877041 - creating news server account does not lead user to full server settings

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, defect)

Description

[Robert Miles]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:21.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/21.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20130511120803

Steps to reproduce:

Another problem with Thunderbird 22.0 beta:

I tried subscribing to another news server (unlimited.teranews.com).  I then tried unsubscribing from it after I was unable to get the list of newsgroups.



Actual results:

 I was unable to enter all of the information needed to connect to that server, such as the port number, the username, and the password.  When I then tried to delete that server, there seemed to be no way to do this.


Expected results:

Thunderbird should have told me to fill in the missing information, rather than just selecting the default port number and no username or password information at all.

Note - that server appears to be for testing new server software and therefore not always active.  Thunderbird should have given a clear error message about unable to connect to the server if that was the case.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Am I correct that you mean created an account, not subscribing?

Comment 2

[Robert Miles]

Yes, that's correct.  I did not get far enough to subscribe to any newsgroups, since that server requires logging in before it will send that list of available newsgroups, and Thunderbird never offered me any chance to enter my username and password.

Problem now seen again on another server, ssl.teranews.com, which is not a test server, under Earlybird 23.0a2 (2013-06-21).  This server connected from my other desktop computer.

Both servers were set up to use SSL.  I have not seen a similar problem on the news servers I use without SSL.

I finally found the way to delete a news server from the server list, so the server deleting part of the problem is just poor documentation.  So is changing the port number.

Comment 3

[Robert Miles]

I found the way to remove a news server account.

Click on the account name, then View settings for this account.

In the resulting window, check that the account to be deleted
is still selected.   If it is, click on Account Actions at the lower
left corner or this window, then Remove Account.

Hard to find, though.

Comment 4

[:aceman]

The account settings window allow setting the port for the news server. But I see no field for user name. So that means it is intentionally hidden.
Do we even support logging into a news server?

Comment 5

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #4)
> The account settings window allow setting the port for the news server. But
> I see no field for user name. So that means it is intentionally hidden.
> Do we even support logging into a news server?

Yes. Since you need not login to a news server, logon (both username and password) is handled by the password manager.

Comment 6

[Robert Miles]

One of the news servers I use require logging in before they will send you anything, even just the list of newsgroups available.

Another one doesn't, but will only send a short list of newsgroup relevant to problems using that server if you don't log in before requesting the newsgroups list.  If you do log in before requesting the newsgroups list, it will send you the full list of newsgroups it has instead.