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Wrong date/time

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mojoe
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Last seen: 16 years 3 months ago
Joined: 2008-03-17 13:40
Wrong date/time

I just started using the latest version of Thunderbird Portable. I have imported all of my email from Outlook Express. I have a problem with two emails sent to me from Project Gutenberg about a submission that I made. In both emails, the date/time display ok in Outlook Express, but not in Thunderbird. After import into Thunderbird, both emails show a date/time of: 2/6/2101 6:28 AM. I imported several hundred emails and only these two are showing the wrong date/time.

The headers for both emails are copied below (I obscured my email address in the headers). The date/time stamps look ok to me. The only difference between these headers and the original messages in Outlook Express is the addition of the "X-Mozilla" stuff that Thunderbird added on import. I don't see where the wrong date/time information is coming from.

Note that the header lines may wrap. It may not show, but the line "X-Mozilla-Keys:" has 81 spaces at the end. Why this line isn't truncated is a mystery to me, and not relevent to this issue.

Header of message confirming my proposed submission:
----------------------------------------------------

From - Mon Jan 1 00:00:00 1965
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
X-Mozilla-Keys:
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.4 (2008-01-01) on titania.zianet.com
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.8 required=4.8 tests=BAYES_00,J_CHICKENPOX_53,J_CHICKENPOX_66,J_CHICKENPOX_72 autolearn=no version=3.2.4
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
Received: (qmail 34157 invoked by uid 0); 9 Feb 2008 04:18:28 -0000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2869
Received: from mail.pglaf.org (HELO mail1.pglaf.org) (69.55.231.181) by zianet.com with SMTP; 9 Feb 2008 04:18:28 -0000
Received: by mail1.pglaf.org (Postfix, from userid 48) id 392B8352644; Fri, 8 Feb 2008 20:18:28 -0800 (PST)
To: "Posting Team"
Subject: Uploaded Woodcraft-wrapped.txt Woodcraft
From: "xxxxxx xxxx"

Cc: xxxxxx xxxx

Message-Id:
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 20:18:28 -0800 (PST)
X-Antivirus: AVG for E-mail 7.5.503 [269.16.17/1177]

Header of message accepting my proposed submission:
---------------------------------------------------

From - Mon Jan 1 00:00:00 1965
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
X-Mozilla-Keys:
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.3 (2007-08-08) on ophelia.zianet.com
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=4.8 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=hamversion=3.2.3
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
Received: (qmail 1844 invoked by uid 0); 11 Dec 2007 01:44:15 -0000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2869
Received: from mail.pglaf.org (HELO mail1.pglaf.org) (69.55.231.181) by zianet.com with SMTP; 11 Dec 2007 01:44:15 -0000
Received: by mail1.pglaf.org (Postfix, from userid 48) id 47FFD352673; Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:44:15 -0800 (PST)
To: "xxxxxx xxxx"
Subject: Cleared OK Nessmuk, Woodcraft
From: "Copyright Team"

Reply-to: copyright@pglaf.org

Message-Id:
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:44:15 -0800 (PST)
X-Antivirus: AVG for E-mail 7.5.503 [269.16.17/1177]

haustin
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Last seen: 13 years 2 months ago
Joined: 2007-09-19 17:59
Hmmm...

I see a couple of things out of place, but you didn't use <pre> tags when you pasted the headers so I can't be sure about one of them.

If there's really a blank line in the middle of the headers, that's the real problem. RFC822 messages (Unix mailbox format) use a blank line to signify the end of the headers and beginning of the contained message.

In your examples, there appears to be a blank line after the From: header, leaving the Date: header line as part of the message body.

As for the strange date (2/6/2101 6:28 AM), it's probably due to the opening
From - Mon Jan 1 00:00:00 1965 line. (A blank line followed by "From[space]" at the beginning of a line signifies the beginning of a message in the mailbox file.) The From[space] date is usually when the message was put into the mailbox, whereas the Date: header is when the message was claimed to be sent.

If your messages don't actually have Date: headers, it appears that Thunderbird is using the From[space] date instead. The date on the From[space] line is prior to Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 (the beginning of Unixtime), so it's probably being read in and converted as a 32-bit signed integer. Thunderbird is probably treating mailbox dates as 32-bit unsigned for all other purposes, so instead of subtracting five years from the beginning of Unixtime, it's showing you the result of subtracting five years from the end if 32-bit unsigned Unixtime.

To fix it, make sure Thunderbird is not running, then open your mailbox file in a text editor and remove the blank line(s) from the headers of the two afflicted messages. Delete the corresponding MSF index file so that Thunderbird will recreate the index from the headers when you first access that mailbox.

Hope this helps. -hea

mojoe
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Last seen: 16 years 3 months ago
Joined: 2008-03-17 13:40
Removing the blank lines

Removing the blank lines fixed the problem. Thanks for the help.

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