921883 - My signature disappeared when I updated to TBird 24

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 917906

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[jtuggle]

Attachment: TB-signature-bug.jpg

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0; InfoPath.2; .NET4.0C)

Steps to reproduce:

I reinstalled the address to my signature and it appears in the url address, but no signature appears when I send an email and all of my signatures are gone from old emails. 


Actual results:

Signature does not appear even though the address is in settings page. 


Expected results:

Signature should still appear with TBird 24.

Comment 1

[rsx11m]

Does the signature not appear or is it just not visible?

When you select all with Ctrl+A from the keyboard (either within a composition window or when the focus is in an affected message that you view) to select all content, is the signature visible then? Using Ctrl+A followed by Ctrl+C to copy the highlighted content onto the clipboard, then paste it into Wordpad or another simple text program, does the signature appear there?

Comment 2

[jtuggle]

(In reply to rsx11m from comment #1)
> Does the signature not appear or is it just not visible?
> 
> When you select all with Ctrl+A from the keyboard (either within a
> composition window or when the focus is in an affected message that you
> view) to select all content, is the signature visible then? Using Ctrl+A
> followed by Ctrl+C to copy the highlighted content onto the clipboard, then
> paste it into Wordpad or another simple text program, does the signature
> appear there?

That is so strange! Yes, it appears in the text program! What's going on?

- Julie

Comment 3

[rsx11m]

Ok, so apparently there are issues with handling opacity with your setup (the signature style has changed from pre-defined "gray" colors to true transparency to achieve that effect). It appears from your screenshot that you are using the Windows 7 default desktop theme, thus maybe your graphics card or other settings don't support how opacity is implemented.

Can you post a screenshot of a displayed message with a signature, where the signature *should* be, assuming there is a big white space there? Just to get some idea if it's all background color or rather an almost white text on white background.

Please use PNG or BMP for posting that image as JPEG uses lossy compression and may not retain the small differences we are looking for.

Comment 4

[rsx11m]

> and all of my signatures are gone from old emails. 

Does this mean that only your own signature is affected but anybody else's shows up fine? If yes, there may be something in your signature file contributing to the issue.

Comment 5

[jtuggle]

I really don't think it's my own signature that is the problem. I didn't have this problem before I updated to TBird v.24. And I don't want to revert to an earlier version now because of stability issues with trying to revert to an earlier version. 

It is true that everyone elses sig shows up fine. And I think that the recipients of my email can see my signature fine. That's because when the recipient responds to an email that I sent to them, I can see my signature again. I printed out a sample of an email from me to a recipient (where my signature is invisible to me), and the recipient's reply to me (where my signature is visible) at the end of their reply. 

I'd send you the emails in an attachment, but I don't see how I can attach them to this comment.

- Julie

(In reply to rsx11m from comment #4)
> > and all of my signatures are gone from old emails. 
> 
> Does this mean that only your own signature is affected but anybody else's
> shows up fine? If yes, there may be something in your signature file
> contributing to the issue.

Comment 6

[rsx11m]

(In reply to jtuggle from comment #5)
> I really don't think it's my own signature that is the problem. I didn't
> have this problem before I updated to TBird v.24. And I don't want to revert
> to an earlier version now because of stability issues with trying to revert
> to an earlier version.

Ok. I was thinking of some construct in your signature which didn't matter in earlier versions but which now doesn't go well with the 24.0 redesign of the styles, thus rendering the signature invisible.

> I'd send you the emails in an attachment, but I don't see how I can attach
> them to this comment.

You can use the "Add an attachment" link in the "Attachments" section at the top of this report (there is already a screenshot showing your settings). That form will allow you to upload a file as well as a comment on it.

Comment 7

[jtuggle]

Attachment: email attachments with signature

Comment 8

[jtuggle]

Also, here is the signature file that is referenced in the TBird settings: C:\Users\Julie\Pictures\Thunderbird\Signature-4-11-2.html

Comment 9

[rsx11m]

Julie, thanks for the scanned printout. The clue is on the second page, it shows close to the center the two dashes starting the signature, but with a substantial offset. Thus, as for the printing issue, this is bug 920997. I was wondering what you see when either composing or looking at a message with your signature, if it's completely blank there as well (including the two dashes?).

