146453 - *The RETR Command did not succeed* when checking mail via POP3

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 227665

(MailNews Core :: Networking: POP, defect)

Description

[Ronald Hartwig]

This is a small but annoying problem: After opening Mozilla Mail the first time
and checking the POP account there is an Error Message:

"The RETR Command did not succeed - Mail Server MyMailServer responded: invalid
command"

when you click on "Check Mail" a second time all is fine. the error message
doesn't appear and the mails are fetched properly.

this happens
- only with the combination mozilla(1.0RC2)-Internet Anywhere Mail Server.
(A shareware Mailserver by the Company True North Software) mozilla with another
mail server works fine, outlook 97 (our old client) and IA works fine too. 

- only when you check mail the first time after starting the client.

- only if there are new messages to pick up

The support people from True North analysed the problem and said it has nothing
to do with their mail server and must be a mozilla bug (see the following
commented log file snippet):

Hello,
I've looked through the log file and I have included below the portions of
the log file that are important. I've included my comments in  <   > so you can
find them easily.  After looking at the log file I think you have found a
netscape bug not a mail server bug. Unfortunately there is not much we can do
about this problem.


< Netscape tries to log into the POP3 mailbox and does so correctly using
the USER and PASS commands >

05/14/02 12:16:22 ID 52268 - XSENDER 1\0D\0A
05/14/02 12:16:22 ID 52268 - -ERR Invalid Command\0D\0A
05/14/02 12:16:22 ID 52268 - -ERR Invalid Command\0D\0A

< Netscape then tries to send the XSENDER command. Since the mail server
does not support this command we return an error message for this.
Netscape sees the error message and then sends the RETR command >

05/14/02 12:16:22 ID 52268 - RETR 1\0D\0A
05/14/02 12:16:22 ID 52268 - +OK 770 octets\0D\0A

< We see the RETR command and at this point the mail server sends the
complete message to Netscape and also sends the "end of message" marker below>
.......
05/14/02 12:16:22 ID 52268 - \0D\0A
05/14/02 12:16:22 ID 52268 - .\0D\0A
05/14/02 12:16:23 ID 52268 - Receive Failed, Connection disconnect:

<Netscape then drops the connection and does not acknowledge the receiving
of the message>


Now on the second connection attempt Netscape does not send the XSENDER command
and everything works correctly.

Comment 1

[Ronald Hartwig]

Attachment: mozilla POP3 logfile describing the error

Comment 2

[ramvalle]

I started experiencing the similar problem when retrieving my email from
www.optonline.net (cable modem). Mozilla shows I have certain number of emails
waiting (pop-up on the lower right corner - system tray) When I open the mail
client, I get the error: "The RETR Command did not succeed - Mail Server
mail.optonline.net responded: Could not read message file".  No matter how many
times I try, it always give me the same error message. Optonline blame the mail
client (Mozilla) since Outlook express works fine. Using build 2002092308 but I
started experiencing the same problem with Netscape 7.0 too. Running Win XP. I
have wiped out all installations files of Mozilla and Netscape (including any
references to them from the registry and all profiles)

Comment 3

[ns13_stregone]

I get a very similar error:

The RETR command did not succeed.  Mail server <my mail server here> responded:
no such message.

This started as soon as I installed 1.1.  I was using 1.0 before and reverting
back to 1.0 did not fix it.

Comment 4

[ramvalle]

Optonline helped tracking it. It appears Mozilla/Netscape has some problems
dealing with malformed headers. Running Outlook Express show that there were
three such emails among my other emails in my inbox by popping-up an error
screen. OE allowed to read those emails once I closed the error screen. After I
deleted them from the inbox (in OE) and removed them from the pop server now am
able to use Mozilla and Netscape Mail clients again .

Comment 5

[ns13_stregone]

How can we tell which messages are the bad ones so we can download all the
others in mozilla?

Comment 6

[ns13_stregone]

This just happened to me again, even after I downloaded the messages with
outlook.  Mozilla still says there are messages on the server and still gives
this error.

Comment 7

[Jussi Sirpoma]

A friend of mine had ~500 messages in his POP3 inbox and the server responded
for the second message that no such message exists. This caused mozilla to stop
downloading the messages. OE just skipped that message and downloaded others fine.

I would like to see mozilla handling these kinds of invalid messages by skipping
them and downloading the others like OE does.

Comment 8

[Jim Vadeboncoeur]

This bug is keeping me from downloading ANY email. It manifested itself suddenly
after years of functioning Netscape email service. Now, even after deleting all
of the mail on in the account, I still can't access new messages. Other accounts
accessed via the same Messenger interface function flawlessly.

Comment 9

[Ian Brandt]

I get this too.  I'm using the AOL WebMail scraper at enetbot.com (runs in
background as local POP server).  "The RETR Command did not succeed - Mail
Server 127.0.0.3 responded:".  It seems this only happens when I first start
Mozilla and have messages in my account for download.  I've been using the
nightly builds since junk mail filters were first introduced and this has been a
consistent bug.  

