Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > alt.comp.software.thunderbird > #22044 > unrolled thread

newline mangling again

Back to article view | Back to alt.comp.software.thunderbird

Contents

  newline mangling again "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2026-09-16 18:30 +0100
    Re: newline mangling again "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2026-09-16 18:35 +0100
    Re: newline mangling again Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2026-09-16 19:00 +0100
      Re: newline mangling again "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2026-09-16 19:07 +0100
    Re: newline mangling again Jörg Knobloch <jorgk@jorgk.com> - 2026-09-23 12:21 +0200
      Re: newline mangling again "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2026-09-23 13:53 +0100
        Re: newline mangling again Jörg Knobloch <jorgk@jorgk.com> - 2026-09-23 15:08 +0200
      Re: newline mangling again Jörg Knobloch <jorgk@jorgk.com> - 2026-09-24 20:04 +0200
        Re: newline mangling again "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2026-09-24 20:50 +0100
          Re: newline mangling again Jörg Knobloch <jorgk@jorgk.com> - 2026-09-25 00:16 +0200
            Re: newline mangling again "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2026-09-25 20:09 +0100
              Re: newline mangling again Jörg Knobloch <jorgk@jorgk.com> - 2026-09-25 23:37 +0200

#22044 — newline mangling again

Somewhere around the "up"grade from 149esr to 153esr, the mangling of
newlines is back - lines followed by a ">" on a line by itself (as is
the case with quoted text, where a quoted newline has been left to space
things neatly) now have the ">" tacked onto the end of them, and no
blank line. And frequently the .sig separator line ("-- ") gets tacked
onto the end of the preceding line, which of course then breaks it as a
separator. For example, the full stop at the end of this sentence _is_
followed by a newline, putting the separator on a line by itself, as I
see it in this editor, but I suspect that won't be what goes out.
-- 
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

You know a song is good when it makes you feel homesick for a place
you've never been to.
-"DeaDevi" on YouTube, 2025-6-10 on hearing "California Dreamin'"

[toc] | [next] | [standalone]

#22045

On 2026/9/16 18:30:8, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> Somewhere around the "up"grade from 149esr to 153esr, the mangling of
> newlines is back - lines followed by a ">" on a line by itself (as is
> the case with quoted text, where a quoted newline has been left to space
> things neatly) now have the ">" tacked onto the end of them, and no
> blank line. And frequently the .sig separator line ("-- ") gets tacked
> onto the end of the preceding line, which of course then breaks it as a
> separator. For example, the full stop at the end of this sentence _is_
> followed by a newline, putting the separator on a line by itself, as I
> see it in this editor, but I suspect that won't be what goes out.

(Sod's law - it went out OK this time. but the problem remains.)
-- 
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

You know a song is good when it makes you feel homesick for a place
you've never been to.
-"DeaDevi" on YouTube, 2025-6-10 on hearing "California Dreamin'"

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#22046

J. P. Gilliver wrote:

> Somewhere around the "up"grade from 149esr to 153esr, the mangling of
> newlines is back - lines followed by a ">" on a line by itself

I sometimes see this, but have never associated it with particular 
versions, it's happened for several years.

How much editing of replies do you do before hitting send?  In 
particular I see a different result when using backspace to join the 
current line to the previous line vs using delete to join the following 
line to current line.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#22047

On 2026/9/16 19:0:5, Andy Burns wrote:
> J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> 
>> Somewhere around the "up"grade from 149esr to 153esr, the mangling of
>> newlines is back - lines followed by a ">" on a line by itself
> 
> I sometimes see this, but have never associated it with particular 
> versions, it's happened for several years.
> 
> How much editing of replies do you do before hitting send?  In 
> particular I see a different result when using backspace to join the 
> current line to the previous line vs using delete to join the following 
> line to current line.
> 
I agree, it's been the case for some while - but I thought it improved
not long after I joined (about version 139 or 142 I think), but
definitely got worse again very recently, especially around the .sig
separator line.

And yes, it does seem to vary with the amount of editing I do -
especially if my new text somehow gets treated as quoted text (shown in
blue). I haven't pinned it down, because that would need much posting to
find out.
-- 
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

The makers may make
and the users may use,
but the fixers must fix
with but minimal clues

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#22074

On 16 Sept 2026 19:30, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> Somewhere around the "up"grade from 149esr to 153esr, the mangling of
> newlines is back

Your observation is spot on, there is a regression between 140 and 153 that makes 
certain newlines disappear:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2074786

-- 
Viele Grüße, Jörg
Sent with Betterbird. Simply better.
www.betterbird.eu - www.betterbird.eu/#featuretable
Es ist immer wieder erstaunlich: Kaum macht man's richtig, schon funktioniert's!