Comment 10

[jtuggle]

When composing a message, the two dashes appear with a space above them (for my message), and a space below (where normally my signature would appear. I don't understand how to fix it from your threads on bug 920997, though.

(In reply to rsx11m from comment #9)
> Julie, thanks for the scanned printout. The clue is on the second page, it
> shows close to the center the two dashes starting the signature, but with a
> substantial offset. Thus, as for the printing issue, this is bug 920997. I
> was wondering what you see when either composing or looking at a message
> with your signature, if it's completely blank there as well (including the
> two dashes?).

Comment 11

[jtuggle]

Also, in my email templates and in my draft messages which were composed before I updated to v.24, my signature no longer appears below the two dashes. 

- Julie

(In reply to jtuggle from comment #10)
> When composing a message, the two dashes appear with a space above them (for
> my message), and a space below (where normally my signature would appear. I
> don't understand how to fix it from your threads on bug 920997, though.
> 
> (In reply to rsx11m from comment #9)
> > Julie, thanks for the scanned printout. The clue is on the second page, it
> > shows close to the center the two dashes starting the signature, but with a
> > substantial offset. Thus, as for the printing issue, this is bug 920997. I
> > was wondering what you see when either composing or looking at a message
> > with your signature, if it's completely blank there as well (including the
> > two dashes?).

Comment 12

[rsx11m]

(In reply to jtuggle from comment #11)
> Also, in my email templates and in my draft messages which were composed
> before I updated to v.24, my signature no longer appears below the two
> dashes. 

Ok, given that the two dashes appear (which are themselves subject to the transparency effect) it seems to be something in the signature itself (some conflicting style) which at least contributes to the issue.

Can you do the following:
 - click "Write" to compose a new message
 - don't change anything in the message
 - select File > Save As > File from the menu
 - save as an HTML file
 - attach the HTML file to this bug report

This should produce an empty message with just your signature in the HTML encoding that's used to send the message.

Alternatively, you can also just send me an e-mail message to the address shown here when hovering over my name, then I can inspect it in this way.

(In reply to jtuggle from comment #10)
> When composing a message, the two dashes appear with a space above them (for
> my message), and a space below (where normally my signature would appear. I
> don't understand how to fix it from your threads on bug 920997, though.

Sorry for any confusion, that bug covers printing of a message only, not the display or composition cases. I've pointed to it as you attached the PDF of a printout.

Comment 13

[rsx11m]

Thanks, I've got it.

Comment 14

[rsx11m]

Julie, there is indeed a construct that now causes trouble in 24.0 whereas it didn't in 17.0.x, which is the nesting of <div> with class="moz-signature" attributes:

>           <div class="moz-signature">
>             <div class="moz-signature">
>               <div class="moz-signature">
>                 <div class="moz-signature">
>                   <div class="moz-signature">
>                     <div class="moz-signature"> <br>
> [some content]
>                     </div>
>                   </div>
>                 </div>
>               </div>
>             </div>
>           </div>


This is the case which I figured may be a problem in bug 917906 comment #4, each of those divs adds transparency, thus in your case you're ending up with 3% of the original black left (or 97% white) which is hardly visible.

To fix this, edit your signature file with a simple text editor like Wordpad (make a backup copy of that file first, in case you want to start over).

Now, change all occurrences of

  <div class="moz-signature">

to just

  <div>

in that file and save it. From now on, your signature should be visible again with a slight dim. There may be a solution to catch the nested-div case as well (in bug 917906 for a future release) which would also solve it for you existing messages.

In general, it's only about how Thunderbird displays the signature, it isn't sent out in this way.

Hope this helps.

Comment 15

[rsx11m]

Received per e-mail:
> I did what you suggested, but it's more than slightly dim - it's about 
> 50% dim - see attachment. I didn't see very many other comments about 
> this - I wish I hadn't updated - I've seen when trying to revert to an 
> earlier version can cause problems too. Can you come up with a patch to 
> fix the construct?
> 
> - Julie

The dimming is intended to de-emphasize the signature in the message (see bug 855135 comment #1) but appears to be overdone for non-text signatures as yours. My proposed patch in bug 917906 would cut that in half as a compromise and take care of the nested-<div> issue you ran into, but there is no decision yet on that one.

