Is there a workaround for Thunderbird in a corporate environment 351

On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 07:17:16 -0800, Andrew DeFaria

Hi Andrew DeFaria,

You are enbreastled to your opinion and I will not argue with you further as the intent of the usenet record is to first solve the problem and then (by the record created), help the next person with the same problem.

I really don't wish to get into a sordid contest with you on this thread as to the degree of "usability" loss between Thunderbird 1.0.7 & 1.5 as all we really want to do is just use Thunderbird 1.5 in our corporate environment. (Of course, you may open a separate thread breastled something like "How usable is Thunderbird 1.5 in a corporate environment" and I might even chip in - but that's wholly up to you.) :)

It appears, at least by the date of the beginning of this thread, affected users did not have a suitable workaround (this buttumption is based on the Internet record, intranet experience, and Mozilla bug transcripts).

Now, thanks mostly to J.O. Aho's astute workaround suggestion, I believe, together, we have accomplished the task asked in this thread which others may follow in our footsteps to completion until the bug is fixed.

Thanks mostly to J.O. Aho, there is now the following workaround that makes Thunderbird 1.5 (more) usable in a corporate environment for those users adversly affected by Mozilla Thunderbird bug https:--bugzilla.mozilla.org-showbug.cgi?id=316720.

For those following this thead for the purpose of implementing the workaround to that bug in a corporate environment - these are the current suggestions (please improve) to allow a smoother upgrade from Thunderbird 1.0.6 to 1.5 in your corporate environment:

STEP 1: Move your Thunderbird 1.0.6 profiles directory to a safe place. (You can take this suggestion or leave it. It is stated here because a few users in our corporate environment found their Thunderbird 1.0.6 profiles were not compatible with Thunderbird 1.5. YMMV.)

STEP 2: Obtain Thunderbird 1.5 & install, creating a clean profiles directory:

STEP 3: Start the Thunderbird 1.5 Advanced Configuration Editor:

STEP 4: Doubleclick on the following two options to set to true: - mail.idenbreasty.default.autocompleteToMyDomain - mail.enableautocomplete

Note: Most reports only suggest setting the domain option but all of those reports have other users posting exceptions which I believe are due to the status of the autocomplete option. Basically, in Thunderbird 1.5, you must set BOTH the domain and the autocompletion in a corporate environment such as ours (5,000 people).

Implications: Users who previosly turned off autocomplete can no longer do so; autocomplete is basically mandatory in Thunderbird 1.5 for all users in a corporate environment.

Acknowledgements: On the whole, I heartily thank J.O. Aho who was the first person on the Internet (AFAIK) who found a suitable workaround to Mozilla Thunderbird bug #312818 and its duplicate.

In addition, I greatfully thank Justin at Insightbb.com whose insight allowed the revelation that the root cause of this problem is that Thunderbird 1.5 (unlike most other MUAs including Thunderbird up to at least Thunderbird 1.0.7) will not send to the MTA any recipients without a fully qualified domain.

To my knowledge, Thunderbird 1.5 and Outlook are the only MUAs in the world that require the domain name explicitly be provided to the MTA (correct me if I'm wrong). The practical result is that there can be no user who can turn off autocomplete in Thunderbird 1.5. Autocomplete must be turned on for Thunderbird 1.5 to work in a corporate environment (IMHO).

Thanks to J.O. Aho who provided the workaround & to Justin who made sense of the issue - our wish has been fulfilled - Thunderbird 1.5 is now usable in a (our) corporate environment!