Does not work with TB 115+

[m707]

I tried the most recent build, but after hitting connect I just get:

An unexpected error occurred

:(.

[chris21k]

Does not work with the TB 115.0 release version.

[creative-coder]

try this, its a pached version and works... https://trella.info/allgemein/thunderbird-sieve-filter-funktioniert-nicht/

[m707]

Not for me in TB 116.0b5 (updated in the meantime):

Connection to server failed :(, ... or in our $LANG: "Verbingung zum Server fehlgeschlagen ;).
An unexpected error occured.

Are you sure you got that version working with a TB version >= 115?

[creative-coder]

my mistake, im running 102.13.0.. but works at this version (sry was late tonight)

[vsatmydynipnet]

Found out in https://github.com/thsmi/sieve/pull/768 too. too. Looks like we need help of a dev to overcome this and be able to use 115.

[thsmi]

There was a pretty massive and breaking change in Mozilla's socket implementation.
Refer to the following bug for more details: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1791633

Beside this the following change also needs to be addressed https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1780695

And of course the other bugs which are blocking the 102 release...

So don't expect a release anytime soon, unless the unlikely happens and someones steps up and provides fixes...

Until then the only suggestion I can give is to use the standalone app.

[sachaz]

Thanks for the reply & letting us know whats going on <3

[jobisoft]

Hi,

the drop of Services.jsm is not much work: we do not have to include it at all anymore. It is now a globally available variable.

For the socket, I would like to move away from the internal implementation and use a JavaScript library. But I need a server to test against. Is anybody here able to provide me a test account/access? You can reach out to me directly via john@thunderbird.net

Thanks!

[jobisoft]

@thsmi

I have not understood why the WebExtension cannot use the same trick you use in the Web App, to connect to the server, or why the WebSocket API cannot be used.

I must be missing something crucial and would be happy if you could help me to understand the situation better. If your new Web App is based on node.js, should you not be able to webPack it into a Firefox/Thunderbird extension?

[thsmi]

@jobisoft
well it is for the same reason why Thunderbird does not use the WebSocket API for IMAP, POP3 or SMTP.
Those protocols are like SIEVE based exclusively on TCP not on HTTP. Thus WebSockets can't be used, they work only with HTTP Servers.

Thunderbird does not provide an API for extension to create TCP connections. So you need to use an experiment to open TCP Sockets. But every major release introduces a breaking change to the Socket API. And because the socket API is completely incompatible to the node.js socket implementation webpack don't work.

The WebApp works like a webmailer which talks to you browser in http while it talks to your mailserver in imap and smtp or respectively SIEVE. It is basically a WebSocket to SIEVE translator or proxy. The WebApp provides both the http server and the proxy. This allows a webbrowser to magically communicate with a SIEVE endpoint.

But this does not work with Thunderbird, because it is a client and not a server. Thus the only option to use websockets is that you have somewhere a server where you could run such a WebSocket to SIEVE proxy. Thus the only real world option is to use a very classic socket connection. And this is why you have to use an Experiment.

And yes you could try to standardize Sieve over WebSocket. But then the hard part starts, how to convince the mail server implementations to implement this? There is no use-case other then Thunderbird for this. Normal Applications just use a standard socket connection and WebApp anyhow need an HTTP Server to provide the app to the browser and thus you can easily provide a proprietary websocket to sieve proxy as side channel....

I guess you see why Thunderbird is so special. It officially offers no sockets support to extension, only HTTP or WebSockets. And Mailservers typically don't provide HTTP or Websockets endpoints for security concerns. Without Experiments there is no overlap and the Extension would be long dead.

The real pain point here is that Mozilla introduces with each major release a breaking change for their socket implementation. I don't know why but it seems to be a long standing tradition. Node.js in contrast provides a rock solid API for TCP Sockets. there haven't been any breaking changes since many many years. But this is something which can't be changed...

[madduck]

Does anyone know of any progress on this?

[ecogit]

Is there a way to donate as a token of gratitude for the efforts by @thsmi and his fellow contributors? ☕️