evolution: URLs with ampersand ("&") don't work

[Stefan Foerster]

Binary package hint: evolution

I am using Gutsy Gibbon. Since a few weeks some URLs in e-mails get somehow corrupted when clicked on.

I can repro this as follows with the e-mails I regularily get from an eBay search subscription:

1. open evolution
2. open an arbitrary e-mail received from eBay
3. click on an arbitrary link to an eBay item
4. result: eBay prints "ungültiger Artikel" (in english: "invalid item"), since the URL is no longer correct.

This is a bug of evolution. I have tested exactly the same e-mail (from my central IMAP mailbox) using Thunderbird and it works perfectly. I also forwarded this e-mail to my Windows machine at work and also no problem.

Here is a sample URL (shown in the firefox window) when clicked on the link from Thunderbird:

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150168307117&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:DE:1

And here is the result I get when clicked on the link from evolution leading to the "invalid item" message in eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150168307117&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:DE:1

Do you see the difference ? The character "&" is changed to "&", i.e. the HTML equivalent of the ampersand sign, which obviously no longer works and leads to a malformed URL.

Stefan

[Stefan Foerster (mls-mnet-online)]

Attached is the e-mail used (saved by Thunderbird, so it should be correct regarding ampersand signs).

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug. Are you sure that the mail is correct, importing it in evolution doesn't work. What preferred browser command do you use?

[Stefan Foerster (mls-mnet-online)]

Hi Sebastien,

attached is the mail exported by evolution - hope this is possible to import. Otherwise I can forward you this e-mail (using Thunderbird and/or evolution ?).

The preferred browser command is "use the preferences of the browser". The default browser is, of course, firefox.

Stefan

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for the example, confirming. I've sent the bug upstream on http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=485700

[Neil Woolford (neil-neilwoolford)]

There's now a proposed patch for this problem. (Milan Crha 18/10).

Any chance of testing this and getting it adopted quickly if it works? This is exactly the kind of bug that is confusing and disturbing to 'average users' but too easy for geeks to say "Just edit the html tag out in the address bar, Luser". Which doesn't help Linux advocacy. We're already stuck with enough (legal) problems getting people's MP3s and DVD movies to play...

I also notice that in the body of emails from eBay the item names (clickable links) also display the same symptom, with ampersands expanded to & Likely the same underlying problem is causing this as well, and only cosmetic, but worth checking that the proposed fix addresses this too. If it doesn't, then something is still hiding there ready to bite us!

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Nobody from Ubuntu said "Just edit the html tag out in the address bar, Luser", this bug is nor a security issue nor a major one, it's rather an annoyance so it's not top priority for a stable update, we might consider it once the patch has got testing though

[Neil Woolford (neil-neilwoolford)]

Nobody accused of it either!

It is only an annoyance, but one that will occur for anyone using the eBay notification email service, which is probably a very common case. I think my point was meant to be that it will affect many users, not all of whom will consider it to be trivial to work around. Obviously I could have phrased it better...

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

right, that's a really annoyance in some case and we will consider it but that's not the highest priority for a stable update and we will wait to get upstream feedback on the change

[Stefan Foerster (mls-mnet-online)]

It's worse than only being an annoyance.

Today I received a newsletter (HTML format) that contains a lot of links. Evolution not only cripples the links itself, but also the visible link names.

For instance: The German word "Säbelsägeblätter" reads as "Säbelsägeblätter" in Evolution.

It is not unusual to have these kind of words, as umlauts are quite common in some languages...

Again, I also want to stress the fact that this bug was just recently introduced. Some weeks ago evolution's implementation of links was correct (and all the other versions before).

Since there are a lot of Gnome/Evolution users around, this bug will get quite famous once Gutsy Gibbon is released.

Stefan

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

gutsy is already available for almost a week now

[Stefan Foerster (mls-mnet-online)]

> gutsy is already available for almost a week now
... then it's even worse.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

what is the interest of such comments?

[Stefan Foerster (mls-mnet-online)]

Because I didn't understand the discussions going on - it reminds me of discussions with co-workers in my company. We have the following situation:

a) a very visible bug appeares in one of the key applications of Ubuntu, so that ordinary users like me will recognize it and say "what a bad job they have done..."

b) quickly a patch is developed - the problem seems to be solved, the application would work again as it should and has been for years, if the patch would be applied

c) but people discuss whether to apply the patch or not, talk about 'it's just annoying', people can manually change the URLs and that it doesn't matter that links are no longer "readable"

But perhaps I'm too simple-minded to follow...

