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I am using automatic spellcheck in Thunderbird v68.8 on Debian Buster (misspelled words are automatically underlined) it works reliably when I create a new empty message but when I am replying to a message (either by clicking on "reply" or "reply all") the spellchecking doesn't always works.

By "it doesn't work", I mean that not only is it not automatically enabled, but there is no way to activate spellcheck that i could find.

Is this reliability issue a bug? How can we have the spellcheck system always active, regardless whether it is new message or reply?

muru
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400 the Cat
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  • What happens if you select the whole text and activate a spellcheck for that language again? – tukan Jun 14 '20 at 08:40
  • @tukan - when I select all text, and right-click, the checkbox "Check Spelling" is already checked. Also, if I switch to another language and back, this also has no effect. – 400 the Cat Jun 14 '20 at 09:18
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    @tukan - I tried now to uncheck "Check Spelling" and then check it back, and that works. But that is cumbersome. – 400 the Cat Jun 14 '20 at 09:20
  • Yes, that is what I meant. Could you have a shortcut for that? I'm not at computer where I could test it. – tukan Jun 14 '20 at 09:20
  • Maybe have the check spelling deactivated and do a `ctrl + shift + P`? – tukan Jun 14 '20 at 09:23
  • @tukan - `Ctrl`+`Shift`+`p` is something else entirely. I need to underline misspelled words as I type, not open another dialog window. – 400 the Cat Jun 14 '20 at 09:29
  • As I said I was not at computer, so that was from back of my head. I wanted you to have a short cut that would activate/deactivate the spelling, which this shortcut apparently is not. Now, I'm sitting infront of one. Two things came to my mind. First is to try to force one encoding for all `view` -> `text encoding` and select unicode for all (with `auto detect` turned off). Second option to try out is a `view` -> `message body` -> `as plaintext`. Could you try it out and let me know if something helped? – tukan Jun 15 '20 at 07:07
  • @tukan - I have `View` -> `Text encoding` already selected as `Unicode`, and `autodetect` set to `off`. Changing `view` -> `message body` -> `as plaintext. changes how the message appears in my inbox, but not how it appears as quoted message when I compose. When I compose, the quoted message below was already always as plaintext. So it has no effect. – 400 the Cat Jun 15 '20 at 16:00
  • Then only solution that comes to my mind is to have a keyboard mapping for the activation/deactivation of the spellcheck. – tukan Jun 16 '20 at 16:55

3 Answers3

3

Thunderbird spellcheck have some limitation/settings, especially when we write/reply-to a long email it can get disabled, this is because of the setting:

extensions.spellcheck.inline.max-misspellings

default value is 500 if we increase that to 10000 or a higher value the spellcheck won't get disabled because of the email length.

intika
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I have also tried to inspect this behavior. As you have provided the detailed information, it is most likely a bug, which will be hard to trace and fix, because this happens occasionally. It is most likely connected to the changes how Thunderbird displays the message.

What needs to be done within Mozilla Thunderbird is to reset any formatting and then reactivate it again.

To answer your question: There is no simple way to patch this behavior.

I can only offer a workaround where you first press alt + o and then shift + s - this deactivates it and use the same combination to reactivate it.
Other option would be to have a custom shortcut for such functionality.

intika
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tukan
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This sounds similar to existing Thunderbird bugs:

Inline spell checking randomly fails

[ . . . ]

The actions that cause the inline spelling to fail (i.e., the red underlining to disappear) are normal editing. For example in one instance, I noticed that backspacing over a word caused the red underlining to disappear from a previous spelling error (a couple lines removed)).

Bugzilla-933813

What I found is that any new message checks the spelling correctly as you type (underlines). Reply to any message and the check spelling as you type does not work (no underlines). Setting mail.compose.max_recycled_windows to 0 works with both new messages and when you reply. I only have the english dictionary installed.

Launchpad-Bug-1229172

I can't reproduce with TB18, html or plain text compose, and the mozillazine steps

  1. Open a new email message.

  2. Type 'In the middle of the day'

  3. Backspace until you only have 'In the mi'

  4. Then retype the rest so you end up with 'In the middle of the day' again.

However, some say it is intermittent

Bugzilla-790475

Even if it's not the same bug, you can sometimes get ideas from other bug reports.

Dealing with intermittent or un-reproducible bugs can be frustrating. I've been there many a time, and it's not fun. Here's some things you could try:

  • Record a screen-cast of the bug when it occurs.

    Try to avoid including any personal or identifying details. This makes it a lot easier to show what's going on; you can right-click and show you have "Check Spelling" enabled, as well as what dictionaries are installed.

  • Does manual spell checking with Ctrl-Shift-P work?

    Based on your comments, it sounds like it is, and just the highlighting is broken. This is something you could demonstrate in the screen-cast.

  • Is it reproducible for a particular message?

    That is, can you hit reply, observe the bug, then close and re-open Thunderbird, hit reply on the same message, and get the same bug again?

  • If you cut and re-paste the text, does the spellchecking start working again?

    In some bug reports, it seems like this makes a difference.

  • Does HTML or text composition matter?

    If you hold down shift before clicking the "Reply" button, it will toggle between HTML and text composition.

  • Try setting mail.compose.max_recycled_windows to 0.

    It seems like it helped in other bug reports.

  • If you run Thunderbird from the console, do you see any relevant error messages in the output?

    This is a bit of a long shot, but it might be worth a try.

  • Do you still observe the behavior if you run in safe mode, i.e. Help -> "Restart with Addons Disabled"?

    I'm guessing yes, but it's a good idea to test this since it helps establish it's an issue with the core Thunderbird code, not some ancillary extension.

  • Do you still observe the behavior if you make a new profile?

    This can be time-consuming, but it's a very useful data point: it means that it's not a quirk of your profile or settings.

You can also take a peek at the source code. Sometimes just reading the comments can be helpful. Here's some relevant parts for Debian buster:

Link-1, link-2, link-3

If you think it's worth submitting a bug, you can do so either via email with Debian or directly to Thunderbird here.

intika
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Nathaniel M. Beaver
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