787573 - Junk folder in Junk settings appears random when multiple accounts active

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 536768

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, defect)

Description

[Dan Pernokis]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:15.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/15.0
Build ID: 20120824154833

Steps to reproduce:

I have many email accounts and I was visually looking at some to clone one onto another machine.  As I looked at Junk Settings, I noticed the junk folder was not correct on a recent new account (should have been "Local Folders" but was specific for the new account).  I tried to change and it wouldn't let me.


Actual results:

I looked at another (old) account to see how it was set -- and it had the same junk folder -- for the NEW account.  Looked at several others, some had Local Folders, some had their own account-specific folders, and often some had a previously viewed account!  And then, depending where I went, they changed before my eyes -- one time it was one account, another time it was another account just viewed.  (Today, following a full power-off & reboot, I went in and looked -- still exists.)


Expected results:

(1)  For any given account, Junk Folder should either be ON or OFF.  If ON, it should allow one of Local Folders, its own folder, or a specified folder.  Then it should keep that selection.  If OFF, it should grey out the setting but keep what's there )for reference and possible reinstatement).
(2)  Looking at another Junk Setting should display THAT account's setting and not something previous or random.  (It seems sometimes it is previous, sometimes it's anything, and sometimes it's correct.)

Comment 1

[:aceman]

Can you attach a screenshot of when the settings look wrong?

Comment 2

[Dan Pernokis]

Attachment: Junk Settings for New Account (Pic 1 of 4)

Pic 1 of 4:  New account (FLEX) with account-specific junk folder (greyed).
This was the setting I tried to change when I noticed the problem.  Sometimes it let me, often it wouldn't.  I think it never did, and just showed something random (which happened to be the "Local Folders" I was trying to set it to).

But look closely...  I'm actually pointing at FW INBOUND and it's showing info for FLEX.  (Yesterday it said FW INBOUND as one might expect, although "Local Folders" is what would be correct.)  The FLEX account has existed for only two months or so -- long before all others were created.

Comment 3

[Dan Pernokis]

Attachment: Junk Settings for Sample Account - Correct (Pic 2 of 4)

Pic 2 of 4:  This (DANGINA) is how I wanted to make the Junk Settings -- and it's how I thought they were set everywhere.  Perhaps not, but there it is.  Now compare to PIC 3 (next).

Comment 4

[Dan Pernokis]

Attachment: Junk Settings for Sample Account - Goes Wrong! (Pic 3 of 4)

Pic 3 of 4:  The very same DANGINA Junk Settings after clicking on a few accounts above and below, looking for juicy evidence of the bug.  This account was set to "Local Folders, but notice it is now the set to my DPERNOKI account!  Nothing was other than to look at various other folders.  It seems sometimes when you look, there is a consistency -- certain accounts have one thing (right or wrong), certain accounts have another.  But suddenly it just changes, as shown here. (Compare to PIC 2.)

Comment 5

[Dan Pernokis]

Attachment: Random Junk Settings on an Account (Pic 4 of 4)

Pic 4 of 4:  CANDLENUT also shows the junk folder for my DPERNOKI account, which right now shows up in maybe a third of the accounts.  (In any case, DPERNOKI account is wrong today too -- it should be "Local Folders".)

Yesterday, this CANDLENUT folder was account-specific ("Candlenut Books"), and the folder was plastered over many of the other accounts, but can't be seen anywhere today -- I was particularly looking to show you when Pics 2 & 3 happened instead.

Comment 6

[Dan Pernokis]

Further to my attachments / Comments 2,3,4,5:
Just a word about other settings...

ALL entities within ALL accounts all use one same "Global Inbox" for incoming mail.
Some accounts are set up as inbound only.

Most accounts have a null entity ("!") that forces the writer to choose the entity for sending -- so I don't accidentally use someone else's name in an email reply, for example.

For outgoing mail, accounts use either the same default SMTP server (one uses IMAP at Gmail), or they use a null server if they are an inbound account that should not be used to send email.

