User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0 Build Identifier: Thunderbird version 1.0 (20041206) Renaming folders, or having migrated from Outlook with folders that have a . character as first character, see folders disappear completely when Thunderbird is restarted! Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Rename a folder with . as first character 2. 3. Actual Results: close and reopen thunderbird and the folder and its messages have disappeared. Expected Results: Re-opened with all folders displayed as they were. I wonder there are other characters that do this but can't find any immediately..

Hello guys, I could reproduce the same behavior on my Windows 2003 Server. After spending some time with LXR and my debug build, I found the source code explaining the behavior. In /mailnews/local/src/nsLocalMailFolder.cpp, 192 static PRBool 193 nsShouldIgnoreFile(nsString& name) 194 { 195 PRUnichar firstChar=name.CharAt(0); 196 if (firstChar == '.' || firstChar == '#' || name.CharAt(name.Length() - 1) == '~') 197 return PR_TRUE; ... 237 nsresult 238 nsMsgLocalMailFolder::CreateSubFolders(nsFileSpec &path) 239 { ... 251 252 // here we should handle the case where the current file is a .sbd directory w/o 253 // a matching folder file, or a directory w/o the name .sbd 254 if (nsShouldIgnoreFile(currentFolderNameStr)) 255 continue; ... It seems that mozilla mail ignores files starts with '.' or '#'. However, the case of '#' is handled correctly by using hash string as filename. The NS_MsgHashIfNecessary() function is responsible for that. 763 nsresult 764 nsMsgLocalMailFolder::CreateSubfolder(const PRUnichar *folderName, nsIMsgWindow *msgWindow ) 765 { ... 777 //Now we have a valid directory or we have returned. 778 //Make sure the new folder name is valid 779 nsAutoString safeFolderName(folderName); 780 NS_MsgHashIfNecessary(safeFolderName); ... In /mailnews/base/util/nsMsgUtils.cpp, 265 nsresult NS_MsgHashIfNecessary(nsCAutoString &name) 266 { 267 NS_NAMED_LITERAL_CSTRING (illegalChars, 268 FILE_PATH_SEPARATOR FILE_ILLEGAL_CHARACTERS ILLEGAL_FOLDER_CHARS); 269 nsCAutoString str(name); 270 271 // Given a filename, make it safe for filesystem 272 // certain filenames require hashing because they 273 // are too long or contain illegal characters 274 PRInt32 illegalCharacterIndex = str.FindCharInSet(illegalChars); 275 char hashedname[MAX_LEN + 1]; 276 if (illegalCharacterIndex == kNotFound) 277 { ... 287 } 288 else 289 { 290 // found illegal chars, hash the whole thing ... 299 } ... Here, 'illegalChars' contains '#' but not '.'. In summary, mozilla mail allows user to create folder name starts with '.' but it ignores it after that. I wonder if there is specific reason of ignoring the files start with '.'. If then, we need to add '.' to 'illegalChars' (probably add to ILLEGAL_FOLDER_CHARS?). By the way, this is my second day with mozilla source code and bugzilla ;-) I hope this information helps to confirm the bug.

added myself to CC.

I forgot to mention a workaoround of this bug. ;-) If you go to your mailbox directory and simply change the filenames (3 files for each folder) not to start with '.' then it will re-appear.

DUP of Bug 229522. See dependency tree for Bug 124287. As you say, I also think considering first "." as a illegal file name character(use hash) is easiest and effective solution. Your proposal will be effective and work well, I belive. Jeongkyu Kim, could you please post your pach to Bug 229522? I'm very appriciated if you add ending "."(dot) and ending "~"(tilde) cases in your patch for Bug 117840 and Bug 198966. Regards. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 229522 ***

WADA, Thanks for your comment. I posted two patcheds to bug Bug 229522. -Jeongkyu