For the time being, you can add the following to the HTML code of your signature file, close to the top:

<style><!--
.moz-txt-sig, .moz-signature {
  opacity: inherit !important;
}
--></style>

This will tell all receiving Thunderbird's to not apply any transparency to your signature, regardless of the theme's styling. For incoming messages, you'd have to create a userContent.css override with those rules (once you've verified that adding the above rules work for your signature):

1. Select Help > Troubleshooting Information from the menu
2. In the Application Basics section, click Profile Folder: Show Folder
3. See if a folder named "chrome" (without the quotes) exists there
   - if not, create it
4. Enter the chrome folder and create a text file "userContent.css" there
5. Use Notepad to edit it, adding the style code (without the <style> lines):

.moz-txt-sig, .moz-signature {
  opacity: inherit !important;
}

6. Save it, double-check that the file is named "userContent.css" and didn't
   get renamed to "userContent.css.txt" (if yes, remove the ".txt" at the end)

7. Restart Thunderbird and see if your custom style takes effect.

That should do it. Sorry that there is no easier way to switch off that styling.

[http://kb.mozillazine.org/Signature_display_color]

Comment 16

[jtuggle]

Ok - that last bit of code added to the signature file took care of the dimming issue on my end. The other code thingy seemed a little too complicated for me, so I'll just live with it! Thanks for your help!

- Julie

(In reply to rsx11m from comment #15)
> Received per e-mail:
> > I did what you suggested, but it's more than slightly dim - it's about 
> > 50% dim - see attachment. I didn't see very many other comments about 
> > this - I wish I hadn't updated - I've seen when trying to revert to an 
> > earlier version can cause problems too. Can you come up with a patch to 
> > fix the construct?
> > 
> > - Julie
> 
> The dimming is intended to de-emphasize the signature in the message (see
> bug 855135 comment #1) but appears to be overdone for non-text signatures as
> yours. My proposed patch in bug 917906 would cut that in half as a
> compromise and take care of the nested-<div> issue you ran into, but there
> is no decision yet on that one.
> 
> For the time being, you can add the following to the HTML code of your
> signature file, close to the top:
> 
> <style><!--
> .moz-txt-sig, .moz-signature {
>   opacity: inherit !important;
> }
> --></style>
> 
> This will tell all receiving Thunderbird's to not apply any transparency to
> your signature, regardless of the theme's styling. For incoming messages,
> you'd have to create a userContent.css override with those rules (once
> you've verified that adding the above rules work for your signature):
> 
> 1. Select Help > Troubleshooting Information from the menu
> 2. In the Application Basics section, click Profile Folder: Show Folder
> 3. See if a folder named "chrome" (without the quotes) exists there
>    - if not, create it
> 4. Enter the chrome folder and create a text file "userContent.css" there
> 5. Use Notepad to edit it, adding the style code (without the <style> lines):
> 
> .moz-txt-sig, .moz-signature {
>   opacity: inherit !important;
> }
> 
> 6. Save it, double-check that the file is named "userContent.css" and didn't
>    get renamed to "userContent.css.txt" (if yes, remove the ".txt" at the
> end)
> 
> 7. Restart Thunderbird and see if your custom style takes effect.
> 
> That should do it. Sorry that there is no easier way to switch off that
> styling.
> 
> [http://kb.mozillazine.org/Signature_display_color]

Comment 17

[rsx11m]

Julie, glad to hear that you got it working. I've also received another e-mail from you (in general please keep everything in the bug report so that everybody can benefit - I'm not providing support by e-mail).

Julie Tuggle wrote:
> Even though the signature appears correctly when I go to compose a new email,
> the signatures on the draft and template emails that I had created before the
> update to v.24 did not reappear as I expected. Will I need to recreate all those
> drafts and templates again for the signature to show up?

My guess is that the signature isn't rewritten when re-opening a draft or using a template. Thus, you can either redo the templates from scratch; or use Message > Edit As New, then highlight the signature block and select Insert > HTML from the menu. This should allow you to make the necessary changes and/or to copy the signature code from another message where you've opened the HTML code in the same way.

