Closed Bug 152675 Opened 22 years ago Closed 15 years ago

Getting an error about the folder being processed (compacting) and can't retrieve mail

Categories

(MailNews Core :: Networking: POP, defect)

Product:
MailNews Core
Component:
Networking: POP
Platform:
x86
All
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 466933

People

(Reporter: griffon4, Unassigned)

References

(Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

(Keywords: regression, Whiteboard: see comment 96 to understand "duplicate" resolution)

Attachments

(2 files)

Screenshot of the boog
141.26 KB, image/jpeg
Details
Screenshot of the bug.
70.65 KB, image/gif
Details 
New to Alpha build 1.1 (2002061104).  When I open Mail/News and it attempts to
retrieve my mail, I'm getting a prompt to compact folders (as usual).  If I
click yes, it continually says my folder is being processed and never finishes
the compacting or retrieving mail.  If I close Mail/News but leave the browser
open, I get the folder being processed message immediately and no mail (and
never finishing compacting.  If I click no to compacting the folder in the
beginning, I am able to get mail, but it will ask me to compact the folder again
when I reopen Mail/News.  I have since turned off the auto-compact feature in
Preferences and am not having a problem getting mail.  This is a feature that
I've used for many builds of Mozilla and never encountered this problem before.
Attached image Screenshot of the boog — 
Added screenshot, just in case.
I found a similar problem.

If I install Mozilla 1.4, I won't get my messages.

When I start my mailer program I see I have messages, but the mailer don't get
it. If I click "Get Msgs" button, the mailer alert me: "This folder is being
processed. Please wait until processing is complete to get messages."

I tried wait but nothing happend. I tried click again, but the result was same.
I didn't modify my preference.

If I install the old Mozilla 1.3a, I will get my all messages.
When I start the Mozilla 1.3a mailer, I see I have messages. Then I simply click
"Get Msgs" button and I get my messages.

I have an another computer with another accounts. It works properly with new
Mozillas (for example Mozilla 1.3).
When I start that Mozilla I see I have messages and I get my mails (without
clicking "Get Msgs" button).

Mozilla 1.3a and previous issue work properly.
Mozilla 1.3b, Mozilla 1.3, Mozilla 1.4 contain this bug.
My operating system is Windows 98 SE.
Attached image Screenshot of the bug. — 

    
    

    
  
Confirming on linux with 1.3, 1.4a and a weekly from a week ago.

Deleting the msf-file makes the folders work normally again. I can reproduce
this with the following steps (using a pop-server that doesn't support
concurrent logins from the same user):

1. telnet to your pop-mailserver: telnet mailserver.domain pop3
2. login: USER username. PASS password
3. Click Get Messages for the appropriate account.
4. You get an error message that you can't login because of an already opened
session (clicking OK simply respawns the message box).
5. Wait a few minutes (until the pop-server and/or mozilla time out).
6. Dismiss the error dialog. A new error dialog complaining about the timeout opens.
7. Use Get Messages again. The "folder is being processed" error message comes up.

Assignee: sspitzer → mscott
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Component: Mail Window Front End → Mail Back End
Ever confirmed: true
OS: Windows 2000 → All

    
    

    
  
Moving to networking:POP as it's a POP connection timing out that corrupts the
Inbox.msf file. This worked in previous versions: Adding regression keyword.
Assignee: mscott → naving
Component: Mail Back End → Networking: POP
Keywords: regression

    
    

    
  
Hello!

I have the same problem.
I've deleted the .msf index files, it didn't helped, then reinstalled newest 
Mozilla with empty profile (saved folders elsewhere and deleted form profile), 
ceated the POP account again, and the same window appeared. Is there a lock 
file outside the profile, or entry in the registry?
Is there any solution?

Best regards, Istvan

    
    

    
  
You're sure to have deleted the right .msf files (while mozilla wasn't running)?
That does 100% reliably resolve the problem for me.

    
    

    
  
Confirming for Mozilla (1.4a) on Win2K Pro.  What is the workaround?
I read something about a Preference configuration to *not* auto-compact
but do not see this in any of the Preferences dialogs. Any insights
appreciated. Thanks.

    
    

    
  
I also have this issue, but the suggested workaround of deleting the .msf file
resolves the issue only temporarily.  