The bad news for me is when it happens I lose a message.  In the status bar it
says "Retrieving 0 of 25" just before the error dialog appears.  I dismiss the
dialog and click Get New Messages, and then it successfully grabs "n of 24".  I
go to the Old Mail folder directly in the webmail and surely enough there is one
message that didn't get downloaded by Mozilla.  I'm not sure if this part is a
Mozilla problem or an ENetBot problem, but it's obviously a serious bug for me
the user.

Comment 10

[Bob T. Brown]

I seem to be getting this one a lot lately.  I know it does not make sense but
it seems to be happening more and more frequently.  My ISP is Bellsouth.net. 
Works correctly the second time.  Running Mozilla 1.3 and Windows 98 SE.

Comment 11

[Bob T. Brown]

Rebuilt my system as a Windows XP system.  Still runinig Moz 1.3 and still
getting the error.

Comment 12

[Ian Brandt]

I switched to AOL2Pop from ENetBot and no longer get the error.  It must be a
glitch with certain servers.

Comment 13

[Benjami Villoslada]

Today I've solved this error deleting inbox and inbox.pop files directly in the
server through SSH

(Exim server in Red Hat 8,  Mozilla 1.4 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0;
ca; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624)

Comment 14

[Peter Edman]

Reproduced problem on Mac OS X, 1.5b (nightly from 20030814). POP mail kept on
server. Discrepancy arose between messages in inbox and on server; now no mail
is downloaded. Webmail interface to POP server works fine. Mozilla reports: "The
RETR command did not succeed. Mail server XXX.XXX.XXX reported No such message"

Comment 15

[Eric Towers]

Observed with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007

Observations:
This problem is observed when a message retrieval error occurs.  
When this error occurs, messages already downloaded are marked deleted, but are
not deleted.  (Guess: the multi-message retrieval transaction hasn't completed,
so the deletion has not occurred.)
Subsequent retrieval attempts all fail due to an error on the first message.
No attempt is made to download subsequent messages.

Thus, a solution would seem to be:
Replace
    While no problems, fetch next message.
by
    For each message on server, attempt to retrieve message (by ordinal).

I might also log message stubs in the UI for each damaged message in the
server's repository.

More detail:  This occurred to me locally.  Our mailserver stores each message
in a separate file.  (Not my fault.)  Our virus scanner quarantines (by
relocating) infected files.  So the virus scanner moves files without notifying
the mail server.  Thus, the server's indices indicate that there is a message in
a particular file, but the file is nonretrievable.  Mozilla stops trying to
retrieve messages as soon as the first of these missing files is hit.

I'm recommending upgrading the severity of this bug since it appears to render
Mozilla completely incapable of retrieving mail (from an account).  (I.e. a
major loss of function.)

Comment 16

[kanesa]

I am having this problem too. I have used Mozilla for over a year without this
problem. I found a comment online where it was said to be caused by mcafee virus
scan. I contacted their techs and they claim it is with mozilla... 

The RETR command did not succeed. Mail server mail.hawaii.edu responded: 
n-path: <[e-mail]>

>>4. When exactly does this error occur?
>>
>>  
>>

When I am downloading messages. I get one for every message 
downloaded... but seems only to be a real problem when I have more than 
one message downloading 

Comment 17

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

*** Bug 216449 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 18

[Steve Leth]

I started getting this after I upgraded to 1.6 on both Win98SE & Win2K Pro. But
it only occurs if "Leave messages on server" is checked. My ISP is Comcast, in
southern NJ.

BTW - I don't lose any mail - I just have to keep clicking Get Msgs and clearing
the error dialog until I download all the mail messages.

Comment 19

[Daniel]

Mozilla shows this error message and then starts to download some of the OLDer
messages lef on the server (downloaded before and flagged as seen) - I leave
some of my email on the server just so I can check via webmail. This is critical
error. I have e.g. 1020 messages on the server (old and seen) and Thunderbird
starts to download them all!

Comment 20

[Daniel]

Mozilla shows this error message and then starts to download some of the OLDer
messages lef on the server (downloaded before and flagged as seen) - I leave
some of my email on the server just so I can check via webmail. This is critical
error. I have e.g. 1020 messages on the server (old and seen) and Thunderbird
starts to download them all!

Comment 21

[mmallory]

An additional problem I am having which I have not seen mentioned with this bug is the following: regardless of what point the RETR error occurs, the junk mail filters are ignored for all messages downloaded before or after the error for this mail session.

Comment 22

[mmallory]

This is easily reproduceable by opening several programs in rapid succession.  For example, if I open Thunderbird 1.5.0.8, Firefox 2.0, and Forte Agent Newsreader in rapid succession I will get this error.