[desktop-discuss] Thunderbird version 1.5.0.8 (20061204) - No More Filters :: Resolved

[David Lloyd]

Hi There,


I believe this is a usability bug at the least and a potential major 
issue in the "right" circumstances. This is what I discovered thanks to 
some hints from some people at IRC
:

1. I set:

NSPR_LOG_MODULES=all:5
NSPR_LOG_FILE=/tmp/thunderbird.log
...but changed that to:

NSPR_LOG_MODULES=all:2
NSPR_LOG_FILE=/tmp/thunderbird.log
(because Level 5 was too verbose)

2. I ran thunderbird with these environment variables

3. I saw that it was looking for the filters preferences file and "grep 
NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND thunderbird.log" returned a result indicating 
that Thunderbird couldn't store the filter file.

4. I then checked a known working configuration (my old config on 
another machine) to find out what the filter file should be called

5. I copied the known working file to my default profile

It didn't work.

6. I checked my thunderbird settings

In my account settings I had set as my Local Folder:

DIRECTORY_EXISTS

...but in my e-mail settings I had set as my Local Folder:

NON_EXISTING_DIRECTORY

7. Deducing what Thunderbird was doing was this:

Receive Message:

  - get filter rules from NON_EXISTING_DIRECTORY
  - fail
  - send messages to DIRECTORY_EXISTS
    (as I send all messages to a single, large Local Folder directory)

Save/Configure Filter:

  - get config ruleset from GUI
  - save to NON_EXISTING_DIRECTORY
  - fail BUT keep in memory

On a restart of thunderbird, the rules didn't exists BUT if you didn't 
restart thunderbird the rules seem to be in cache. HOWEVER, running the 
rules seems to want the real on-disk rule file.


CONCLUSION:

Whilst this was caused by user error, I think this is totally unexpected 
behaviour. IMHO, Thunderbird should have thrown a warning (or error) 
saying something like:

"Cannot save filter because the operating system threw an obscure error"

Or better:

"Cannot save filter because OS says you cannot write to filter preferences"


I agree that users will always do unexpectedly interesting and sometimes 
stupid things, but the non-existence of a file or directory is so 
intrinsically easy to check for (regardless of what OS - they ALL need 
to check for files or the existence of external things if it's some 
obscure OS that doesn't use the concept of files)...


DSL