Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 67069
line breaks in subjects
Last modified: 2006-11-06 12:39:35 UTC
Some mails in the mailing lists now have line breaks in subjects, like Subject: [pr] Draft PR: OOo welcomes Microsoft's tentative moves towards ODF Seems like after the ML prefix, a line break is inserted.
This happens for long subject lines. The continuation lines (beginning with HTAB SPACE) seem to confuse some mail clients.
Thunderbird is affected by the problems, and this client is widely used...
Hi Taking up the issue and would get back to you at the earliest... Thanks, Karthik Support Operations
Updating Status whiteboard. Thanks, Karthik Support Operations
Stefan , I am unable to reproduce this issue in my mail client i tried out using two mail clients 1) Evolution 2) Thunderbird. Sent out a message the users@collabtest2.openoffice.org list . With a subject line containing apprx 134 words and 681 characters . Please confirm this issue is still reproducible and if so the steps to reproduce this problem . Thanks Jobin.
Jobin, could you please have a look at the message headers (plain message view, not within the normal mail reader window; in Thunderbird, you have to press Ctrl+U for the plain message view) - then it should be reproducible at least with Thunderbird 1.5.
I am attaching the message header containing the subject information which has about 4 tab spaces between the Prefix and Draft PR: also using the thunderbird verison of 1.5.0.2.
Created attachment 39108 [details] Message Header
So, what are you unable to reproduce?
I donot see the line break in the subject line as this issue reports also those tab spaces you see in the message header were explictly added by me to the subject line.
Is it possible for me to subscribe to the mailing list to test this out?
Sure , i have added your email id :florian@effenberger.org to the subscribers list
I just sent a test message that has the problems I just told. Can you verify that?
Yup , your are correct . There is a line break on the subject . Also had a small talk with one of engineers and surprise and surprise there is already an issue reported for this particular scenario . However the reason on how or why this line break is appearing is still not know . Suspect for now is pointing towards the MTA
Is there anything I can do for you to help you debug this further?
This seems to be as per the Spec. According to RFC822, 3.4.8. FOLDING LONG HEADER FIELDS, anything between 65 and 72 characters in the Message Header will be folded and any subsequent line started with a tab. ezmlm follows this but follows a length of 76 characters(thats for "Subject: " + Length of Prefix + Length of subject line). If its more than 76 characters, then the folding happens. In such cases, ezmlm prints the <Prefix> follows it with a newline and a tab and then the actual contents. As far as we checked for clients, Thunderbird did replicate that exactly , i.e. the Subject was folded only for the original message. Reply to a message did not go through this. Outlook and Evolution also dont respect this and just print the subject without any changes. We could modify ezmlm to not do this thing, but that would be against the Spec.
Thanks for clarification, Jobin. I wonder why this happens only on OOo lists. I have a lot of lists in my subscription, some use ezmlm as well, and they don't have these problems. Also, I didn't experience them before the new CollabNet version, somewhere around June/July. Did you upgrade ezmlm with this CollabNet EE update?
Yes that is a correct assumption and it was due to a fix provided via the internal 26533. Also i am providing the details of the fix for your reference . (Issue 26533) Setting the mailing list prefix to a Korean word results in garbled characters in the subject of the mailing list mail items in some email clients. Setting the prefix to an English word does not result in the same garbeling of characters. For instance, if you use the following steps you will see garbled characters in the messages you receive from your mailing list: Log in as a Project Owner. Click the Projects tab and select a project for which you are the Project Owner. Click the Mailing lists link on the left navigation pane. Click the Add new mailing list link. Enter a name for your mailing list in the List name field. For example, you may name your list "testlist". Enter a description of your mailing list in the Description field. For example, you may use a description like "This list is to test the mailing list prefix feature". Enter a valid email address in the List owner's email field. Enter a Korean word in the Prefix field. Select a List type. Click the Create mailing list button. Click the Subscribe button associated with your new mailing list. Make a note of the address of the mailing list. Send an email to the mailing list's email address. Wait a few minutes for the mailing list to be archived. Open your mail client and view the email you receive from your mailing list. You will see garbled characters in the Subject line of the mail item. Solution: This has been fixed in this release. The problem resulted from allowing arbitrary line lengths in the prefix, resulting in violating the rules of the supporting email server. Ezmlm, the supporting email server, is incapable of handling lines greater than 74 bytes. The system evaluates the subject line and will make appropriate line breaks where required if the line exceeds 74 bytes (including leading whitespace characters).
I'm a little bit out if ideas right now. Even if the behaviour is correct, it is very annoying as a majority uses Thunderbird, and that bug also can destroy threading. Did you already check with Thunderbird developers if this a bug in TB? Is there a workaround for the workaround, so the original workaround can be disabled for lists with non-Korean prefix? I think we must find some solution, as this is really annyoing...
Hmm, i understand its a major pain for the users . Let me check with the engineers and find out if we could perform an workaround about this issue . I think its possible however need to confirm .
Thanks, that sounds great! If I can be of any help, please let me know. I think that having (guessed) 80-90% of the lists with a non-Korean in a bad state is not a good choice, better is having 80-90% of the lists in a good state and the Korean subject lines have the problems. Best of course would be to fix it for both. :-)
Understood have put across some of thoughts to the engineering awaiting their response in the issue . One of them is to wrap the subject text to the next line after reaching the max length and also retain the fix present in the 26533 . Would get back to with the details when i recieve feedback from engineers.
Thanks for your support, that sounds really great!
No updates for now engineering is still continuing to work on this issue .
The engineers had revisited the fix provided in the 26533 and found that there is some discrepancies in this issue and hence decided to revert the fix so that the line break of subject would not occur . The corrected fix would be present in the latest patch release 9 . ETA for the application of this patch would be informed soon to the Stefan and others.
Thanks for your efforts jobin, that sounds good!
The fix for this issue was applied via the patch 9 . Resolving this issue . Please verify and close the issue .
Looks pretty good, thanks a lot for the fix!
Message-ID: <454F2B03.7080601@effenberger.org> Date: Mon, 06 Nov 2006 13:30:59 +0100 From: Florian Effenberger <florian@effenberger.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 To: users@collabtest2.openoffice.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [JO] I am just testing if the fix for the line break in long subjects has been already applied and is working Return-Path: users-return-17-jobin=collab.net@collabtest2.openoffice.org X-OriginalArrivalTime: 06 Nov 2006 12:31:11.0803 (UTC) FILETIME=[717158B0:01C7019F] Looks good at my end also -:) Closinggg this issue -:)