    
    

    
  
mass re-assign.
Assignee: naving → sspitzer

    
    

    
  
*** Bug 203974 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

    
    

    
  
*** Bug 205379 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

    
    

    
  
*** Bug 205453 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

    
  
Blocks: 205756

    
    

    
  
I am seeing this with Linux, 1.4b. I can always cure it (temporarily) by 
restarting Mozilla. For me it does not seem to have anything to do with 
compacting. Have not yet tried deleting Inbox.msf.



    
    

    
  
I would like to point out that I filed this bug a LONG time ago using a
completely different build.  I suggest the orginal problem is solved (if it was
ever there for anyone but me) and that all the new reports are a NEW problem
with the same symptom for build 1.4.  So my notes about the problem and my
solution will most likely not apply to the current state of things.

For whatever it's worth.  I was just ahead of the times.  :)

    
    

    
  
*** Bug 206350 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

    
    

    
  
This bug seems to have gone away for me. I am still using 1.4b so it must be 
something that changed in the state of my account at attbi. The only clue I 
have is that I pulled down a few messages using fetchmail (I was going to 
use that as a workaround until this bug was fixed). I only did this once. 
Now I seem to be able to retrieve using Mozilla repeatedly without restarting 
Mozilla. Is it possible that the one transaction using fetchmail cleared 
whatever it was in my attbi account that was doing this?


    
    

    
  
RE: Additional Comment #17 From shochat@acm.org
I found the same in the past few days I have not had the error message appear. 
I have not changed any settings or upgraded.  Maybe it was attbi messing around
preparing for the switch to Comcast mail servers soon.  Heard June 30 as the
date, but the switch date has been delayed a few times in the past.

    
    

    
  
This occurs conistently with active filters, making the program almost unusable.
With several filters active, switch from Inbox to another folder to read mail.
Return to Inbox. Click Get Msgs. Get "This folder is pbeing processed" Alert.
The condition never clears. Must restart mozilla to use the mail client again. 

    
    

    
  
*** Bug 193421 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

    
    

    
  
It occurs with my Mozilla 1.4. (and also with 1.3) on WinXP.
It happens when i have a lot of messages - aprox 30 MBytes, i think that also
matters that my mozilla is configured to leave messages copies on server.
I'm not able to get any of new messages due to this bug. I've tried to remove
messages from server (using mozilla - placing downloaded messages in thrash and
removing them) and...mozilla deleted them locally and started to download them
ONCE AGAIN from server (aaargh!). So as for now my mailboxes are totally messed
up :[.

    
    

    
  
*** Bug 212801 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

    
    

    
  
Also seeing on Thunderbird 0.2a (20030826) using POP on WinXP.

It was configured to leave messages on the server (I hadn't realized it).  I
unchecked "Leave messages on server" and encountered the problem.  Re-checking
it fixed the problem; I also checked the "Delete messages on server when they
are deletetd or moved from Inbox" checkbox which also doesn't seem to cause the bug.

    
    

    
  
(1.4(final)) Also getting the bug and it is not clearing, with restarting, etc.,
or changing account preferences.  Had a filter set and 'Delete mail on server
when deleted or moved from Inbox' checked.  Nothing seems to clear it.

    
    

    
  
For me, this problem came up with build 20031019 and still remains here with
20031023. In one of my accounts where I use to receive about 2500 junk mails per
day (no joke!), I cannot get any mails any longer since a few days.

I tried everything you all suggested in this bug thread - no help.
I even quitted Mozilla and renamed the Inbox folder to Inbox_old. Starting up
showed a new Inbox folder, told me about thousands of emails that should be
received now ... but none was received. I let Mozilla work 24 hours - no progress.

Then I cleared my pop password for this account and after being asked for the
password again, I received an error discription like this: "Sending of password
didn't succeed. Server responds: Can't get lock, Mailbox in use." I never heard
of this before and there should noone else be accessing my mailbox.

Any hints or workarounds in sight?

    
    

    
  
Another comment:
- I removed the according email account, renamed the according mail/<data>
folder and restarted Mozilla 1.6a (build 20031023) on my Win2000 system.
- Then I created this email account new from the scratch, with all settings like
before.
- Clicked on "Get Messages" ... I received at last 3 of some THOUSAND mails.
That's it.

---

Then I downgraded to Mozilla 1.5 (20031007) and retried everything. No success.

---

Then I created the same account on my MacOS X Mozilla 1.5a (2003060803) and -
everything is fine. I receive all e-mails. But I would like to get them on my
Win system, like before.

