Open Bug 1691191 (attach-icon) Opened 4 years ago Updated 2 years ago

[Meta] Attachment icon in message list not shown until message is selected/displayed (but message has attachments) or falsely shown (but message does not have attachments)

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Folder and Message Lists
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: thomas8, Unassigned)

References

(Depends on 10 open bugs,
URL
)

Details

(Keywords: meta)

User Story

Bug 1200262 Comment 4 (Mark Sicignano):

(In reply to Kent James (:rkent) from Bug 1200262 comment #1)
> This is a well-known limitation, because we need to read the message and
> parse it before being able to truly say if attachments exist.


When you're scrolling through your email looking for that email that Hillary Clinton send you that has an attachment, and there is no attachment icon, you could miss it. Also, when using the Quick Filter, it let's you filter to messages with attachments, but the mails that haven't been opened and hence, not parsed, will NOT show up.

There are other features that depend on knowing if a mail attachment exists or not. Like mail filters. The "Has Attachment" filter will not do it's job on unparsed emails. I have tested this in 45.2.0, and the filter will not work. Then I will click on a handful of emails that I know have attachments and they show in the message pane, and the attachment paperclip icon now displays. I can re-run the filters and now the "Has Attachments" filter works as expected.

BTW, there are people mentioning IMAP above. I don't think it has anything to do with IMAP. I'm using POP to download my messages and I do not have "Download message headers only." So the whole message should be available when the filters are automatically run on my inbox.

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #477981 +++

This is a meta bug to link all bug reports related to "attachment icon in message falsely shown/not shown in message list" in spite of the actual "has-attachment" status of the message. Underlying message Mime structures might differ, so it's not easy to dupe these bugs correctly. But we should have a central access point.

E.g., if you receive a message with an attachment, "attach icon" is showed only after click on this message. Or, message shows attachment icon, but the message does not have attachments.

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Receive a message with an attachment
  2. Don't select/display it. Message does not have an attachment icon in the list.
  3. Select it. Now you can see the "attachment icon".

OR

  1. Receive a message without an attachment.
  2. Don't select/display it. Message has attachment icon.
  3. Select message - attachment icon disappears because message does not have attachments.
Depends on: 241203

Apparently bug 241203 (fixed) is one of the earliest instances of this problem and was trying its best to fix it...

Here's a tentative search for bugs which may belong to this meta bug: https://mzl.la/3aIGQZZ

URL: https://mzl.la/3aIGQZZ
Alias: attach-icon

Bug 953315 seems to be the oldest open unqualified case (without deeper analysis of mime structure). So I think we can dupe other general/unqualified bug reports about this issue there.

Bug 1200262 Comment 1 (Kent James):

This is a well-known limitation, because we need to read the message and
parse it before being able to truly say if attachments exist. Surely there
must be an early bug that describes this.

Bug 1200262 Comment 4 (Mark Sicignano; see user story) mentions that the undefined attachment status also affects message quick filter and incoming mail filters. If that's still true, that would be pretty bad and cunning, as it will be all but impossible for users to realize this type of error.

User Story: (updated)
User Story: (updated)

Thank you. Until this issue is fully resolved, there are at least three different "has attachment" states, so I suggest three different choices for the "has attachment" column in the list. That is:

Case 1: Message definitely has attachment. Display paperclip.
Case 2: Message definitely has NO attachment. Display NO icon.
Case 3: "Has attachment" status is unknown or unconfirmed. Display question mark.

Regarding filters: If the user has configured a filter that depends on "Has Attachment" status, I think the software should parse each incoming message during or before the process of applying filters. If there's a performance issue, you could give users an option to "parse messages upon receipt" or not -- with the understanding that certain filters require "parse messages upon receipt" to be enabled. That is:
-- If those filters are in use, don't let the user disable "parse messages upon receipt"
-- If the user disabled "parse messages upon receipt", don't let them set up those filters.

The AttachmentCount extension (also on ATN) fixes all these issues, including:

  • handling encrypted cases
  • ensuring Quick Filter works for unselected and even unscrolled into view (new) messages with attachments
  • ensuring Search Messages finds newly added messages with attachments, even in an unselected folder
  • ensuring Filter Attachment Status with After Classification selected (manual or on biff), in IMAP also, performs the action on a new message with attachments

(In reply to alta88 from comment #6)

The AttachmentCount extension (also on ATN) fixes all these issues, including:

  • handling encrypted cases
  • ensuring Quick Filter works for unselected and even unscrolled into view (new) messages with attachments
  • ensuring Search Messages finds newly added messages with attachments, even in an unselected folder
  • ensuring Filter Attachment Status with After Classification selected (manual or on biff), in IMAP also, performs the action on a new message with attachments

Is there anyone capable of taking this code from the extension, and adding it to Thunderbird?

System - Thunderbird on Linux / Kubuntu - 22.04.02 LTS / Thunderbird - 102.7.1 (64-bit)

Observed behavior - In message lists Inbox, Spam and Trash. Multiple messages (but not all) show an attachment icon and when opened did not have an attachment. Message size displayed is/was consistent with no attachment.

Impact - In today's mail 5 messages showed this behavior. 2 in Inbox, 3 in Spam. I have my spam setting set to "mark as read" messages determined to be spam - so the messages in the spam folder were "read," and the messages in the inbox were unread.

Result - When opening the message, the mail opens and is displayed correctly/appropriately (for spam messages) however there is/are no attachment(s). I did not try to sort on the attachment field to see if there was any change. Will try that periodically and update the report if it's relevant.

Clearly not super urgent, if I can help troubleshoot let me know.

Thanks for building Thunderbird!

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