Bug #17328

Thunderbird's Find in Page is not working anymore

Added by goupille 2019-12-09 16:34:28 . Updated 2020-05-12 21:32:09 .

Status:
Confirmed
Priority:
Elevated
Assignee:
Category:
Target version:
Start date:
Due date:
% Done:

0%

Feature Branch:
Type of work:
Code
Blueprint:

Starter:
Affected tool:
Email Client
Deliverable for:

Description

Since Tails 4.1, searching for a specific term in a message in thunderbird doesn’t work anymore for me. when I open the ‘Find’ tool (Ctrl+F or Edit>FInd>Find in This Message) and search for any word or sentence, nothing happens, wether I’m reading an encrypted email or not. I only see this problem in reading mode, searching in an email in edition mode works correctly.

I’m assigning this to segfault since it may have been introduced by Feature #17222.

(sajolida is watching this ticket)

Files

findbar.png (13013 B) sajolida, 2020-05-05 17:19:35

Subtasks

Related issues

Blocks Tails - Feature #16209: Core work: Foundations Team Confirmed

History

#1 Updated by intrigeri 2019-12-12 19:57:09

#2 Updated by segfault 2019-12-12 21:31:07

  • Target version set to Tails_4.2

#3 Updated by segfault 2019-12-12 21:33:30

  • Assignee deleted (segfault)

I didn’t take a look yet, but the issue does not sound like it’s related to anything I did for Feature #17222, so I’m unassigning myself for now, to allow other FT members to take it if they want to.

#4 Updated by intrigeri 2019-12-13 08:38:18

  • Affected tool set to Email Client

#5 Updated by goupille 2019-12-13 22:00:03

note that I didn’t found anyone else affected for now and that my thunderbird is doing other weird things (crashes, takes ages to open a message) so I’ll try to backup my data on a freshly installed Tails and a new stick anyway…

#6 Updated by intrigeri 2019-12-14 08:06:06

  • Target version deleted (Tails_4.2)

Thank you for the clarification! Let’s not commit to a target version at the moment then.

#7 Updated by segfault 2019-12-16 21:20:02

I can’t reproduce this.

#8 Updated by intrigeri 2020-01-28 12:53:47

  • Assignee set to goupille

goupille, any news on this front? Are you still affected? Is anyone else?

#9 Updated by goupille 2020-02-04 17:49:57

afaik, I’m the only one affected.

I installed a fresh Tails 4.2.2 on a brand new USB stick, then backed up my data on that new stick following our documentation and I’m still affected by this issue (alongside other weird behavior of thunderbird, for example it doesn’t seem to allow me to open my sent email with my own key if I happen to have the private key of the recipient).

I wanted to do it again, but with manually copy only my emails in a newly configured thunderbird (i’m using a POP account), not all my profile, but I didn’t find how to do so and I don’t have the time and ressources to research more for now.

#10 Updated by intrigeri 2020-02-07 13:20:18

#11 Updated by intrigeri 2020-02-07 13:27:43

Hi goupille,

> afaik, I’m the only one affected.

Thanks for the update. Given this + the fact we can’t reproduce, I’ve removed this (for now) from the FT’s view.

> I installed a fresh Tails 4.2.2 on a brand new USB stick, then backed up my data on that new stick following our documentation and I’m still affected by this issue

I’m not surprised; this suggests there’s something wrong within your persistent profile :/

> I wanted to do it again, but with manually copy only my emails in a newly configured thunderbird (i’m using a POP account), not all my profile, but I didn’t find how to do so and I don’t have the time and ressources to research more for now.

In the settings for your email account → “Server Settings”, there should be a “Local directory” thing that tells you where the messages are stored.
You could try to:

  1. copy that directory somewhere
  2. install a new Tails and create a brand new Persistent volume there
  3. set up your email account on that new Tails (maybe configure it to leave messages on the server, though)
  4. close Thunderbird
  5. replace the contents of the “local directory” with the one you had saved earlier
  6. start Thunderbird
  7. see what happens

#12 Updated by sajolida 2020-05-05 17:14:19

  • Description updated
  • Status changed from New to Confirmed
  • Assignee deleted (goupille)
  • Priority changed from Normal to Elevated
  • Type of work changed from Research to Code

@goupille: Wow, how come I didn’t know about this ticket earlier?!?! I also suffer from this since 4.1 :)

I blamed it on my very old (and wildly migrated) Thunderbird profile but today I finally took the time to reproduce it from a clean Tails and I could reproduce it on the 1st try:

  1. Start Thunderbird from a clean state.
  2. Create a new IMAP profile for my email account.
  3. Sync my IMAP folder.
  4. Open an unencrypted email.
  5. Type something in the search box at the bottom of the content of the email.
  6. Get a “TypeError: value is null” error on “findbar.js” in the console log. See attachment.

Marking as Elevated since it’s a regression.

It’s pretty annoying to not be able to search in emails when trying to refer to prior discussions and I guess that it slows down help desk as well.

#13 Updated by sajolida 2020-05-05 17:19:38

#14 Updated by intrigeri 2020-05-07 08:51:44

#15 Updated by goupille 2020-05-12 21:32:09

sajolida wrote:

[…]
> It’s pretty annoying to not be able to search in emails when trying to refer to prior discussions and I guess that it slows down help desk as well.

So glad you are also affected @sajolida :)
and also glad that you finally did what I said I’d do months ago…

note that I can use the ‘find’ functionality if I’m in a redaction window, so I usually hit ‘reply’ and search in the quoted message