> Also, is there any way to move the signature below up a couple of lines so it
> starts just under the two dashes (instead of having a couple of lines of white
> space before the signature)?

Looking at your signature file, removing the redundant divs doesn't change anything in the spacing. There is however a <br> node in the last line of the nested <div> constructs,

>         <div>
>           <div>
>             <div>
>               <div>
>                 <div>
>                   <div> <br>
>                     <img alt=""

which will introduce a blank line before your first image. Thus, removing the <br> in that line should resolve the spacing issue.

Comment 18

[jtuggle]

Ok - thanks again!

- Julie

(In reply to rsx11m from comment #17)
> Julie, glad to hear that you got it working. I've also received another
> e-mail from you (in general please keep everything in the bug report so that
> everybody can benefit - I'm not providing support by e-mail).
> 
> Julie Tuggle wrote:
> > Even though the signature appears correctly when I go to compose a new email,
> > the signatures on the draft and template emails that I had created before the
> > update to v.24 did not reappear as I expected. Will I need to recreate all those
> > drafts and templates again for the signature to show up?
> 
> My guess is that the signature isn't rewritten when re-opening a draft or
> using a template. Thus, you can either redo the templates from scratch; or
> use Message > Edit As New, then highlight the signature block and select
> Insert > HTML from the menu. This should allow you to make the necessary
> changes and/or to copy the signature code from another message where you've
> opened the HTML code in the same way.
> 
> > Also, is there any way to move the signature below up a couple of lines so it
> > starts just under the two dashes (instead of having a couple of lines of white
> > space before the signature)?
> 
> Looking at your signature file, removing the redundant divs doesn't change
> anything in the spacing. There is however a <br> node in the last line of
> the nested <div> constructs,
> 
> >         <div>
> >           <div>
> >             <div>
> >               <div>
> >                 <div>
> >                   <div> <br>
> >                     <img alt=""
> 
> which will introduce a blank line before your first image. Thus, removing
> the <br> in that line should resolve the spacing issue.

Comment 19

[rsx11m]

You are welcome. Since it appears that the main issue here is resolved, I'm marking this as a duplicate of the main bug report handling the signature-style changes.

Comment 20

[rsx11m]

Hi Julie, I've got your message with the forwarded reply.

> The outgoing signature (from me) looked fine, but my signature back
> to me (see reply from the recipient below) is faded out again. I'm
> just not sure whether the problem has been fixed or not.

So, what happened here is that the <style><!--...--></style> block was removed when the recipient replied to your message, hence the default rules of Thunderbird's theme catch again and apply transparency to the signature. There is nothing you can do about others removing that style definition when forming a reply or forwarding your message; it's "their" message they compose and thus up to them how to quote the original message (or, more precisely, the e-mail program they are using). Graying the signature when displaying on your end would be prevented if you also applied the userContent.css override I've mentioned in comment #15.

Thus, everything looks fine to this extent, and I hope that one of my patches in bug 917906 will be approved soon to reduce or remove entirely the transparency applied to HTML signatures without the need of any overrides.

Comment 21

[jtuggle]

Oh, yeah - that worked. Thanks, rsx11m - 

- Julie

(In reply to rsx11m from comment #20)
> Hi Julie, I've got your message with the forwarded reply.
> 
> > The outgoing signature (from me) looked fine, but my signature back
> > to me (see reply from the recipient below) is faded out again. I'm
> > just not sure whether the problem has been fixed or not.
> 
> So, what happened here is that the <style><!--...--></style> block was
> removed when the recipient replied to your message, hence the default rules
> of Thunderbird's theme catch again and apply transparency to the signature.
> There is nothing you can do about others removing that style definition when
> forming a reply or forwarding your message; it's "their" message they
> compose and thus up to them how to quote the original message (or, more
> precisely, the e-mail program they are using). Graying the signature when
> displaying on your end would be prevented if you also applied the
> userContent.css override I've mentioned in comment #15.
> 
> Thus, everything looks fine to this extent, and I hope that one of my
> patches in bug 917906 will be approved soon to reduce or remove entirely the
> transparency applied to HTML signatures without the need of any overrides.