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#22076

On 2026/9/23 11:21:40, Jörg Knobloch wrote:
> On 16 Sept 2026 19:30, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
>> Somewhere around the "up"grade from 149esr to 153esr, the mangling of
>> newlines is back
> 
> Your observation is spot on, there is a regression between 140 and 153 that makes 
> certain newlines disappear:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2074786
> 
Looks like the same bug, indeed. The reporting person said that when
thought sending

.	> This is line 1.
.	
.	text
.	
.	> This is line 3

(I'm adding extra dot-tab to - I hope! - swat the bug)
what is actually sent is

.	> This is line 1.
.	
.	text
.	> This is line 3

Mine is very similar - when I think I'm sending

.	> some qupte text
.	some new text
.	>
.	> some more quoted text

, what is actually sent is

.	>some quoted text
.	some new text >
.	> some more quoted text

(note the > on the end of the new text line).

In addition, it sometimes happens with the .sig separator, so I end up
sending
	some new text--
meaning that the "-- " is no longer on a line by itself, so it no longer
works as a .sig delimiter.

(I'd have added this to the bug report, but [a] I can't see how to, [b]
the bug report switched to speaking HTML, and I work entirely in plain
text. But if you can see how to, please feel free to add any or all of
the above to it.)
-- 
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Anybody can garble quotations like that -- even with the Bible... Er...
"And he went and hanged himself (Matthew 27:5). Go, and do thou
likewise (Luke 10:37)."

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#22078

On 23 Sept 2026 14:53, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> [b] the bug report switched to speaking HTML

There is no plaintext. Everything is HTML. It's made to look like it were text,
but behind the scenes, it's all HTML. If you don't understand the HTML, you won't 
understand what's going on.

See screenshots here: https://imgur.com/a/L13uPKJ

-- 
Viele Grüße, Jörg
Sent with Betterbird. Simply better.
www.betterbird.eu - www.betterbird.eu/#featuretable
Es ist immer wieder erstaunlich: Kaum macht man's richtig, schon funktioniert's!

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#22084

On 23 Sept 2026 12:21, Jörg Knobloch wrote:
> Your observation is spot on, there is a regression between 140 and 153 that makes 
> certain newlines disappear:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2074786

The next Betterbird version 153.4.0 will ship with a fix to this problem. It not 
only affects news editing but plaintext messages in general.

What you see is not what is sent, so that's rather severe given that the recipient 
won't receive the carefully crafted message.

-- 
Viele Grüße, Jörg
Sent with Betterbird. Simply better.
www.betterbird.eu - www.betterbird.eu/#featuretable
Es ist immer wieder erstaunlich: Kaum macht man's richtig, schon funktioniert's!

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#22085

On 2026/9/24 19:4:27, Jörg Knobloch wrote:
> On 23 Sept 2026 12:21, Jörg Knobloch wrote:
>> Your observation is spot on, there is a regression between 140 and 153 that makes 
>> certain newlines disappear:
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2074786
> 
> The next Betterbird version 153.4.0 will ship with a fix to this problem. It not 

(Here's hoping that the fix finds its way into TBesr eventually.)

> only affects news editing but plaintext messages in general.

What puzzles me is how such bugs get in in the first place: why was
someone tinkering with the compose-editor code at all: what were they
trying to fix/add? It's been working fine (well, acceptably) for some
versions. (I think it was last faulty - though arguably less so than
this time - until somewhere between, I think, 138 and about 144.)

> 
> What you see is not what is sent, so that's rather severe given that the recipient 
> won't receive the carefully crafted message.
> 
And it can corrupt the .sig separator (stopping it working as one).
-- 
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I saw a bloke going round Tesco buying up all the Nachos, Tachos,
Fajitas, and paella. I thought Hispanic buying.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#22086

On 24 Sept 2026 21:50, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> What puzzles me is how such bugs get in in the first place: why was
> someone tinkering with the compose-editor code at all: what were they
> trying to fix/add? It's been working fine (well, acceptably) for some
> versions. (I think it was last faulty - though arguably less so than
> this time - until somewhere between, I think, 138 and about 144.)

Please read this blog post to understand how Thunderbird code is structured:
https://blog.betterbird.eu/2026/08/lets-fill-the-summer-hole-with-some-regressions
Read from: To understand what has happened, ...