Conclusion: There is no problem on my server. It must stick somewhere in my
Windows and/or Mozilla installations.

I had to install my Windows about a week ago - it's now in C:\WIN2000\. After I
reinstalled my stuff (beside other programs I use Pinnacle Studio), Mozilla
started asking me for a dll named PNCRT.DLL. I saw this one installed with
Pinnacle Studio and MGI VideoWave and guess it's used by some Mozilla RealPlayer
PlugIn, too. I copied the DLL from the Pinnacle folder to C:\WIN2000\ and
Mozilla started without asking for this DLL any longer.

I wonder if something of the above refers to this bug - but it must be located
somewhere here in my Windows and/or Mozilla installations. So my story might
help others with the same problem to find a way to the bug.


    
    

    
  
Me again.

I found kind of a "workaround" to solve my problem. It sounds strange - and it
is, indeed.

First of all, I downloaded all stuff from my "problem" account with my
well-working Mozilla 1.5a on my MacOS X computer, leaving the mails on the
server, too.

Then I tried again to download them on my Win2000 computer with build 20031023 -
no problems, everything worked fine.

Suggestion: Does the alert "folder is being processed" definitely refer to my
mail account's Inbox folder or does it rather refer to my server's according
mail acount folder, doesn't it?

Strange things happen with my beloved Mozilla. Keep on hacking, guys.

    
    

    
  
Had this bug again today. The according account wasn't able to download mails
for about 4 days. Now there were about 9'300 e-mails (no joke).

I tried everything. Only this helped:
On the server I called "mutt -f <my_pop_account_foldername>" and deleted some of
the (first) mails in this account.

Then I was able and downloaded the rest of this stuff.

    
    

    
  
*** Bug 222672 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

    
    

    
  
See also Bug 101584 for the alerts.

    
    

    
  
I finally figured this bug out.  The "folder is being processed" message is 
NOT coming from the Mozilla/Netscape program.  It's coming from your mail 
server, and it appears to be caused by some piece of mail that the server 
is "choking" on.  You've got to delete this piece of email somehow in order 
for your Mozilla/Netscape to download the rest of the mail again.  In my case, 
it was a piece of email that was a response from someone to a piece of email 
they had received with a "DOOM" worm in it, and my ISP (Comcast Cable) 
apparently blocked the transmission of this via my regular POP download.  So I 
used Comcast's web-based email client to get at my email directly, and I 
deleted it (and all other pieces of suspicious mail such as ads for penis 
patches, etc.).  Then I went back to my Netscape and hit the Get Messages 
button, and bingo.  All was right again.  If your ISP doesn't have some handy 
Web-based email interface, you might have to use UNIX commands to purge your 
server file.

This all made sense of the problems I was having.  I had kept getting 
the "being processed" message even if I created an entirely new Netscape email 
profile for myself, whereas my wife, using the same Netscape client, had no 
problem at all.  That's when I realized that the problem had something to do 
with my POP email account on the server rather than on my Netscape program on 
my own machine. 

So... make your server cough up the bone in its throat, and you're back in 
business.

    
    

    
  
#31:
I can confirm your explanations. As I already commented in another bug thread, I
was able and deleted the according mails with mutt directly on my Linux server.

Is there no chance that Mozilla can simply kind of "skip" these "server sticky"
mails and get the next one then?

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #32)
> #31:
> I can confirm your explanations. As I already commented in another bug thread, I
> was able and deleted the according mails with mutt directly on my Linux server.
> 
> Is there no chance that Mozilla can simply kind of "skip" these "server sticky"
> mails and get the next one then?

I'll second that. I've gone back to using outlook express because of this bug.
It doesn't choke on these emails. This needs to be fixed if its going to be
considered as a replacement for other mail clients.

    
    

    
  
I'm seeing this with build 2004021109.  I think the developers need to realize
that this problem is a regression and it happens too frequently.  Perhaps, it is
the mail server that is creating the alert message but Mozilla should re-word
the alert to make it much more clear to the user what is going on.  However, I
suspect that other mail readers work fine.  Perhaps, Mozilla needs to be a
little bit more tolerant with POP servers and/or provide more info to the user.

In any case, this bug is very very frustrating.  Please address it.


    
    

    
  
Please mark this as a duplicate of bug #220225 and change the severity to major
because not being able to read mail is a MAJOR problem.



    
    

    
  
Why should a lower bug number be a duplicate of a higher bug number at all?

