Firefox 60.1 - Unable to get mail header

jcdole · August 16, 2018, 4:53pm

Hello.
From time to time I need to look the headers of some received emails.
I use to use CTRL-U to view source page within firefox.
Now I can’t and must use thunderbird.

Same problem with Leap 42.3

Any help is welcome.

An example from a mail receive from opensuse forum : http://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/532285-How-to-have-telnet-client-available-on-leap-15

Result with firefox :

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en" id="vbulletin_html">
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<meta id="e_vb_meta_bburl" name="vb_meta_bburl" content="https://forums.opensuse.org" />
<base href="https://forums.opensuse.org/" /><!--[if IE]></base><![endif]-->
<meta name="generator" content="vBulletin 4.2.2" />
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=9" />

    <link rel="Shortcut Icon" href="https://www.suse.com/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />








<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
    if (typeof YAHOO === 'undefined') // Load ALL YUI Local
    {
        document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="clientscript/yui/yuiloader-dom-event/yuiloader-dom-event.js?v=422"><\/script>');
        document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="clientscript/yui/connection/connection-min.js?v=422"><\/script>');
        var yuipath = 'clientscript/yui';
        var yuicombopath = '';
        var remoteyui = false;
    }
    else    // Load Rest of YUI remotely (where possible)
    {
        var yuipath = 'clientscript/yui';
        var yuicombopath = '';
        var remoteyui = true;
        if (!yuicombopath)
        {
            document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="clientscript/yui/connection/connection-min.js?v=422"><\/script>');
        }
    }
    var SESSIONURL = "";
    var SECURITYTOKEN = "1534431016-1102c98bd4ac5a70b3480816d878929d5f262393";
    var IMGDIR_MISC = "images/misc";
    var IMGDIR_BUTTON = "images/buttons";
    var vb_disable_ajax = parseInt("0", 10);
    var SIMPLEVERSION = "422";
    var BBURL = "https://forums.opensuse.org";
    var LOGGEDIN = 361 > 0 ? true : false;
    var THIS_SCRIPT = "showthread";
    var RELPATH = "showthread.php/532285-How-to-have-telnet-client-available-on-leap-15";
    var PATHS = {
        forum : "",
        cms   : "",
        blog  : ""
    };
    var AJAXBASEURL = "https://forums.opensuse.org/";
// -->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://forums.opensuse.org/clientscript/vbulletin-core.js?v=422"></script>

......
......
3058 lines of code ! ! ! 
......

Result with thuderbird :

Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 00:10:24 +0000
To: jcdole@free.fr
From: "openSUSE Forums" <forums@microfocus.com>
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated
Message-ID: <20180725000210.8182e013666b@forums.opensuse.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Subject: "LEAP 15 How to have telnet client available on leap 15" update

jcdole · August 16, 2018, 5:23pm

There is non problem on computers running windows 10.

hcvv · August 16, 2018, 5:56pm

The first one is clearly the HTML source of an HTML page and has nothing to do with mail. Something I would expect if I look at an HTML page with an HTML browser and ask for the HTML code being displayed.

The second one is the header of an e-mail, it stops at where the contents (of some MIME type) would start. Also something that I expect that an e-mail program would be able to show when you ask for it.

From what I see you show here, it could be that the second is the mail header of a mail you get from the forums. After that header comes the text you normally see as “the mail” in your mail program, which in the openSUSE forums case is telling you that there is a new post in some thread you are subscribed to. Doing so with some text with a link to the thread on the forums.

When you use that link, your default browser opens and loads that page. The contents of that page is what you show in your first CODE piece.

Not seeing anything unusual.

jcdole · August 16, 2018, 7:53pm

hcvv:

The first one is clearly the HTML source of an HTML page and has nothing to do with mail. Something I would expect if I look at an HTML page with an HTML browser and ask for the HTML code being displayed.

The second one is the header of an e-mail, it stops at where the contents (of some MIME type) would start. Also something that I expect that an e-mail program would be able to show when you ask for it.

From what I see you show here, it could be that the second is the mail header of a mail you get from the forums. After that header comes the text you normally see as “the mail” in your mail program, which in the openSUSE forums case is telling you that there is a new post in some thread you are subscribed to. Doing so with some text with a link to the thread on the forums.

When you use that link, your default browser opens and loads that page. The contents of that page is what you show in your first CODE piece.

Not seeing anything unusual.

To make clearer my question I could say this :

1°) I am speaking about firefox while I am reading my mail, select one mail, then type CTRL-U to look at the source of the mail. I use to use this method from time to time. So I have not change the way I do that.

2°)
The two piece of code come from the same email.
It is not two different things.

3°)
On two different computers, using last firefox version, the same command CTRL-U ( known as view-source ) give two different results:
The linux computer show a list of code where I can’t find the header
The window computer show the header ( and the rest of the mail )

So : same software, same address where to read my mails.

