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email.policy.SMTP throws AttributeError on invalid header #83281
Description
| BPO | 39100 |
|---|---|
| Nosy | @warsaw, @bitdancer, @elenril, @akulakov |
| PRs | |
| Files |
Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.
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GitHub fields:
assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2019-12-19.19:32:14.506>
labels = ['type-bug', 'expert-email']
title = 'email.policy.SMTP throws AttributeError on invalid header'
updated_at = <Date 2022-01-30.14:52:51.302>
user = 'https://github.com/elenril'bugs.python.org fields:
activity = <Date 2022-01-30.14:52:51.302>
actor = 'andrei.avk'
assignee = 'none'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['email']
creation = <Date 2019-12-19.19:32:14.506>
creator = 'elenril'
dependencies = []
files = ['48792']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 39100
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 9.0
messages = ['358689', '396905', '397046', '397047', '397048', '397065', '397066', '412141', '412152']
nosy_count = 4.0
nosy_names = ['barry', 'r.david.murray', 'elenril', 'andrei.avk']
pr_nums = ['24872']
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = 'patch review'
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue39100'
versions = []
Activity
elenril commentedon Dec 19, 2019
When parsing a (broken) mail from linux-media@vger.kernel.org (message-id 20190212181908.Horde.pEiGHvV2KHy9EkUy8TA8D1o@webmail.your-server.de, headers attached) with email.policy.SMTP, I get an AttributeError on trying to read the 'to' header:
/usr/lib/python3.7/email/headerregistry.py in <listcomp>(.0)
345 mb.local_part or '',
346 mb.domain or '')
--> 347 for mb in addr.all_mailboxes]))
348 defects = list(address_list.all_defects)
349 else:
AttributeError: 'Group' object has no attribute 'local_part'
The header in question is:
To: unlisted-recipients:; (no To-header on input)
The problem seems to be that mb is a Group and not an Address, gets token_type of 'invalid-mailbox', but does not have the attributes local_part/domain that are expected in mailboxes. Copying the line
from InvalidMailbox to Group fixes this, but it is not clear to me this is the right solution, so not sending a patch.
akulakov commentedon Jul 3, 2021
Anton: thanks for the report! In the message you say you are not sure of the solution, and because of that not sending a patch, but then you created the PR; - please clarify.
bitdancer commentedon Jul 6, 2021
How are you encountering this error? The following program runs without exception for me on master:
akulakov commentedon Jul 6, 2021
Running R.David's test script on python3.7, it also works, there's no exception.
akulakov commentedon Jul 6, 2021
I should have been more exact - I've used python3.7.7 .
elenril commentedon Jul 7, 2021
Quoting R. David Murray (2021-07-06 18:59:56)
The exception is thrown on accessing the 'to' header, so make that
print(msg['to'])
elenril commentedon Jul 7, 2021
Quoting Andrei Kulakov (2021-07-03 16:03:34)
I didn't send a patch when originally submitting the bugreport in 2019.
I did write a patch about a year later, since there was no response to
the bugreport.
elenril commentedon Jan 30, 2022
Ping yet again. Can anyone please look at this?
akulakov commentedon Jan 30, 2022
I confirmed I get the same error as Anton on 3.9 and 3.11 .
ekamioka commentedon Jun 28, 2022
Also confirmed. Getting the same error as Anton on python
3.9.13_1and3.8.10rushkii commentedon Nov 1, 2022
This error has not been handled yet? I've got the same error taken from the lore.kerne.org mailing list.
Prettified email
Raw email
docs: process: Send patches 'To' maintainers and 'Cc' lists
slverpla commentedon Jul 21, 2023
Hi, also getting this error. Is there anything I can do to help resolve this? Or did anyone find a workaround?
aseering commentedon Dec 27, 2023
I'm hitting this as well. It looks like the PR with the fix ( #24872 ) is slowly moving forward?
SuddenlyCoding commentedon Apr 28, 2026
Hit this when serializing emails parsed from Outlook PSTs (recipients via distribution lists produce group syntax in To: headers).
Workaround: pre-process address-list headers with the legacy email.utils.getaddresses parser, which flattens groups correctly, and write the headers back in flat-mailbox form before calling as_bytes(policy=default).
bitdancer commentedon Apr 30, 2026
Thanks for the ping, and thanks elenril for the PR. Apologies to all for the delay in getting it committed.