So basically, there was an issue with Firefox on Twitter:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2012342
In the course of fixing this, a second issue needed to be addressed:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2019689

And that change caused two problems for Thunderbird. One was fixed, the second 
one, the disappearing line breaks, wasn't even reported until recently.

Since Thunderbird uses the Mozilla editor, but isn't the main "consumer". If 
things change/break in the editor, Thunderbird is affected. And lastly, plaintext 
editing is a special case, only grudgingly supported by the Mozilla core devs, 
since its only "consumer" is Thunderbird, and there, a few elderly gentlemen 
hanging out on the newsgroups using plaintext.

If your problem were: "Editing on X doesn't work", Mozilla would jump. But your 
problem is: "Editing (mostly) on news doesn't work", so no one cares.

Is that clear now?

-- 
Viele Grüße, Jörg
Sent with Betterbird. Simply better.
www.betterbird.eu - www.betterbird.eu/#featuretable
Es ist immer wieder erstaunlich: Kaum macht man's richtig, schon funktioniert's!

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#22088

On 2026/9/24 23:16:7, Jörg Knobloch wrote:
> On 24 Sept 2026 21:50, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
>> What puzzles me is how such bugs get in in the first place: why was
>> someone tinkering with the compose-editor code at all: what were they
>> trying to fix/add? It's been working fine (well, acceptably) for some
>> versions. (I think it was last faulty - though arguably less so than
>> this time - until somewhere between, I think, 138 and about 144.)
> 
> Please read this blog post to understand how Thunderbird code is structured:
> https://blog.betterbird.eu/2026/08/lets-fill-the-summer-hole-with-some-regressions
> Read from: To understand what has happened, ...

I tried. I'd just been watching the Star Trek: TNG episode in which the
Enterprise was taken over by some rogue Ferengi; Riker was ordered to
turn the computer back on, "and show Mog exactly how to use it". So he
started to explain, laboriously (and probably making up along the way)
... "is proportional to the square root of ... multiplied by ...". I
started to read from the point you suggested - and pretty rapidly felt
like Mog ...

> 
> So basically, there was an issue with Firefox on Twitter:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2012342
> In the course of fixing this, a second issue needed to be addressed:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2019689
> 
> And that change caused two problems for Thunderbird. One was fixed, the second 
> one, the disappearing line breaks, wasn't even reported until recently.

Something similar - I don't remember the details, and I don't think it
was quite the same - occurred (and was _mostly_ fixed), and was fixed,
earlier this year; it was there when I started using TB, which I think
was version 138, but had been fixed before 148 (maybe around 144 or 145?).

> 
> Since Thunderbird uses the Mozilla editor, but isn't the main "consumer". If 
> things change/break in the editor, Thunderbird is affected. And lastly, plaintext 
> editing is a special case, only grudgingly supported by the Mozilla core devs, 
> since its only "consumer" is Thunderbird, and there, a few elderly gentlemen 
> hanging out on the newsgroups using plaintext.

I'm not _that_ old :-)! And I use plain text for emails too, apart from
the old _underline_ *bold* /italic/ conventions.

> 
> If your problem were: "Editing on X doesn't work", Mozilla would jump. But your 
> problem is: "Editing (mostly) on news doesn't work", so no one cares.
> 
> Is that clear now?
> 
Yes. So if we greybeards are being ignored, why is it being fixed (on BB
anyway)?
-- 
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than going to a
garage makes you a car." - Laurence J. Peter

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#22090

On 25 Sept 2026 21:09, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> I started to read from the point you suggested - and pretty rapidly felt
> like Mog ...

If you don't want an answer, don't ask.

> Something similar - I don't remember the details, and I don't think it
> was quite the same - occurred (and was_mostly_ fixed), and was fixed,
> earlier this year; it was there when I started using TB, which I think
> was version 138, but had been fixed before 148 (maybe around 144 or 145?).

Spot on. Disappearing line breaks are not new. The reasons were mostly the same.

> Yes. So if we greybeards are being ignored, why is it being fixed (on BB
> anyway)?

Because I run Betterbird and got bitten in a plaintext mail messages. The 
recipient received crap whereas I had sent a carefully crafted message. So that 
had to be fixed.

-- 
Viele Grüße, Jörg
Sent with Betterbird. Simply better.
www.betterbird.eu - www.betterbird.eu/#featuretable
Es ist immer wieder erstaunlich: Kaum macht man's richtig, schon funktioniert's!

[toc] | [prev] | [standalone]

Back to top | Article view | alt.comp.software.thunderbird

csiph-web