4°) On the linux computer, thunderbird show correctly (The second piece of code) the header.

5°) some time ago ( 6 or 12 month ago ) there were no problem to view source code with firefox on the linux computer.

So I am wondering if the linux version of firefox is different now, or if there is a parameter to set ?

hcvv · August 16, 2018, 10:47pm

I do not know of any method to show a mail in Firefox (or any other browser I ever used).

I assume you are able to see for yourself that the Ctrl-U in Firefox shows you the contents of the page shown at that moment in Firefox, which is the thread in the openSUSE forums. It is not the mail. If you think that Firefox is showing you the mail when you do the Ctrl-U, then please make a screen shot of that and post it using http://susepaste.org/

And about your reference to Windows, I can have no useful comment, as I do not use it. I use openSUSE.

jcdole · August 17, 2018, 8:00pm

No I show the mail that opensuse automatically send when a new answer is registered.

I am using the picture concerning The mail I have received today from opensuse forum :

Dear jcdole,

You are subscribed to the thread “LEAP 15 Firefox 60.1 - Unable to get mail header” by jcdole, there have been 5 post(s) to this thread, the last poster was hcvv.
Firefox 60.1 - Unable to get mail header - Applications - openSUSE Forums

Picture 1 : firefox - Mail reader
http://susepaste.org/25572784

Picture 2 : Result of CTRL-U
http://susepaste.org/36439430

Picture 3 : Thunderbird
http://susepaste.org/86852707

picture 4 : Result of CTRL-U
http://susepaste.org/11363423My best guest is that a change was made in firefox during this past year.
I use to use CTRL-U to help me make new antispam filter based on sender address I can found while reading mail headers.

hcvv · August 17, 2018, 8:55pm

I am sorry to say, but it is probably me. I understand less and less of what you use for what.

You say you use Firefox to read mail. I only know Firefox as a web browser and I can nowhere in Firefox find any pointer to use it as a mail handler. And your picture 1 show a window which looks like a mail program but the window header says Zimbra; Now what is Zimbra and why didn’t you mention it earlier???

Sorry again, but i looks as if you have to teach me everything. :shame:

Hm, after some more looking at your pictures, it looks as if in picture 1 the windows border and header are missing. They probably would have shown that this is Firefox.
And suddenly it comes to my mind that you use Firefox to go to a web mail site (Zimbra). And you are not using a mail program on your system at all. Surprise, surprise.
And you do not load mail into Firefox, but you load a picture of a web site that shows you the output of a remote running mail program. Pfui.

Now these new facts will silence me for some time. First have to try to find out what the consequences of this discovery are.

But in short notice, I assume that you do Ctrl-U, that will go to Firefox, which will the show the HTML code that makes up all the Zimbra stuff you see before you.

Instead you should do something to make Zimbra show the mail header (not using Zimbra, thus I do not know what, maybe some of the buttons above the mail).

I do not use Thunderbird either, but that being a mail program that run on your own system, it could perfectly be that it shows the mail header when you give it Ctrl-U.

Remember that Ctrl-U is not a world wide defined key combination that should give a certain result in all programs. Most programs will do nothing, Firefox will show the code of the HTML page shown, Thunderbird will (apparently) show the mail header of the mail shown.

nrickert · August 18, 2018, 5:22am

I’m having trouble making sense of this.

In order to read email with firefox, you normally need some sort of software that is generating an html page containing the message. For example, I do that on the webmail server that I use.

If I then use CTRL-U, that will show me the html source. But it won’t show me the mail headers unless my webmail server somehow inserts those into the html source for the email.

In practice, my webmail server does have an option “read the raw message”. If I click on that, I can see the headers.

hcvv · August 21, 2018, 5:36pm

Hello @jcdole,

Did you loose interest in this discussion?
We are now about three days further and no reaction from you (and in the meantime you posted in other threads, thus you are still alive and kicking ;)).

jcdole · August 24, 2018, 5:15pm

What I try to explain from the start, I use to use only firefox for years to read the header of some email (when I need, and not very often).
So I am guessing that for an unknown reason that the code in firefox have change recently
or
THe webmail server of my ISP have change recently

BUT in any case

thunderbird continue to show me the headers without any special configuration.

In computing sometimes question has no answer.

jcdole · August 24, 2018, 5:16pm

Thank you every body for helping.

Thread is closed.

jcdole · October 28, 2018, 5:27pm

Hello.

I have forgotten to post the answer :

There is no more keyboard shortcut by default for viewing the mail header.
The option menu text as changed and it is now “show Original”

And most important, this as no relationship with firefox as it is relative to the webmail zimbra which is use by my ISP and which has been modified at the same moment of the update of firefox.

Sorry for sorry for the inconvenience.

nrickert · October 28, 2018, 6:59pm

Thanks for adding that update.

My webmail used to have an option to show headers. It now has an option to show raw message. It seems your webmail has made similar changes, but named it differently.