closet I have gotten to seeing message disappear so 
far:(

Comment 16

[esther]

OK, I'm going to spend a couple hours trying to get a reproducible case.  

Comment 17

[esther]

I just ran into this too. I had replied to one of Steve's msg about this bug 
asking for him to send his preference settings.  He sent them to me and I 
printed them.  I continued working on another bug, then 15 minutes later I went 
back to my Inbox to read his preference settings.  I couldn't find the msg 
anywhere.  I did a search on my nsmail-2 account for the message with mojo and 
4.7.  I then searched on my Local folders to find it.  The message is gone.  I 
rememberd I has printed it,  so I went to the printer, picked up the printed 
copy to prove I did have it and what time it came in.  This message is nowhere 
to be found.  I'm going to rename the .msf file to see if the message shows up.  
If so, I'll watch it to see if it's being moved.

Comment 18

[esther]

I renamed my .msf file and launched. That message did not show up.  I created a 
new profile and added my mail account, that message is not on the server 
anymore.  I did not delete it.  Even if I did accidently it should have been in 
the trash (I don't have expunge on exit) or if I move is accidently or filtered 
it on some other system it should be found when searching my server.  It's 
nowhere.  If the server is causing this, could running and IMAP log give us some 
informationg showing that?  Anyone?

Comment 19

[Navin Gupta]

Yes, an IMAP log would definitely help. 

Comment 20

[David :Bienvenu]

you might want to get the server folks to get a log as well. The only other
explanation I can some up with (which is a pretty useless one) is that somehow
the message window get a shift delete event somehow and deleted the message.
There have been focus problems. That wouldn't explain Steve's problem because he
wasn't touching the keyboard at all, as I understand it.

Comment 21

[scottputterman]

changing the milestone again.  

Comment 22

[lchiang]

esther - did you do a search only to locate the missing msg or did you look at
the Trash folder?  I recall searches bypass the trash folder contents.

Comment 23

[lchiang]

esther - since you have the time of the email which disappeared on you, do you
recall how many msgs had come in after that email? This may help to try to
reproduce the bug. After you read Steve's email, did you mark it unread again?
Was it that last email in your thread pane?

How are you and Steve both sorted in the thread pane?

Comment 24

[esther]

Lisa,  It's no where in my trash.  I have trash msgs from 2-28-01 to 5-31-01
The message that disappeared came in at 13:55:16, I replied to it at 1:59 and
printed it at 1:59.  I noticed it was gone at 2:30.  I looked in my inbo, my
trash and my 3 filter folders for msgs after 1:55 on 5/25.  My bugzilla folder
(mgs get filtered into) had 2 messages that were received at 1:55:10 then again
at 1:56:15 and throughout the day with no large gaps.  My inbox msgs had msgs at
2:30 and throughout the day with no large gap.  My trash had msgs that were
stamped 2:44 and throughout the day with no large gap.
My sort was by date, I'll check with Steve.  I did not mark the messages as
unread, I left them alone while I was working on another bug on another system.
And no it wasn't the last message in my thread.  I left my window opened for 1/2
hr. new msg get downloaded every 1 minute.  
Note: I had this account up on all 3 systems, none of them have filters other
than bugzilla, bugsplat & bugscape.  None of them have Delete permanantely, so
if I accidently deleted the message it should be in my Trash.  I thought about
the Shift-Del and focus, but Shift-Del on all platforms only moves the msg to
Trash doesn't do a permanent delete (known bug).  
If anyone wants to try to find this message on my system, feel free to stop by.
 I did searches on all my local folders, my imap account, I manually looked in
my Trash folder.  

Comment 25

[esther]

Correction to my above comment.  Shift+Del (using the Delete button that is
grouped with 5 other keys on the keyboard not the one on the number pad) works
as a permanent Del.  With that said, I know I didn't do a Shift+Del
intentionally using that Del key. 

Comment 26

[scottputterman]

I talked to Steve about this and we agreed that the theory of multiple machines
running the same account and filters could be responsible for this.  I'm moving
to 0.9.3 to keep on the radar in case we experience this. If anyone else
experiences this or has theory that they can attribute to this, please update
the bug so we can take action on it.

Comment 27

[Scott MacGregor]

Mail news triage meeting --> .9.5

Comment 28

[scottputterman]

moving to 0.9.6

Comment 29

[scottputterman]

Is anyone still seeing this or have any idea about how to reproduce this?  I'm
going to move to 1.0 for now, but I think we're at a loss until we find some way
to reproduce this.

Comment 30

[scottputterman]

moving to future until we find this is still a problem.  If someone who used to
see this thinks it might be gone, please add a WFM.

Comment 31

[Sheela Ravindran]

Scott,
As I stated in my earlier comments that filtering message from one machine and
not on a second machine for the same account can still be seen as messages
disappearing from the thread pane.  
I see that you also comment in the bug that this could have been the reason why
it appeared to be disappering from the inbox.  I have so far not seen anything
close to messages disappearing from inbox.  
I wanted to include this comment in the bug as I see this listed in the PRD. But
I guess Esther also need to comment if she has seen this bug again or has been
able to reproduce this on the latest builds.  
This actually is a worksforme.

Comment 32

[scottputterman]

Ok.  I haven't seen this happen.  I haven't heard of this happening recently. 
So, I'm going to mark this WFM.  

Comment 33

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

me neither, verified... the old addage applies, "if you see this happening
again, re-open".