936875 - news.mozilla.org: Crosspost fails with error message "Unable to save your message as draft, verify that your Mail & Newsgroups account settings are correct"

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: General, defect)

Description

[Raymond]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:20.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/20.0 SeaMonkey/2.17 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20130331213155

Steps to reproduce:

subscribe to mozilla.support.seamonkey - dont subscribe to mozilla.general.
Crosspost to both.


Actual results:

An error message appeared when you try to save the post or when you try to send the post. The error messages are, respectivley:
1. Unable to save your message as draft.
Please verify that your Mail & Newsgroups account settings are correct and try again. 
2. Sending of message failed.
Please verify that your Mail & Newsgroups account settings are correct and try again.



Expected results:

The save action should work. The Send action should work, and the post must be present in both group.

Comment 1

[Raymond]

Trane Francks wrote, On 10/11/2013 00:28:
Then it is a definite bug in SeaMonkey. I categorically was unable to post to both mozilla.support.seamonkey and mozilla.general without being subscribed to both. SeaMonkey returned an error that it could not autosave the document while I was writing, even though the save is done in local folders. Subscribing to mozilla.general cleared the problem and enabled the post to proceed as usual.

Comment 2

[Stéphane Grégoire (yamo)]

Hi, 

Thanks Raymond for bug reporting.

Here the scenario of what I've seen :


1)
On pasdenom.info subcribed on fr.test and uk.test.
On news.free.fr subcribed on fr.test and uk.test.
crosspost on pasdenom.info to fr.test, uk.test OK!
crosspost on news.free.fr to fr.test, uk.test OK!

2) After test 1
I've unsubscribed on fr.test on news.free.fr
cannot crosspost on pasdenom.info to fr.test, uk.test

3) After test 1 and 2
I've subscribed on fr.test on news.free.fr
Crosspost on pasdenom.info to fr.test, uk.test OK!

4) After the other points
I've unsubscribed on fr.test on pasdenom.info
crosspost on news.free.fr to fr.test, uk.test OK!

In mailNews windows news.free.fr is after pasdenom.info.

Comment 3

[Stéphane Grégoire (yamo)]

I don't think it is platform dependant. I've also have it on Linux amd64.

Comment 4

[Ant]

I also ran into this bug a few days ago in mine in a very old, updated WIndows XP Pro. SP3 as well. :(

Comment 5

[David E. Ross]

This bug is apparently localized to SeaMonkey.  I tested for this (as follows) in Thunderbird 24.1.0 and did not see a problem.  

On the Usenet news server reader.albasani.net (where I already had an
account), I subscribed to newsgroup alt.test.a but not to alt.test.d.  I
cross-posted a test message to both.  My test message appeared in
alt.test.a.

After cross-posting the test message, I subscribed to alt.test.a but not
to alt.test.d on the Usenet news server news.eternal-september.org
(where I already had an account).  My test message appeared there, too.

I then subscribed to alt.test.d on both servers.  My test message
appeared in alt.test.d on both servers.

Thus:

1.  You do not have to subscribe to a Usenet newsgroup to cross-post to
it.

2.  Cross-posted messages will propagate -- if the servers permit --
from the Usenet server where you posted to other Usenet servers.

No, I did not test for cross-posting to newsgroups where I was not
subscribed to any of them.  Among many Usenet users, that would be
considered abuse of Usenet.

Comment 6

[David E. Ross]

While cross-posting is often disparaged, there are indeed valid uses for this capability.  

While maintaining Usenet, the Big8-Usenet Management Board cross-posts to related newsgroups notices about requests to create a new newsgroup, delete an existing newsgroup, investigate "missing in action" moderators of moderated newsgroups, etc.  Followup-to is set to news.groups.proposals.  

Within new.mozilla.org, cross-posting is used to announce planned shutdowns of servers for maintenance.

Comment 7

[Rainer Bielefeld]

@reporter, @all:
Still a problem?

Comment 8

[Stéphane Grégoire (yamo)]

Yes.
I still have this bug on latest Seamonkey : 2.33.1

Comment 9

[Rainer Bielefeld]

OS = all due to comment 3
I'm sorry, comment 2 is too worrying to me with all that subscribe - unsubscribe. I there a summary?

Comment 10

[Stéphane Grégoire (yamo)]

Crosspost should work if there is _one_ valid newsgroup on posting. 
And controls on news server should be removed, the news server can control valid posting themselves.

