83740 - odd message, mail fetching never terminates

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 69360

(MailNews Core :: Networking: POP, defect)

Description

[esnible]

Click "Get Msg".  The Mozilla icon cycles, and perhaps some messages arrive, but
the downloading never terminates.  I believe a particular corrupt message is
wrecking the transport.

I'm using pop-server.nyc.rr.com as my pop-3 provider.  It uses Microsoft POP3
server version 5.5.1877.427.42.  I received a message sent by "Claris Emailer 1.1".

The message was a [text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"] message which ended with some
ASCII null characters.  I reproduce the bottom of the message below:
-------------------------------------------
you may add a leather MC jacket,  ripped jeans, alligator claw, or straw\n 
hat to your BLUE attire and sniff glue\n
\n\n\0\0\0\0\n.
+OK Mailbox now has 35 messages.\n
-------------------------------------------

I was able to manually telnet to the pop-3 port, RETR the problem message, DELE
it.  After the DELE I was able to use Mozilla Mail/News properly again.

I captured the full text of the message.  When I send it to myself it isn't
corrupted so the problem doesn't recur.

To test you'll need a way to load the message, corrupted, onto a POP3 server. 
If it would help I can submit the full invalid email.

Comment 1

[Navin Gupta]

Could you please post that corrupted message as an attachment to this bug 
report. We have some other user also complaining about the same problem. 
thanks !

Comment 2

[esnible]

Attachment: log of telnet session to pop3 mbox msg which blocks mail/news

Comment 3

[esnible]

I uploaded the log.  Log was generated by telnetting to POP3 server from Linux
shell and entering these commands:

USR esnible (typo)
USER esnible
PASS ********
RETR 1
DELE 1

Comment 4

[esnible]

The problem manifest again.  Monthly EFF.org newsletter this time, as sent by
majordomo.   Again, the message concluded with four zero bytes (ASCII nul).  I
kept the log if you are interested, but am convinced problem is the same as
previous uploaded log.

Comment 5

[Navin Gupta]

I tried to reproduce the problem but could not do so with the attachment. 
I tried to post it to our netscape servers and was able to download them
successfully. Please attach the log, but I am not sure if it would help. 
I am sure this null characters are causing problems. I will try to reproduce 
again. If somehow we could post an exact replica of such a message it would 
really help, edit as new doesn't help. 

Comment 6

[esnible]

Attachment: SMTP script which sends [e-mail] a message that Moz can't download

Comment 7

[esnible]

Navin, I sent a script which reproduces the bug.  (Edit it to send the message
to yourself.)  The way I've been sending this is telnetting into my ISP's SMTP
server, loading the attachment into emacs and pasting it from emacs to the
telnet window.

Cutting and pasting from Mozilla doesn't reproduce the bug.  Mozilla's plain
text viewer doesn't let ASCII nul be cut and pasted.

If you still can't reproduce this make sure that your POP-3 server is sourcing
the ASCII nuls.  I have no idea what the RFC says about \0 in mail.

Comment 8

[esnible]

I wanted to clarify what I meant when I said "downloading never terminates". 
After about five to ten minutes I get a "unknown error 804b0001" dialog. 
(perhaps see bug 69324).

A few months ago I chimed in on another "804b0001" report mentioning email
timeouts.  At that time I wasn't able to trace the problem to these specific
emails.  I can't find my old report (not that it matters.)

Comment 9

[esnible]

Also notice bug 32443, Bill McGonigle's comment about \0

Comment 10

[Navin Gupta]

I have executed your script but I am still able to download the messages. 
Could you send that message to [e-mail] and then let me know. 

Comment 11

[esnible]

OK, I sent the message.  Hope it causes you problems.

If it doesn't then you have a later Mozilla (I'm at 0.9) or your mail server is
doing something mine isn't.

Comment 12

[Navin Gupta]

I was able to download that message successfully. Could you donwload the 
latest nightly build and try on that although I am pretty sure that this 
is due to difference in server behavior. 

Comment 13

[esnible]

I can reproduce this with 20010604.

Comment 14

[Navin Gupta]

esther, do we have a microsoft pop3 server to test ?

Comment 15

[Navin Gupta]

esnible, could we get a test account on that server ?

Comment 16

[esnible]

Navin, this isn't my server, it is the mail server for my national ISP, Roadrunner.

I assume that you ran my SMTP script attachment against your servers and then
produced a log similar to my pop3 telnet attachment.  You discovered that your
email system is consuming the nulls that the Microsoft solution is passing
undigested, right?

If there is no way to reproduce this with the servers you have then I could
write a small Java program to imitate a pop3 server.  Would that be sufficient?
 I think it would be better if you could demonstrate this in a real environment,
but if you really can't find a server with this feature....

Comment 17

[Navin Gupta]

Both smtp script and the message you sent did not help in reproducing this.

>You discovered that your
>email system is consuming the nulls that the Microsoft solution is passing
undigested, right?

looks like my server does not send null

Don't bother about the java program. I will try to get hold of pop3 microsoft 
server.

Comment 18

[Navin Gupta]

I have got hold of micrsoft pop3 server (Microsoft Exchange POP3 server version 
5.5.1960.6 ready). Please send that message again to [e-mail]. 
sorry to bother you again. 

Comment 19

[esnible]

I sent the message last night.  Did it force MailNews to manifest this bug?

Comment 20

[esnible]

Has anyone reproduced this?  I just got two emails which manifest this bug.  It
would be a royal pain for someone who doesn't have another email program or
knowledge of pop-3 protocol to work around this one.

My ISP uses Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.357.35) for all outgoing mail.  Perhaps
that makes a difference?

Comment 21

[Navin Gupta]

Did you send the message with date header as 6/5/01 6:35pm. I was able to 
download that one. If you are sending the mail to me then the outgoing mail 
server should not matter. Is your pop3 server same as microsoft exchange version 
I listed above. 

Can you download those messages using NS 4x. I am trying to narrow down the 
problem to solve it.

Comment 22

[esnible]

Strange that you could read the message I sent.

Using Netscape 4.61 I can download the messages successfully.

All my testing has been under Linux.  I will try on Win2k on Monday and see if
it reproduces there.

I agree, the outgoing mail server should not matter.

Comment 23

[esnible]

I just reproduced this on my Win2k box using the 0.91 binaries.

Perhaps the OS box should change to "All?"

Comment 24

[Navin Gupta]

changing platform to all. moving to mozilla 0.9.2 

Comment 25

[Navin Gupta]

Again, I cannot do much until I am able to reproduce this. Is your pop3 server 
microsoft exchange server. Also can you attach a pop3_log. To obtain pop3
log see this page 
http://www.mozilla.org/quality/mailnews/mail-troubleshoot.html#imap

Comment 26

[esnible]

Attachment: nspr pop3 log. after 10 minutes moz 'unknown error' dialog appeared.

Comment 27

[esnible]

Very frustrating that you cannot reproduce this.
My ISP's POP3 server identifies itself as 'Microsoft POP3 Server Version:
5.5.1877.427.42 ready'.
You are testing with 'Microsoft Exchange POP3 server version 
5.5.1960.6 ready'.
I have no idea if these servers are similar or very different.

Comment 28

[Navin Gupta]

The pop3 log file shows that both the bugs are exactly the same because it 
hangs when protocol state is retr_response(19) and it receives nulls. It 
pauses for more data to come but nothing is left for that message

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 69360 ***

Comment 29

[Sheela Ravindran]

verified as dup