Except for name & related info, accounts are as close to identical as possible.  This is why the junk settings surprise me -- they would have been set up the same everywhere and now they're floating.

(Sorry I cannot say if this bug is new & specific to TB 15 or whether it has been around for awhile -- I don't look at junk settings very often...)

Comment 7

[Dan Pernokis]

Lots More Oddities:

All accounts have the Junk Setting "Enable adaptive..." checked (by default at creation).  But the "Do not mark" window below might be blank (probably is in some cases), or it might display two choices (collected and personal address books, usually with just the personal address book checked).  But, once you hit an account with the choices (ie- window NOT blank), then the choices ALWAYS display and never go away -- even if you go to any account that was previously blank!

Procedure:  First, go into Tools/Account Settings each time to view any one account, note the junk settings, and exit.  Then, if you go directly to any account with a blank window, it seems that you can go to any other blank account and NEVER see the choices.  But once you do find choices -- even first time in -- then you will ALWAYS see them and never see blank.  It does not appear to work differently if you quit & reload TB each time either.

Meanwhile the junk folder jumps around at random (or not) as per previous notes.

Also, whether the junk folder area is greyed depends on a whim too, even though ALL accounts have the "Move new junk" unchecked.  It's always grey if it says "Local Folders".  If you then go to an account with an acct-specific folder, it is usually grey.  If you go to any other setting (say, Disk Space) and come back to junk settings, the junk folder area is always full intensity and never goes grey again unless you go to an acct that has Local Folders and come back.  (Go to Disk Space and back, and it's back to full intensity again.)

Comment 8

[:aceman]

If you use Global Inbox for all accounts, then disabled it temporarily (in each account set to store messages in its own Inbox), then set the Junk settings for each account as you wish, then enable Global inbox again. Does that work?

Comment 9

[Dan Pernokis]

For all tests, I attempted to change the top line (primary) choice to "Local Folder" and bottom line (other) to "Junk Folder on Local Folder".

I first tried with the FLEX account.  I first selected "Use Inbox for DIFFERENT Account" and this did not work.  Then I selected "Use Inbox for THIS Account".  It did not work until I checked the MOVE JUNK box in Junk Folders area.  That is, unchecked it accepted the choice when I clicked OK but it didn't stick.  If I checked the box, then it accepted and kept the setting ("Local Folders").  The ADAPTIVE window contained the two choices.  These settings remained for all subsequent views for reference.

For two other accounts, I selected "Use Inbox for THIS Account" and proceeded as above.  In all cases, no matter what was set, clicking OK would do nothing.  So nothing was ever accepted.  BTW, FLEX was often one of the dropdown choices for these other accounts even though the only choices should have been the account's specific folder and Local Folders.

Also note:  Whenever I use ADVANCED (on Server Settings) to choose global or specific inbox, when I exit Advanced, the account selection window flips to the top and the account is no longer highlighted, even though its Server Settings info remains on screen.

But guess what?  I just went in NOW to confirm something and FLEX (which seemed to have worked) HAD CHANGED BACK to use the FLEX folder!  (And its ADAPTIVE window was back to BLANK.)  I know for a fact it had been accepted, because I was always going back to it to look, sometimes after closing/relaunching TB.  (The only unforeseen/undocumented step I can imagine is that perhaps a timed Getmail occurred in the meantime.)

And, just on a whim...  I checked the file attributes for all known TB areas in my ..\appdata\ local and roaming folders -- nothing was read-only.  (I am the only user, and there is nothing in Public or Default user sections, but there are also two restricted sections here I cannot access.)

I'm hesitant to take this testing too much further -- such as setting every account to use its own inbox -- because these are live production systems and I can't risk perhaps messing up unrelated settings on important working accounts.

Comment 10

[:aceman]

If you did not disable Global inbox in all account then you must not go into the settings of the accounts where you did not disable it. You must not click around all the accounts as you will trigger the bug.

Do this:
1. In one account, disable global inbox (set "Use Inbox for THIS Account"),
2. Then go into Junk settings and set what you need. Click OK to close Account settings.
3. Now go to Account settings again, to the account that you just changed, check Junk settings. Are they OK? If yes, go into Advanced and set Global inbox again. Does this work?

