TB 52.2.1 obscure addressing bug?

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makaiguy
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TB 52.2.1 obscure addressing bug?

Post by makaiguy »

I think I've uncovered a fairly obscure bug but would like confirmation before taking it further.

Win 10, 64 bit, home. TB 52.2.1

I have a number of mailing lists I use on a regular basis. I've given all of these lists name beginning with a period so that they automatically sort to the top of my alphabetical contacts list (old habit from work days).

TB is now not recognizing any entry beginning with a period when entered into the TO field in the message composition window, such that the Send button stays greyed out.

Does the same thing in Mozilla safe mode with all extensions disabled.

Changing the list name to begin with a different character instead of a period, such as an underscore or forward slash, gets around the problem. Beginning with a blank space doesn't seem to work, as it looks like TB truncates the initial space when saving the list name.

Looking for confirmation that others see this and it isn't just something screwed up in my aging profile.
Doug Wilson
Win10 64bit: FF 115.0.02 64bit, TB 102.12.0 32-bit ║ Android 13/10: FF 115.2.0/115.0.1 ║ No TB for Android available, dammit!
What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away - Doobie Brothers
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DanRaisch
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Re: TB 52.2.1 obscure addressing bug?

Post by DanRaisch »

No, Doug. It does seem to work here. I renamed on of the mailing lists in my address book by adding a period to the beginning of the list name. I then started a composition window and entered a period into the address entry field. Up popped the renamed mailing list.
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makaiguy
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Re: TB 52.2.1 obscure addressing bug?

Post by makaiguy »

DanRaisch wrote:No, Doug. It does seem to work here. I renamed on of the mailing lists in my address book by adding a period to the beginning of the list name. I then started a composition window and entered a period into the address entry field. Up popped the renamed mailing list.
But did it activate the Send button? Mine recognizes the list name from the addressbook as far as the auto-fill goes, but Send stays greyed out so I can't send the message.
Doug Wilson
Win10 64bit: FF 115.0.02 64bit, TB 102.12.0 32-bit ║ Android 13/10: FF 115.2.0/115.0.1 ║ No TB for Android available, dammit!
What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away - Doobie Brothers
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Re: TB 52.2.1 obscure addressing bug?

Post by DanRaisch »

Yup. The send button is active with that list name starting with a period and the message was sent AND received by my other account.
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makaiguy
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Re: TB 52.2.1 obscure addressing bug?

Post by makaiguy »

Hmm... doing it with both my profile and my wife's. Guess I'll try a reinstall before messing with a new profile.
Doug Wilson
Win10 64bit: FF 115.0.02 64bit, TB 102.12.0 32-bit ║ Android 13/10: FF 115.2.0/115.0.1 ║ No TB for Android available, dammit!
What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away - Doobie Brothers
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makaiguy
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Re: TB 52.2.1 obscure addressing bug?

Post by makaiguy »

Deleted program files and did a full reinstall of 52.2.1. Started right up with my old profile. No joy on the problem at hand, though. Hadn't done a full reinstall since 16.0.2 so it was probably time anyhow.

So I started playing around with the list names again.

For years I've started all my list names with a ".dl " prefix for "distribution list" (that's with a space as 4th character). That's what my former employer did in MS Outlook, and I just adopted the habit. That has never been a problem before for me, although I do have a vague recollection of other people reporting that spaces in list names didn't work for them, giving them "improper address" error messages or some such.

"_dl " and "/dl " work fine as the prefix, but not ".dl ".

So remembering the old space problems, I tried ".dl-" and it seems to work fine, but only so long as there are no subsequent spaces in the name.

.dl mail test -- Fails
.dl-mail test -- Fails
.dl-mailtest -- OK
.mail test -- fails
.mailtest -- OK
_dl mail test -- OK
mail test -- OK

So it looks like the combination of a list name beginning with a period that has a space in it fails to work.

I haven't tried other first characters to see if anything other than a period gives the problem, but the period is such a convenient character to use, and we're talking about typing habits of several decades here, that I'm going to continue with the period, but make sure there are no spaces in the rest of the list name.
Last edited by makaiguy on July 2nd, 2017, 9:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
Doug Wilson
Win10 64bit: FF 115.0.02 64bit, TB 102.12.0 32-bit ║ Android 13/10: FF 115.2.0/115.0.1 ║ No TB for Android available, dammit!
What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away - Doobie Brothers
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makaiguy
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Re: TB 52.2.1 obscure addressing bug?

Post by makaiguy »

Thinking on this some more, I thought maybe there's just been a minor change in the logic of checking for valid email addresses, such that any space following a period is now considered an invalid address.

So I tried:
mail. test -- OK
.mail. test -- Fails

Guess it's just when the name begins with a period and contains subsequent space(s).
Doug Wilson
Win10 64bit: FF 115.0.02 64bit, TB 102.12.0 32-bit ║ Android 13/10: FF 115.2.0/115.0.1 ║ No TB for Android available, dammit!
What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away - Doobie Brothers
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makaiguy
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Re: TB 52.2.1 obscure mailing list bug?

Post by makaiguy »

makaiguy wrote:I haven't tried other first characters to see if anything other than a period gives the problem
Having nothing better to do today, I played around with first characters of mail list names containing spaces.

All worked:
Letters and numbers
` ~ ! @ # $ % ^ * - _ = + ' ] } | / ?

Recognized as address but did not activate Send:
. ; : "
( or ) -- I'm guessing because it can't parse without a complete () set.
< or > -- I'm guessing because it can't parse without a complete <> set.
[ -- Ditto (except ] DOES work, which seems pretty strange)
{ -- Ditto (except } DOES work, more strangenesss)
\ -- Guessing this is because it is a Windows path delimiter. Maybe on Unix / wouldn't work?

Not recognized as addresses:
, -- probably because it is delimiter for multiple addresses on one line
& -- brings up all entries with & (e.g. Tom & Mary) but doesn't find mail list
Doug Wilson
Win10 64bit: FF 115.0.02 64bit, TB 102.12.0 32-bit ║ Android 13/10: FF 115.2.0/115.0.1 ║ No TB for Android available, dammit!
What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away - Doobie Brothers
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DanRaisch
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Re: TB 52.2.1 obscure addressing bug?

Post by DanRaisch »

Nice detective work, Doug. Thanks.
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