84139 - Replying to e-mail with attachments downloads attachments

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 101480

(MailNews Core :: Composition, defect)

Description

[Eric Vaandering (no email)]

It takes a long time to reply to a message with attachments. I presume this is
because all the attachments are being downloaded from the server (for no good
reason). What is placed in the quoted part of the message is just a notification
that the attachment was present.

This is a serious performance issue for me with 300KB attachments and I can't
imagine what it would be like for a dial-up user.

Comment 1

[Karen Huang]

Attachments -> Esther.

Comment 2

[wkfx2003-bugzilla]

Agree. 
I wanted to submit a "suggestion" that 
if the attachment is *.jpg/*.gif, when replying, it is automatcially
become inline image (because the mail viewer make them inline?)
but this bug make me realise that replying the message need not includes any
attachment usually.

BTW, 

Comment 3

[Keyser Sose]

WORKSFORME
Platform: PC
OS: Window 98
Mozilla Build: 2001072003

Marking as such.

Comment 4

[Eric Vaandering (no email)]

Reopening. The behavior has changed somewhat but the base problem is still there.

Let me be more clear about this problem.

1. Send yourself a mail message with a large attachment (1MB). Note "yourself"
should be using an IMAP server to retrieve mail (maybe POP too).
2. Select that mail
3. Reply to that mail. 
4. Notice that the compose window is blank for a long time while the message AND
attachment is downloaded.
5. Notice that the quoted message eventually pops up along with a note that
there had been an attachment.
6. Scratch head and wonder why attachment is being downloaded when its not being
sent along with the reply message.

When forwarding a mail something similar happens, but of course now the
attachment is in the attachment pane, so I don't feel like I've wasted time.

Now I don't use windows, so perhaps it works right there, but I doubt it. In any
case it is not working correctly with 20010720 on linux.
 

Comment 5

[Keyser Sose]

Marking NEW based on reporters comments.

Comment 6

[Erik Bruchez]

Same behavior on Windows, and it's been the case for a long time. In addition,
the app crashes after a short while if you close the window while it is
downloading the attachments.

Comment 7

[Chris Dolan]

Verified on Mac trunk 20010830, except that the app does NOT crash upon window
close -- this case seems to be handled smoothly.  The platform should be changed
to All.  I also strongly suggest that the Windows crash be added as a separate
bug ("major" or "critical")

The biggest problem with this bug is that because there is NO feedback that the
big attachment is downloading, it looks buggy (Compose window comes up blank but
seeingly ready).  It is very cool, however, that you are allowed to start typing
the reply and the replied text pops in later at the bottom (my prefs are to
start message above inline reply text).  I think something as simple as a status
message or an animated throbber would go a long ways to removing the mystery
from this feature.  Even better (but certainly harder) would be to fill in the
reply text and mail header fields incrementally as the message downloads.

Given that the mail client likely does NOT know which attachments are important
for the reply until they are downloaded, it may be unrealistic to ask the client
to not download the attachment, as one poster suggested.
To sum up for the Mac platform --

Actual results: compose message comes up empty but responsive with no indication
that the message is still downloading

Expected results: I suggest one of the following
1) status bar message saying "Downloading message for reply"
2) #1 plus status bar progress meter showing download status
3) #1 or #2 and throbber in action indicating download in progress
4) #1, #2, or #3 and header fields/reply text filled in compose window as it
arrives 

Comment 8

[scalkins]

Win2k, 2001-09-27-05 0.9.5 Branch 
This is the behavior I see in todays branch builds when trying to 'forward' or
'reply' to a message with a 2.5mb bmp attachment:

*eply or Reply To-
The Mail compose window appears immediately, but the To/CC fields and text body
are empty for  20 seconds. This led me to believe initially that reply or reply
to did not work at all.

*Forward -
The Mail compose window did not appear for 17 seconds. There was no hourglass or
any other indicator to show me it was processing opening the message, leading me
to believe Forward did not work at all.

Comment 9

[scottputterman]

Is this a dup of 101480?

Comment 10

[Eric Vaandering (no email)]

It appears to be. I'll try my testcase with a nightly or 0.9.6 and then mark
this bug appropriately.

Comment 11

[Cavin Song]

I think it's a dup of 101480.

Comment 12

[Denis Antrushin]

This is for sure dup of 101480, because you can fetch message parts only with IMAP,
not POP and it's  WORKFORME on Nov 2 build (next day after fix for 101480  has been
landed)

Comment 13

[Eric Vaandering (no email)]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 101480 ***

Comment 14

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

verified dup