Address book, somehow updates when composing email.[Linux.]

[freetheware]

It appears (or at least gcontactsync believes) that whenever I compose an email, my thunderbird address book 'updates' that contact in the address book. In other words, I compose an email, add contacts by typing in the 'to' field, and send the email. THEN, I run gcontactsync and it thinks those names I typed into the 'to' field have been updated in the addressbook.

I see how this COULD be a gcontactsyn plugin bug...but it certainly feels like thunderbird changes some field/data/hash/info in the address book just by using an address.

Anyway to stop thunderbird from doing this, or anyway to look directly at the data in the address book before and after composing an email? (FYI, looking at the fields via the GUI show zero difference before and after using an address in compose).

Thunderbird v52.7.0, Ubuntu 18.04

Thanks!

[tanstaafl]

UNcheck the checkmark for tools -> options -> composition -> addressing -> "automatically add outgoing address to my _____ address book". Tools -> options is replaced by Preferences if you use Linux.

"Outgoing address" means any recipients you specified when sending a message

[freetheware]

Thanks for the quick reply. Yes, I'm running linux (Ubuntu 18.04).

That box is NOT checked. (I turn that one off pretty quickly after a new load of Thunderbird )

[freetheware]

UPDATE: So I ran a little experiment, and turned off address auto-complete for my local address book. So no auto complete is attempted.

And still....Thunderbird seems to update the entry of the addresses in the "To" line.

[DanRaisch]

Have you tried running Thunderbird in Mozilla Safe Mode to determine if it is gcontactsyn that is triggering the issue? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_mode

[freetheware]

Great idea.

So, it certainly appears to be Thunderbird that is updating the address book, without any help from any add-on. So...here's exactly what I did:

- using gcontactsync, confirmed everything is up to date. All addresses match and are up to date.
- restarted thunderbird in safemode.
- sent an email.
- restarted thunderbird in normal mode.
- ran gcontactsync, and it updated the address I used above.

[DanRaisch]

But was the .mab file updated (file attributes/date changed ) after shutting down in Safe Mode?

[freetheware]

But was the .mab file updated (file attributes/date changed ) after shutting down in Safe Mode?

Yes, confirmed. .mab got updated even in safe-mode.
UPDATE: FYI, both size (increased) and date changed on the .mab.

[DanRaisch]

OK, confirmed. Don't know why it's happening but it is. There's nothing visible in the address book UI but perhaps there is a "last contacted" entry in the file for each contact?

[freetheware]

FYI, I fired off a FRESH instance of thunderbird. Put in my account settings, changed no other default settings. And .mab still gets updated when sending an email to an address in the address book. I then unchecked the 'add new contacts to address book' box, and .mab still gets updated.

Also checked exactly when the .mab gets updated. It's after 'send' is hit. (It does not get updated just by adding a name to the 'to' field, send must be hit).

So, this is either a bug or yes, a concious decision to update a field in the .mab.

[freetheware]

Looking at the .mab file, there appears to be a 'popularity index' that gets updated on each use of a contact. So, that explains it. I quickly looked in config editor, and didn't see a way to turn that off.

[DanRaisch]

Now that you've identified the data being updated, it seems likely that is used to identify which contacts to display at the top of the auto-complete suggestions when you are entering addresses in a message being composed. The logic being that the higher the popularity index, the more likely you will be to want that address the next time you prepare a message for sending.

[freetheware]

^ makes sense! So now it seems gcontactsync should be able to ignore that field! I'll reach out.

Thanks for all the quick and great help!

[DanRaisch]

You're welcome.