Comment 11

[Dan Pernokis]

I can only say YES and NO.  It worked on the FLEX account, the first one I tried.  It did not work on the next two, when I followed the exact same procedures.  And then the FLEX account -- later on when I went in to look -- had reverted back.

So did it work, or just look like it did?  Or did it work and then get undone by other attempts?  (I was in & out of the account manager, and in & out of TB too, and all looked fine.)

The FLEX account was definitely OK when I first changed it, and stayed OK when I came back to look several times.  Then later, as I was writing, I wanted to verify something, launched TB and went in straight to FLEX, and saw that it had changed back.

Comment 12

[:aceman]

Yeah, the account manager does lie to you in this case, so some things only appear being good or bad. When you click the Junk settings it exits prematurelly before initializing the fields in the display pane so you do not see the real values.

There was bug 536768 fixed recently which I think solves the problem you are seeing. Could you temporarily try a nightly version of Thunderbird to see if the problems are the same and fixed?
You can do this:
1. exit TB.
2. download a ZIP version of TB17 http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-aurora/thunderbird-17.0a2.en-US.win32.zip
3. extract it into some folder (can be in your Documents folder). In this way you do not need to install it and replace your current installation of TB15.
4. run TB17 from the extracted folder.
5. set Junk settings for each account as you need.
6. exit TB and run TB15 as you normally do. Check if Junk settings are set as you wanted.

Comment 13

[Dan Pernokis]

I downloaded and ran TB17 as offered.  It showed that ALL of the accounts were already correct:  Primary was "Junk" folder on Local Folders, Other was "Junk on Local Folders", MOVE was unchecked, and the entire block was greyed.  The ADAPTIVE window had two choices, with Personal checked.

I did NOTHING to make any changes -- everything was OK.  So TB15 lies big-time!

I took a peek at Bug 536768 -- from the title, no wonder I didn't see my bug as a duplicate. :)  As long as TB17 was actually looking at my settings and not just lying again and showing a default template, then yes I'd say the information display part was fixed.  Since I didn't actually make any changes, I can't say the OK button captures anything, but I presume from the TB17 comments that it works.

Thanks for your help!

Comment 14

[:aceman]

TB17 does special operations to fix your Junk settings. If you clicked OK there, then the fixed setting got saved. Now when you open TB15 you should find your settings correctly and you can also change them freely, it should now work in the future.
TB15 only does not correctly handle the event of setting the account to store Inbox into another account (Global inbox). But once the Junk settings are fixed after that, they should be editable normally.

So you can now continue using TB15.

Comment 15

[Dan Pernokis]

TB15 was still showing some items incorrectly, and once you looked at a bad one, you couldn't rely on the next.  (Recall that I had not made any explicit changes yet with TB17.)

So I ran TB17 again just now and specifically checked a few MOVE boxes (which un-greyed the area) and clicked OK.  Then I went back in to these (still checked & not greyed), unchecked them again (which re-greyed the area), and clicked OK.

Back to TB15 -- only the accounts I just processed were correct, and several others were still weird.  Ran TB17 again, checked+OK and unchecked+OK for the remaining accounts, so that all had been processed by TB17.  FYI, I processed 2 or 3 or 4 adjacent accounts at a time per OK, first checking and then unchecking the MOVE.

Now TB15 shows all correct -- that is, ALL have the same "Local Folders" setting, MOVE unchecked, and ADAPTIVE window with two choices (and only "Personal" checked).
I then processed one account in TB15, checking a MOVE box + OK, leaving and coming back (was still checked), unchecked it + OK, left and came back.  All was still fine.

Thanks, Ace.

Comment 16

[:aceman]

Yes, I should have been more precise, you need to visit all accounts' junk settings in TB17 and OK those. You have done that now. Thanks for the test and confirmation.
So you now know the bug is fixed in TB17 with bug 536768.
But there is still a part of this problem in bug 734034 that I need to fix further. You may wish to CC yourself there.