[Users] broken links in emails

[Dave Howorth]

On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 20:56:48 +0100
Dave Howorth <dave at howorth.org.uk> wrote:

> On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 08:32:09 +0100
> Paul <claws at thewildbeast.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:14:44 +0100
> > Dave Howorth <dave at howorth.org.uk> wrote: 
> > 
> > > I receive some emails that include hypertext links. One of them
> > > doesn't work. The link in the mail as received is, for example:
> > > 
> > > http://planningpages.midsuffolk.gov.uk/online-applications/centralDistribution.do?caseType=Application&keyVal=_MSUFF_DCAPR_109532
> > > 
> > > but when I click on it to open it, the link that is opened is:
> > > 
> > > http://planningpages.midsuffolk.gov.uk/online-applications/centralDistribution.do?caseType=Application\\&keyVal=_MSUFF_DCAPR_109532
> > > 
> > > It appears that claws is rewriting the URL (two added backslashes)
> > > and that causes the request to fail with an error page.
> > > 
> > > Does anybdoy recognize this problem?
> > 
> > The most likely reason, it seems to me, is that you are talking
> > about an html message and this (with the 2 extra slashes) is
> > actually what the link contains. i.e. it's not a problem of
> > Claws-Mail, but a problem with the message.
> > 
> > Feel free to send (forward as attachment) me (off list) a copy of
> > one of the messages which does not seem to work.
> 
> It is indeed an HTML mail:
> 
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
> 
> but the text of the link in the message is what I posted, according to
> claws. So I think it is a problem with claws.
> 
> > Upgrading Claws-Mail will not help because, iirc, nothing has
> > changed in relation to link parsing, and certainly the problem you
> > describe has never been described before.
> 
> I rather hope the other posters are correct in suggesting that there
> has been a change then. But given the doubt you have cast, I think it
> is even more important to know what the change was before upgrading.
> 
> Cheers, Dave

FWIW, I just sent myself a plain text email (sent by claws and received
by claws). The email contained an HTTP link that included a fragment
with an ampersand in it. When I clicked on the link, it tried to open
one with two backslashes in the address just before the ampersand. So
this has nothing to do with HTML encoded email.

So this seems to be an easy to reproduce 100% bug in claws. I'm amazed
if it hasn't been seen before.

The claws FAQ says that this list is the place to come if you want to
report bugs, but is that correct? How do I report this?

Cheers, Dave