    
    

    
  
I meant the opposite make that bug a duplicate of this one and mark this one as
major.


    
    

    
  
As a Comcast ISP customer this bug prevents me from using Mozilla for email.
The bug occurs two or three times a day. I realize the fault lies in both
Mozilla and Comcast, but since one can access Comcast email with Outlook Express
as well as Comcast's email service it suggests Mozilla needs to fix it.

    
    

    
  
I think that in my case it was the Antivirus (Norton AV 2003) that produced the
bug.  I've turned the email scaning off and Mozilla downloaded all the messages.



    
    

    
  
I think that NAV isn't the "producer" of this bug. I had this error in Linux
version of Mozilla, and there is no NAV. Anyway, I'm using now Thunderbird,
which is free of this bug. 

    
  
Summary: Getting an error about the folder being processed and can't retrieve mail → Getting an error about the folder being processed (compacting) and can't retrieve mail

    
    

    
  
*** Bug 239125 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

    
    

    
  
Comcast must have solved the problem at their end.  The problem went away, at
least for me, suddenly about a week or two ago.  I did not change anything but
the problem stopped and Comcast pop3 mail has behaved correctly ever since and
Norton anti-virus is still running (I suppose it is possible that Norton updated
itself and that that elminated the problem.)

    
    

    
  
Of course as soon as I said that the problem appeared to be resolved it
returned.  Problem was related to an e-mail that had no sender and no subject. 
Deleting it via webmail let things start flowing again.

    
    

    
  
I see this error using Norton AntiVirus 2004. If Norton stops an incoming virus
& I acknowledge the Norton alert pop-up window in a short period of time, all is
well. 

If a virus-infected email arrives when my machine in unattended & I don't get a
chance to acknowledge the Norton pop-up I see this error from Mozilla. I have to
restart both my browser & email windows & then Mozilla starts handling email
again. Apologies for the layman's terms, if more information is required, please
tell me what I need to supply.

With the recent spate of viruses I'm having to restart my browser & all tabs
every few days. Please fix this very annoying bug! 

I'm using:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7b) Gecko/20040316

    
    

    
  
I see this problem consistently with 1.7beta and the 20040403 build. It always
happens after compacting mailboxes, and I have to *completely* exit mozilla to
get it to go away. Things seem to degrade over time also -- for instance, while
it is in this "mode", I eventually cannot move mail from one folder to another.
Very, very annoying. Let me know if there is any debugging I can do on my local
machine to help resolve this issue.

    
    

    
  
*** Bug 203921 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

    
    

    
  
Mozilla 1.7b
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7b) Gecko/20040316

I've had this problem several times, with different builds, but it has gone away
and returned erratically, and I have not reported it. Today it is causing
persistent trouble. I may have something to add -- it resembles the comment that
certain bad messages at the head of the server's inbox cause problems -- but I
don't know if it is the same bug, since it did not present the other symptoms,
like the "being processed" message. A few weeks ago I received an email, but
could not get to the other messages on the server. I restarted Mozilla many
times, and received that one message again and again endlessly (I actually got
more than ten before looking for a solution). I used 'webmail' on the
Earthlink.net server and deleted that message, and everything worked fine. I did
not find anything special in the offending email, an HTML message from a hotmail
friend.

Today a couple of times I got the "being processed" message, but I don't know
how to provoke the message again. Using webmail, I deleted all the junk from my
server inbox, but it did not help Mozilla. (I did not want to delete the first
message, because it is a good message that I want Mozilla to sort into a
subfolder of my inbox.) I log off my Windows user account and log back in to get
a fresh start. Now Mozilla starts out and says it is getting message 1 of 18,
but nothing arrives.

    
    

    
  
This is a MAJOR problem!!!  It has happened now and then for a year and lasted
half a day but this time it has been two or three days and I can only get my
email by using another mail client ( netmail.verizon.net ). It really seems like
a Mozilla bug. I have rebooted my win XP box, upgraded mozilla, disabled all
virus checking. I even went to my notebook computer and strangely enough it did
the same there in the Mozilla on the notebook. On my main PC I have very a large
old mail colection in many folders but almost nothing on the notebook PC. 

Reading through the additional comments I tried accessing my email at verizon
with another netmail.verizon.net and deleting all my pending mail.  Then mozilla
at least said no mail messages. I sent myself a test e-mail. Immediatley I got
the folder being processed message again! So it is still a BIG FAT BUG!


