Could not create filter: without valid search terms the filter can not be edited.

[Maguid]

I've gotten this error many times lately.

**

Could not create filter: without valid search terms the filter can not be edited.

**

The message contains valid search items, including the origin email address.

Where does this lead to? It makes more work to create a valid filter.

[RealRaven2000]

We need to gather some more info on this one - which filter assistant type did you select (first page of assistant)? Could it be that one of your own email addresses (or aliases) was in the "from" portion of the email? In this case, try to turn off "Remove my own email addresses" in quickFilters settings on the New Filter Properties page:

this feature is designed especially when using threads of multiple people to generate a filter that addresses a specific group, and we wouldn't want all of our own emails being caught. Those email addresses are removed which can lead to unwanted results. I recommend using the Add-ons "copy sent to current" for correctly placing your own emails (into the thread origin) automatically.

See if creating the filter works when you disable this option.

If it's still a problem then, try creating a debug log.

I suggest switching on the following debug options (after right-click on debug as described above)

extensions.quickfilters.debug = true
extensions.quickfilters.debug.assistant = true
extensions.quickfilters.debug.buildFilter = true
extensions.quickfilters.debug.createFilter = true
extensions.quickfilters.debug.msgMove = true

you could also save / export the email you were using in EML format and send to me for a full test.

[RealRaven2000]

any news on this @Maguid ? Your error console output would still be helpful

[RealRaven2000]

Thanks; I just received your log, will take me a while to analyze - if they are all part of the same drop operation it looks like you dragged 4 emails to the target folder. At the end (although you get the dialog message saying "without valid search terms...") there is no additional info logged. Which filter template did you select?
we will probably have to make another log with more debug switches + info so I can see what happens a little later, I think a filter is being built for the Thunderbird filter editor, but it doesn't extract any search conditions. So it is important to know which template you select in this step:

which one do you select here?
I assume you are using the old (xhtml) assistant (quickFilters 6.7?) and not the new one that is still in preparation...

One peculiarity in the log is that after the drop event the very first email of the drop data seems to have no discernible detail, [but that may not impact here] - I will require more data on that.

• do you see the edit filter dialog (not the assistant but the one where you can edit the actual filter) briefly (possibly not populated with any useful data) and close the window yourself (or click Cancel)?
  (This appears to be shown by the log createFilterAsync_New() - createQuickFilter returned: 0. I think it only returns 0 in that specific case, but I may be wrong)
• I might upload a special debug version here for you later that gives more detail.
• Another thing we might do if you could give me some time is a short zoom call next week were I could live debug the behavior on your PC if that would be an option?

[PotatoCarl]

Same Problem here. It seems to happen if the "type of filter" is not selected manually. However, in the old interface, the last selection was preselected.
In addition, the problem occurs if a new folder with Quickfolder is created in this process (-> move email to quickmove -> create a new folder -> filter dialog pops up -> "RETURN" (not selecting anythign) -> error message)

It seems to work however if the folder exists (i.e. without selecting a type of filter creation)

[RealRaven2000]

Same Problem here. It seems to happen if the "type of filter" is not selected manually. However, in the old interface, the last selection was preselected.

In addition, the problem occurs if a new folder with Quickfolder is created in this process (-> move email to quickmove -> create a new folder -> filter dialog pops up -> "RETURN" (not selecting anythign) -> error message)

ok, I didn't know that this (= no template selected) was possible - could it be that you are using a custom filter template? on my system, the previous template is preselected - if you can reproduce that it isn't an error log of when the new assistant opens might be helpful. Of course I can guard against no template being selected. The error is usually generated by the "Based on sender (from)" template - which may remove emails that we have sent off ourselves which leads to the missing filter condition.

the other thing (much harder) is ensuring the message database of the newly generated folder is ready for use - which may lead to an invalid message id. Again, an error log would help. I did some consolidation of the messages specific to the new html assistant, in this test version from #327:

quickFilters-6.9.3pre4.zip

If you would like to generate a log, please enable the following settings from quickFilters settings >> advanced, debug mode settings:

extensions.quickfilters.debug	= true
extensions.quickfilters.debug.FiltersAPI = true
extensions.quickfilters.debug.assistant = true
extensions.quickfilters.debug.assistant.msg = true
extensions.quickfilters.debug.buildFilter = true
extensions.quickfilters.debug.createFilter = true
extensions.quickfilters.debug.merge =	true
extensions.quickfilters.debug.msgMove.detail = true

[RealRaven2000]

In addition, the problem occurs if a new folder with Quickfolder is created in this process (-> move email to quickmove -> create a new folder -> filter dialog pops up -> "RETURN" (not selecting anythign) -> error message)

here is another thought - maybe processing of the email hasn't finished at the stage when you hit Enter. Thinking about the "template not selected" - the last template is actually always stored in a QuickFolders setting, and if you do not select a different one, the same template will be used regardless even if you hit enter before the dialog gets a chance to select your previous selection. It's more likely that the message data in the message database isn't ready at this stage (not sure how I can block this from the html assistant as it has no access to the database when it shows up: it runs like any web extension only through data from the wx API). Maybe something we can find out though.

It does use the API compatible message Id - which is basically the current local numerical index of the message in the context of account and folder. The code should warn if something went wrong at this stage:

  previewFromApi: async function (messageId) {
    try {
      await quickFilters.Util.logDebugOptional(
        "assistant.msg",
        "previewFromApi()",
        `Loading message id: ${messageId}...`
      );
      const msg = await messenger.messages.get(messageId);

      // Basic metadata to be shown in preview
      return {
        author: msg.author,
        recipients: msg.recipients.join(", "),
        subject: msg.subject,
        date: new Date(msg.date).toLocaleString(),
        size: msg.size, // optional: could estimate number of lines if needed
        msgCount: 1,
      };
    } catch (ex) {
      console.warn("previewFromApi() Failed to load message preview from API for id:", messageId, ex);
      return null;
    }
  },

This is called during loadAssistant() when the assistant window is shown:

    // build a preview
    let preview;
    if (this.selectedApiMessages?.length) {
      // use API to build it fresh
      const folderPath = await formatFolderPath(this.selectedApiMessages[0].folder);
      preview = await this.previewFromApi(this.selectedApiMessages[0].messageId);
      if (folderPath) {
        preview.folderPath = folderPath;
      }
    } else if (this.passedMessages.length) {
      // legacy messages?
      preview = this.passedMessages[0];
    }
    

[PotatoCarl]

Still persists

[RealRaven2000]

I cannot help without a debug log. see #314 (comment) for settings

[PotatoCarl]

See #310 for log. same issue as it seems or at last connected

[RealRaven2000]

I will be on holidays next week, let's circle back afterwards. I stil believe it has to do with removing yuour own email addresses from a filter search,