Stefan

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

There is several things you didn't consider there:

- where is the patch which you mention? (there is one attached upstream which didn't get comments nor testing now)
- changes can created regressions and need to be carrefully tested
- there is ten of thousand of bugs open and limited ressources working on those, your bug might not be the top priority ones and people are sometime busy on other things

Note that nobody argued that users should modify the URL, the patch is being considered but there is a new source file there, changes to the build system and some non trivial code changes, it's not easy to make sure the patch doesn't create any other breakage (some issues have already been pointed on bugzilla and an updated patch uploaded)

[SFS (sortfloorsolutions)]

Very annoying problem....

[mark (mark-tourism-canada)]

Makes me ready to go back to my DSL Linux with seamonkey or possibly winblows.
I wouldn't consider this trivial at all.
Verrry Annoying!!!!!!!!!!!11

[Neil Woolford (neil-neilwoolford)]

This is not merely annoying, it means I can't upgrade several machines
that I look after for other users because they would simply, and
rightly, conclude that I'd broken their ebay search result emails.

(I know it isn't exactly what is happening, but it is what appears to be
happening from the point of view of a normal human user who just wants
to be able to click a link in an email and have it do the Right Thing
(TM)) I myself am getting irritated at having to copy and paste the
item number in the link every time I spot something interesting in an
emailed search result.

As for what this does to German language links that use (common)
extended characters, check out the examples given in earlier posts. I
imagine this applies to other languages too.

If the technical problems are too severe (and this is after all a
regression, not a long standing bug), would I be on the right track by
trying to pin the use of an earlier version of Evolution?

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

@all: Is this still an issue on current (hardy) Evo? Or is this issue affecting Gutsy-level Evo only now? I am not sure I follow the last entries here.

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

re.: "@all: Is this still an issue on current (hardy) Evo? Or is this issue affecting Gutsy-level Evo only now? I am not sure I follow the last entries here."

The reason I am asking is that we then can consider a backport of the fix to Gutsy. In that case, anyone of you affected, and interested in the backport, could prepare the patch and propose it.

Please keep in mind that almost all of us are volunteers here, and -- very much like you all, I guess -- have also other things to do. Instead of just stating this is annoying, please act on it, and help all of us.

[Dave Smylie (spam-me-smylie)]

I can confirm this is still happening in Evolution w/ fresh install of Hardy with links from
 - Facebook password reset
 - RailsForum.com password reset

(I forget my passwords often =)

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

This was actually a bug on gtkhtml3.14, and it was fixed there in September 2007. Marking fix released for Hardy, but it may had made it to Gutsy, not sure, and will check later.

[Neil Woolford (neil-neilwoolford)]

The version of Evolution (and dependencies) currently available in the normal Gutsy (7.10) repositories, including Gutsy Proposed and Gutsy Backports still displays the problem discussed here. The fix has not made it to Gutsy yet. I intend to check Hardy Alpha 6 for the problem/fix this weekend and will report back.

[Rick Gabriel (klaxian1)]

This appears fixed for me in the latest version of Hardy. In fact, it has been working in Hardy for some time now.

[Neil Woolford (neil-neilwoolford)]

I'm glad to say that the issue appears fixed for me too in Hardy today.

My test condition was sending myself an eBay "You might like to look at this item" automated email. This time, the ampersands were not mangled into html markup on arrival in the local Evolution, neither in the displayed string in the message preview nor - critically - in the url string passed to the browser.

The problem persists in Gutsy for now; presumably the fix will become available, at least as a backport if there is a reason to keep it out of the normal repositories.

[Joachim (joachimrs)]

2008-04-13: The bug is still there. Just did a fresh install of 7.10 and received eBay mail with links all going to "Unvalid article". Everywhere there's this &

I don't understand the technical terms. I'll try Thunderbird eMail now, even though that doesn't offer Calender and Tasks :-(

[Ronny G. (rg-99)]

Same here. This bug is still available. I'm currently using Ubuntu 10.10. and Evolution 2.30.3. Why can't anyone patch this problem?