hMailServer 6.2.8: blank list editors and a Control Panel that died on restart
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A Control Panel bug-fix release. Both defects made a healthy server look broken, and they hit every Windows GUI administrator. There are no server-core changes since 6.2.6, and the regression suite still stands at 898/898.
What the upgrade involved
Drop-in over 6.2.7. No database change (schema version 6005) and no configuration change.
#6: list editors showed blank rows
Every data-driven list pane rendered the right number of rows with nothing in them. Adding an entry appeared to create an empty row, and only the Edit dialog showed the value you had typed. The row model exposed its data as a field, and WPF data binding resolves properties only, so every generated column silently bound to nothing. It was reported against domain aliases, but the same control backs SURBL servers, DNS blacklists, the anti-spam and greylisting white lists, blocked attachments, groups, server messages, external POP3 accounts and account rules.
#7: the Control Panel died after a service restart
The COM server lives inside the hMailServer service process, so restarting the service invalidated every interface pointer the GUI held, including restarts the Control Panel performed itself after saving a setting. Every page then failed with "The RPC server is unavailable" until you closed and reopened it. The session now verifies the link before use and re-authenticates transparently. A restart triggered from the Control Panel waits for the server to report Running rather than latching onto a service that has registered with Windows but is still opening its database. A restart by anyone else is detected on your next action and healed, with a "Connection restored" notification. The liveness check reads ServerState rather than Version, because a shutting-down service keeps answering Version from a static string after closing its database. The superseded COM proxy is released, and the Control Panel no longer starts a service the administrator deliberately stopped.
Both fixes were reproduced on the previous build and verified against a live server: unit assertions on the session logic, a harness driving the real CollectionEditorView and DomainDialog, and UI automation over the running Control Panel.
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