Comment 11

[Rainer Bielefeld]

first some test concerning different ways of crossposting, all NG on same free NG account / Server "news.aioe.org"

0. My Preparation SeaMonkey 2.33.1: Added account news.aioe.org → Port 119 → subscribed
  groups de.alt.test and braunschweig.test → downloaded news
1. first Test 'Click NG  de.alt.test → Click “Compose”
   » Editor opens
2. Add braunschweig.test as recipient
3. Type some unique short Subject and body
4. Send
  » Fails with messages “NNTP-Error” and “Sending of message failed”
5. Redo from Step 1, but both recipients comma separated in 1 line
  » Same as in Step 4
6. Redo from Step 1, but second recipient as “Followup to”
  » send is successful, 2 reflector messages from [e-mail]
    de.alt.test), [e-mail] (de.alt.test). Message die not reach
     followup:braunschweig.test; in futher tests I got more reflector 
     mails, always  only for  de.alt.test)
7. Same as 6. but newsgroup: braunschweig.test  and  followp-to:de.alt.test
 » send is successful, but reaches only  newsgroup: braunschweig.test,
   NOT followp-to:de.alt.test

10. My Preparation SeaMonkey 2.33.1 for test of problem described here:
   insubscribed  account “ braunschweig.test”
11. as per step 1 and following
    » of course also fails with error message
      Detail:  braunschweig.test no longer as autofill in “Newsgroup:” 
      input line
15. as per step 5 not tested
16. As per step 6
    » Same result as step 6
17. not tested with only b.t, d.a.t unsubscribed
18. Additional Test with “Newstroup:braunschweig.test”
   'Create'from  de.alt.test
    » Works fine and posting reaches NG although is unsubscribed



Resutls with TB 42.0a1 (2015-07-29):
0 … : Same as in SM
5. Same as in SM
6. Same as in SM
7. Same as in SM

So my conclusion for all recipient-NG subscribed a :
a) Send to 2x “Newsgroup:” always fails with same error message
b) Send to a “Followup-to:” will be done, but posting only reaches “Newsgroup:”,
   NOT “Followup-to:”
c) No differences between SM 2.33.1 an TB Daily 2.0a1 (2015-07-29)
d) I read RFC rfc5537 <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5537#section-3.4.3>
   Still have to think of relevance for this one here.
e) I reduce this one here to the “Error message” problem, can not save as draft,
   for any other problem we will have to open separate bugs, may be with
   “See Also” referenced to this one here
f) I already see problem step 6 (does not reach subscribed followup-to-NG 
   with 2.26.1
g) Step 6 same with Safe mode, posting will not reach “followup-to”

Comment 12

[Rainer Bielefeld]

Now I learned that the problem is related to NG server.

I tried with EN-US SeaMonkey 2.26  (Portable) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/29.0 Build 20140428215944 ( Classic Theme) on German WIN7 64bit at news.mozilla.org with mozilla.support.seamonkey, mozilla.general
All steps due to comment 1

20. both subscribed
21. test due steps 1 … 4 works fine
25. due to step 5 not tested (useless) 
26. due to step 6
    » as expected sending works
    » but no posting reaches followup.to:mozilla.general
29. I sent test mails to 
    newsgroup: mozilla.support.seamonkey  (subscribed)
    mozilla.general  (NOT subscribed)
    » Both worked fine, reached NG as expected, see my postings 
      “Test: [Bug 936875] Crosspost fails ...” and following

Behavior is different to results in Comment 11, but problem still not reproducible!

I close this on as WORKSFORME because we have too many, too imprecise information here to several "crosspost" problems, nobody can know whether related to reporter's problem or not. Also newsgroups server settings  might have changed or whatever else.

For any remaining problems (Comment 2?) please 
h) Open new bug report with very precise description
i) only for  SeaMonkey 2.35(γ)  Build 20150722220804 or later
   because of Bug 1151448 
j) add me to CC

Comment 13

[Raymond]

"h) Open new bug report with very precise description"

Sorry, but my description was precise at the reporting phase and on comment #1

I agrees with difficulties that you "close" this problem, But the status "RESOLVED" is inappropriate.

Comment 14

[Rainer Bielefeld]

(In reply to Raymond from comment #13)
> Sorry, but my description was precise

You misunderstand current state. Yes, your description was precise concerning a problem including a problem "unable to save your message as draft". This problem never has been reproduced by other users, so that the suspect is that there might be a particular problem with you installation (as 1 of several possible roots)
An no, your description was not precise enough, for example you only told "Crosspost", but not how: 2 Address lines? Comma separated recipients? Something else? Account settings? Antivirus running? What is with in Safe mode? And  most important: Still with 2.33.1 or later? 

My recommendation concerning a new Bug report was concerning Comment 2, what has some components what shows a news server related crossposting problem, what might be related to your problem or not, and where the "save as draft" problem (do you still see that?) is not mentioned. 
But I also recommend to open a new report for your problem if it is still reproducible. Reason is that developers dislike reports with too many confusion and dead ends, there are enough reports with crystal clear interactions. Please try to delimit your problem form any other one with similar symptoms, make that problem reproducible reliably and then submit a new bug report.

Comment 15

[Rainer Bielefeld]

symptoms are specific to News server

Comment 16

[David E. Ross]

I subscribe to mozilla.test but not to mozilla.test.multimedia.  

I composed a test message cross-posted to both and then saved it as a draft.  There was no error.  

I then selected the draft, requested Edit as New, and sent it.  It appeared in mozilla.test.  I subscribed to mozilla.test.multimedia and saw it there, too.  

I concur with WorksForMe.