"Reply with template" filter doesn't work with mailing lists
I am unable to get a filter to reply with a template when the receiving address is a mailing list. To confirm that my filter was indeed being acted on I added a second action to mark the message as import, and that is actually occurring. I am also aware of the change to thunderbird which requires me to set mail.override_list_reply_to as false in order to get the messages to use the reply-to field. When I set up the filter to activate from my own email address then the template is sent out, and I get a copy of the sent template in my 'sent' folder as expected. However when the filter is looking for the mailing list address it refuses to send a reply (note the message does still get tagged, but there is nothing showing up in the 'sent' folder and no auto-reply is received by the sender).
I am currently on 52.9.1 (64-bit) in Debian linux. The filter was working fine when I was previously on TB 31, but when I upgraded to TB 52 it stopped working. I have tried deleting and creating a new filter and a new template. I have tried setting mail.override_list_reply_to to both true and false (restarting TB after each change). I created a support question last year with the same subject but it was never resolved. Hopefully this year someone will be able to answer this problem?
Chosen solution
While looking into the error code I posted above, I ran across a bug report that touched on this issue among others. Apparently thunderbird message filters will now refuse to send an auto-reply if the 'To:' field does not match your own email address! I assume this was created as some sort of security precaution against spams, but unfortunately you have broken some of the basic functionality that I relied on.
For those also seeking an answer, the key lies in creating a new 'identity'. Open up your account setting and click the first line of the account you are working with. At the far lower-right click on the button "Manage Identities". In that window you need to add a new identity with the email address used to send messages to your mailing list (in the case above it was test-help@xxx.xxx). Close the windows, and your auto-reply should now respond properly to emails from your mailing list.
The caveat here is that when you manually respond to emails from this mailing list, it now uses the identity that you just configured even though your real email address is set as the default. When you are typing your reply message you do have the option of changing which identity you respond with, but that could be a hassle for some. In my case it worked out better because I can now customize the signature for those specific replies. YMMV.
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Also of interest... I just created a new profile, set up the message filter again, and sent an email to that mailing list. Once again the message was tagged proving that the filter worked on the incoming message, but no auto-reply was sent out.
[EDIT] New update for today. I installed thunderbird 60.0 (the current version from their download page) and still am unable to generate an autoreply. Checking the message filter logs I found this bit of info...
[8/24/18, 9:40:29 AM GMT-6] Filter Action Failed: "Sending reply aborted" with error code=0x80004004 while attempting: Applied filter "Test Info" to message from "test-help (Jeff Taylor)" <test-help@lists.xxx.xxx> - [test-help] autoreply test at 8/24/18, 9:38:06 AM GMT-6 replied
Modified by JeffTaylor_CU
Chosen Solution
While looking into the error code I posted above, I ran across a bug report that touched on this issue among others. Apparently thunderbird message filters will now refuse to send an auto-reply if the 'To:' field does not match your own email address! I assume this was created as some sort of security precaution against spams, but unfortunately you have broken some of the basic functionality that I relied on.
For those also seeking an answer, the key lies in creating a new 'identity'. Open up your account setting and click the first line of the account you are working with. At the far lower-right click on the button "Manage Identities". In that window you need to add a new identity with the email address used to send messages to your mailing list (in the case above it was test-help@xxx.xxx). Close the windows, and your auto-reply should now respond properly to emails from your mailing list.
The caveat here is that when you manually respond to emails from this mailing list, it now uses the identity that you just configured even though your real email address is set as the default. When you are typing your reply message you do have the option of changing which identity you respond with, but that could be a hassle for some. In my case it worked out better because I can now customize the signature for those specific replies. YMMV.