Bug#1036799: sylpheed: unable to send or read email after upgrading to Debian 12

[José Luis González]

control: severity -1 grave

Hi Ricardo,

> Right, but that doesn't deserve a 'grave' severity as only gsmtp users
> are affected and no data is lost or security hole is introduced. I've
> adjusted this accordingly.

The definition of grave severity is:

grave
makes the package in question unusable or mostly so, or causes
data loss, or introduces a security hole allowing access to the
accounts of users who use the package.

This bug renders sylpheed unusuable or mostly so for me, so it is
indeed a grave bug. I am restoring severity accordingly.

> That has been reported on the list that downgrading to 3.7.0 fixes the
> problem: https://www.sraoss.jp/pipermail/sylpheed/2023-May/007129.html

> Can you check if downgrading fixes it?

I wish I could check it but so far the only way I have to do so is
installing from source. What I can confirm is the bug appeared when
upgrading from version 3.7.0 to version 3.8.0~beta1-1.

I hope you understand this bug is preventing me from using sylpheed
and so from reading and writing email, unless from gmail's web
interface. I find of great concern that the bug is in Debian's new
stable distribution: bookworm. If you know the bug is in version
3.8.0~beta1-1 I would suggest downgrading stable to 3.7.0 if you can
manage to do so.

Best regards,
José Luis

[Ricardo Mones]

control: severity -1 important

Hi José Luis,

On Sun, 23 Jul 2023 14:22:34 +0200
José Luis González <bugs...@gmail.com> wrote:

> control: severity -1 grave
>
> Hi Ricardo,
>
> > Right, but that doesn't deserve a 'grave' severity as only gsmtp
> > users are affected and no data is lost or security hole is
> > introduced. I've adjusted this accordingly.
>
> The definition of grave severity is:
>
> grave
> makes the package in question unusable or mostly so, or
> causes data loss, or introduces a security hole allowing access to the
> accounts of users who use the package.
>
> This bug renders sylpheed unusuable or mostly so for me, so it is
> indeed a grave bug. I am restoring severity accordingly.

No, it's not. That "for me" you added is the part that is not mentioned
in the definition and that's a quite important difference: that the
package is unusable for _you_ doesn't make it unusable for _everybody_,
and that's what the definition mean when it says the package is
unusable.

Anybody not using Gmail can use Sylpheed without problems, for example,
so even if it makes unusable it for you, please keep severity as it
should be.

> > That has been reported on the list that downgrading to 3.7.0 fixes
> > the problem:
> > https://www.sraoss.jp/pipermail/sylpheed/2023-May/007129.html
>
> > Can you check if downgrading fixes it?
>
> I wish I could check it but so far the only way I have to do so is
> installing from source. What I can confirm is the bug appeared when
> upgrading from version 3.7.0 to version 3.8.0~beta1-1.

Building Sylpheed 3.7.0 from source in Debian 12 is pretty simple, go to
some empty dir and run:

$ sudo apt install build-essential devscripts
$ sudo apt build-dep sylpheed
$ dget http://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/s/sylpheed/sylpheed_3.7.0-8.dsc
$ cd sylpheed-3.7.0/
$ dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc
$ cd ..
$ sudo dpkg -i sylpheed_3.7.0-8_amd64.deb

> I hope you understand this bug is preventing me from using sylpheed
> and so from reading and writing email, unless from gmail's web
> interface. I find of great concern that the bug is in Debian's new
> stable distribution: bookworm. If you know the bug is in version
> 3.8.0~beta1-1 I would suggest downgrading stable to 3.7.0 if you can
> manage to do so.

Yeah, I understand the situation is not funny for you. Fact is upstream
has still not dealt with this bug despite the time passed (months), so
there's no patch I can apply to current version.

This fact joined with the increased slowness of upstream development
during the past years makes me wonder if it's still worth to maintain
Sylpheed within Debian.

regards,
--
Ricardo Mones
http://people.debian.org/~mones
«Bank error in your favor. Collect $200.»