GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 558477
Evolution: "From" email address header corruption
Last modified: 2009-04-20 13:46:55 UTC
Please describe the problem: Evolution 2.22.3.1 appears to be corrupting the "From" email header in some emails. Steps to reproduce: 1. Subscribe to the http://lwn.net/ "Notify" mailing list. 2. Every Thursday you will get a brief notification of a new issue of the newsletter. 3. Receive this notification in Evolution, and observe that the "From" email address is wrong - it says "From: LWN.netW <eekly Notification lwn@lwn.net>" instead of "From: LWN.net Weekly Notification <lwn@lwn.net>" Actual results: "From" email address corruption. Expected results: No "From" email address corruption. Does this happen every time? Yes! Other information: I have emailed the people that run this site, and they are sure that they are sending out the right header. I have changed the IMAP email address that receives this notification, from a DreamHost email address, to a Gmail email address (i.e. two completely independent servers, run by different people, and presumably running different server-side software). The from address gets corrupted in both when viewed in Evolution. I have checked in Outlook (my previous mail client), and all the headers were correct, and displayed correctly. I will attach am example email from Outlook, with full headers shortly. I have checked/read the mail through the gmail web interface, and it displays fine, and the headers are fine. I will attach an example shortly. I have checked/read the mail through the DreamHost web interface (squirrelmail 1.4.15), and it displays fine, and the headers are fine. So the only common factors appear to be Evolution + IMAP + this notification email. Other mail clients work fine, and it happens across multiple servers, all of which themselves can display the email fine. I have also moved a mail item from IMAP to local MBOX files, and it is sort-of okay (will attach example soon).
Created attachment 121614 [details] MS Outlook example LWN message, with headers. Note: no corruption, and from header says: From: LWN.net Weekly Notification <lwn@lwn.net>
Created attachment 121615 [details] Evolution example LWN message, with corrupted headers Note the corruption, in the from header that says: From: LWN.netW <eekly Notification lwn@lwn.net>
Created attachment 121617 [details] A gmail message, read through the gmail web interface, with headers. Note: No corruption. From header is correct: From: LWN.net Weekly Notification <lwn@lwn.net>
Created attachment 121618 [details] Evolution example LWN message, with semi-corrupted headers, moved from IMAP into an MBOX file Note: this message is semi-corrupted. In particular, the first "from" line in the header is wrong, but the second "from" line is correct: From eekly Notification lwn@lwn.net Wed Oct 22 17:24:37 2008 [.... snip ...] From: LWN.net Weekly Notification <lwn@lwn.net>
I accidentally stumbled up a reproducible test case! On Evolution 2.24.3, this PHP script will reliably reproduce the problem: <?php mail("nickpj@gmail.com", "test subject", "message body", "From: y.our Webmaster <webmaster@whatever.com>"); ?> That sends me an email which in Evolution which appears as being from "y.ourW < ebmaster webmaster@whatever.com>" (i.e. messed up). ... compare it to this test case, which only has a single character different (it omits the full stop), and which works fine: <?php mail("nickpj@gmail.com", "test subject", "message body", "From: your Webmaster <webmaster@whatever.com>"); ?> That sends me an email which appears as from "your Webmaster <webmaster@whatever.com>" (i.e. appears as expected). If anyone wants me to run these two scripts for their email address, to provide a comparison, just send me a private email and I will do so.
My guess is it's a malformed address; that "y.our Webmaster" needs to be quoted. But I need to consult the RFC. Granted, we should try to parse it anyway.
Thanks for the bug report. This particular bug has already been reported into our bug tracking system, but please feel free to report any further bugs you find. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 347520 ***