Search Messages "Stop" button doesn't work

[Earl Ruby]

Binary package hint: thunderbird

Pressing "Stop" doesn't appear to stop the search and it disables the Search window.

I am using IMAP to connect to a Dovecot mail server with Thunderbird. If I search a mail folder (containing many more folders and several hundred messages) like so:

 * Right-click on the folder.
 * Click "Search"
 * Search Messages dialogue box appears with "Search for messages in [folder name]" already selected.
 * Search for "Subject contains 'xyzzy' ".
 * Click Search.

At this point the "Search" button turns into a "Stop" button and the phrase "Searching..." appears in the status bar at the bottom of the Search dialogue box. If I immediately click "Stop" nothing happens. The "Stop" button remains a "Stop" button and the phrase "Searching..." still appears in the status bar.

Eventually the search does stop but the button and status bar do not change. At this point if I click Stop again the status bar changes to read "No matches found" but the button remains a "Stop" button. There is no way to start a new search at this point. You have to close the window and open a new one to search for anything else.

On a related note, if you want to maintain one button that changes behavior while a search is in progress that works, but it's a modal design, and modal designs generally make for a more confusing UI. In my opinion a better UI choice would be to have separate "Search" and "Stop" buttons.

 * "Stop" would be greyed out (disabled) until "Search" is pressed.
 * While a search is in progress "Search" would be greyed out (disabled) and "Stop" would be enabled.
 * Once the search has completed "Stop" would be disabled and "Search" would be enabled again.
 * If someone presses "Stop" while a search is in progress the search would stop, the status bar would state something like "Search halted. No matches found" or "Search halted. 10 matches found", "Stop" would be disabled and "Search" would be enabled again.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Feb 26 10:43:24 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Package: mozilla-thunderbird 2.0.0.19+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/home/username/bin:/home/username/sbin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: thunderbird
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-23-generic x86_64

[Ian Robertson (iroberts)]

I am experiencing the same behavior on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1.

Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: RHEL 5.1
Package: mozilla-thunderbird 2.0.0.22
Uname: Linux 2.6.18-128.1.1.el5

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Someone please file this bug upstream wiht mozilla and drop link to that report on this bug.
Thanks

[gf (gf-interlinks-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to look at all reported bugs in a timely manner. There have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time you reported the bug and your problem may have been fixed with some of the updates. It would help us a lot if you could test it on a currently supported Ubuntu version. When you test it and it is still an issue, kindly upload the updated logs by running only once:
apport-collect 335067

and any other logs that are relevant for this particular issue.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for thunderbird (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]