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Recent update appears to be text wrapping my signature. How do I stop it?

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  • Last reply by bz__tb1

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Recent update of Thunderbird to 60.3.0 (32-bit) appeared to have 'broken' thunderbird for me because it now appears to be text wrapping my signature lines at a text length of 62 characters. [and even updating to 60.3.1 (32-bit)] didn't fix it.

I have long used signatures that I formatted for line length of 72. I do NOT want Thunderbird(tm) wrapping those at 62 as it messes them up. How do I stop it? It does it when I try to compose a new message or reply to a message.

This effect seems to have appeared coincidentally with the changes in format to Thunderbird. The various icons subtly changed with the recent update. Messages I sent yesterday, before the reboot that installed those changes, were fine. Every time I try to generate a message now, my 'signature block' is messed up.

It appears that the actual message sent is fine. It is just what I see as I am composing and getting ready to send that is messed up! (see attached image) Notice that the ---- lines didn't get split but the text did. [there is much more to my 'normal' sig, but the picture illustrates the problem]

I send myself a test message and the signature was wrapped wrong in what I was seeing as I pressed send, but the received test message looks fine, as does the 'sent' message.

Still very annoying but not as bad a problem as I thought in the beginning.

Recent update of Thunderbird to 60.3.0 (32-bit) appeared to have 'broken' thunderbird for me because it now appears to be text wrapping my signature lines at a text length of 62 characters. [and even updating to 60.3.1 (32-bit)] didn't fix it. I have long used signatures that I formatted for line length of 72. I do NOT want Thunderbird(tm) wrapping those at 62 as it messes them up. How do I stop it? It does it when I try to compose a new message or reply to a message. This effect seems to have appeared coincidentally with the changes in format to Thunderbird. The various icons subtly changed with the recent update. Messages I sent yesterday, before the reboot that installed those changes, were fine. Every time I try to generate a message now, my 'signature block' is messed up. It appears that the actual message sent is fine. It is just what I see as I am composing and getting ready to send that is messed up! (see attached image) Notice that the ---- lines didn't get split but the text did. [there is much more to my 'normal' sig, but the picture illustrates the problem] I send myself a test message and the signature was wrapped wrong in what I was seeing as I pressed send, but the received test message looks fine, as does the 'sent' message. Still very annoying but not as bad a problem as I thought in the beginning.
Attached screenshots

Modified by bz__tb1

Chosen solution

For some reason, wrapping is 'stuck' on 64, even though you have mailnews.wraplength set to 72. Maybe if you set it to 0 (zero), i.e. wrap to window, confirm that it is in fact doing this, then change it to 72, it will actually stay at 72. If you find that the behaviour doesn't change no matter the setting, it suggests your preferences file, prefs.js, is corrupted.

The preference mail.compose.wrap_to_window_width doesn't appear because it was removed.

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What do you have for the preference mailnews.wraplength in Tools/Options/Advanced/General/Config. editor?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1161310#answer-972393

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72. See image

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Is the signature entered directly in the Account Settings Signature box or attached from a text or html file? Maybe there is a hidden break tag or carriage return that forces a width of 62.

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The signatures (I have several e-mail accounts set up in TB and all are suffering from this effect) are each in a file and linked to via the 'account settings' as they have been for many years. However even if I open that file with a text editor, copy the material, and paste it manually into the message I am creating, the wrapping occurs. In fact, anything I place into a message I am creating gets wrapped at 64. Even simply typing a string of odd digits, each followed by a single space, ends up looking like this on my screen:

1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 4 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9

when it should look like this:

1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 4 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9

Clearly, TB has a 'bug' of some kind because 'what you see as you compose a message' should be 'what you get' when you send it, and that is not happening now.

Modified by bz__tb1

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What do you have for these settings in config editor:

  • mail.compose.wrap_to_window_width
  • mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed

If mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed is set as false this could be causing a problem.

Do you use addon enigmail?

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I don't have the first parameter showing at all. (see picture) And the second is set to true. Enigmail is installed but is 'disabled'. The only extensions installed & enabled are "Remove Duplicate Messages (Alternate)" and "Show All Body Parts" Default Theme is the theme used.

Modified by bz__tb1

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Chosen Solution

For some reason, wrapping is 'stuck' on 64, even though you have mailnews.wraplength set to 72. Maybe if you set it to 0 (zero), i.e. wrap to window, confirm that it is in fact doing this, then change it to 72, it will actually stay at 72. If you find that the behaviour doesn't change no matter the setting, it suggests your preferences file, prefs.js, is corrupted.

The preference mail.compose.wrap_to_window_width doesn't appear because it was removed.

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Thanks for the suggestions. Interesting effects as I change the value. I tried 0 and 72 and 90 and -1 and I think I like the effects best when I use 0, so I think I'll give that a try for a while.

I notice that the font being used changes when I go to -1, it becomes much smaller and 'fixed spacing' whereas with the other values it appears to be a variable width font and larger on the screen. Also, I notice that the tabs I used in one of my lines got expanded differently than they used to. I ended up converting them to spaces so I could control the position of some of the text. I think I am now happy with the effects.

Thanks for your help. I still don't understand why things changed recently but I can now make things look right by adjusting that value.

It's a beautiful day to be alive, isn't it? [Every day!] I hope you had a strong weekend and have a stronger week. Don't gobble too much gobbler! Have the best of all possible Thanks Givings.

Modified by bz__tb1