    
    

    
  
Further comments on the "folder processing" bug. I upgraded to the Mozill 1.7
prerelease from 1.6 and the mail problem went away. For the first time in three
days I can get mail with Mozilla! I was forced to use Outlook for two days.
Outlook worked on the same PC that Mozilla failed on.  This certainly indictaes
the bug had to be in Mozilla. It also seemed to be in old versions of Netscape,
i.e. Netscape 6 which I tried on another PC. With Netscape it just hung getting
mai, no folder being processed message.

So, let us hope 1.7 fixed it and it wasn't just some artifact of the install
process that fixed it. I did remove 1.6 before installing 1.7.

Regards, Charlie

    
    

    
  
I can confirm that this error still occurs in 1.7RC2.

See:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=152675#c44
for my original comments. 

    
    

    
  
I can confirm this bug in Thunderbird 0.6 on Windows XP, but not on Linux, and
in Mozilla 1.7RC3 on Windows XP.  The retrieval of new mail fails on XP at a
particular message which is often quite similar to a message that doesn't fail.
 The TB or Moz client reports that the folder is being processed so you cannot
fetch mail or compact the folder.  If you exit TB/Moz you may find that XP
thinks the Inbox file is in use by a program.

The Linux TB 0.6 retrieves the same new mail without difficulty, and removing
the stuck message cures the immediate instance of the problem, if the Inbox
isn't locked.

Turning off email scanning in Norton Anti Virus 2004 allows Mozilla 1.7RC3 to
read the stuck message and continue on from there.  (CAUTION - you will lose
your entire Inbox if you have NAV configured to delete infected files and Moz
writes a virus into your Inbox.)  Incoming email scanning is done by a POP proxy
so NAV can clean a message at a time.  There is a "protect against timeouts"
option among the advanced email scanning options which is supposed to protect
the email client from getting impatient while large attachments are scanned by NAV.

This is a very intermittent bug.  It happened so rarely with TB that I might
have lived with it, but when TB lost an Inbox I upgraded to Mozilla.  When I
updated my virus definitions, Mozilla's mail downloading was interrupted by many
"I found a virus" popups from NAV.  Only when I turned off those alerts did I
finally get to a state where this bug was triggered, and it has only triggered
once so far in Mozilla.

There's been discussion of problems concerning NAV in the Mozillazine forums
since last October, some very unhappy campers there.

    
    

    
  
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a3) Gecko/20040719

This also happens for me on XP, but only the first time I start Mail. I have
filters on.

    
    

    
  
yep, its still happening with 1.7.3 and by not its happening to me upto 10 times
a day.
somebody seems to have fun sending malformed mails and kill mozilla mail doing
so. everytime i have to go into webmail and delete the messages.

--snip--
Return-Path: <tytkaxmyx@jumpy.it>
Delivered-To: 36-mgabriel@geekworx.de
Received: (qmail 7068 invoked from network); 6 Aug 2004 03:14:34 -0000
Received: from cdm-68-226-174-120.laft.cox-internet.com (68.226.174.120)
  by geekworx.de with SMTP; 6 Aug 2004 03:14:34 -0000
X-Message-Info: X[1
--snip--

thats enough to produce that folder processing bug.
theres no easy workaround and its a major loss of function ... severity = MAJOR!!!

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #53)

> somebody seems to have fun sending malformed mails and kill mozilla mail doing
> so. everytime i have to go into webmail and delete the messages.

This seems to be a different bug, please submit as a new bug if it hasn't been
done already.

Also note that this problem might be ISP related as well (or where ever you
receive you e-mails from). Some servers aren't configured correctly to handle
specific type of e-mails or malformed ones (e.g. my ISP has the same problem).

    
    

    
  
why is it different ?
there are comments about getting some mails and about deleting them fixes is, so
this bug is about malformed messages breaking mozillas folder state, no ?

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #55)
> why is it different ?

You're describing a problem which kills Mozilla. The bug here is about getting
the error saying that a folder is being procced and therefor it can retrieve any
new mails. This happens when automatic folder compacting is enabled.

As far as I know this isn't just caused by malformed messages like you describe
and it certainly isn't causing Mozilla to crash or hang (assuming you mean
"crash" or "hang" by "kill").

The problem you're having is an endless attempt by Mozilla to retieve the
malformed mail from the server, am I right? If not, my mistake and sorry for
causing the confusion.

    
    

    
  
I'm reporting that this bug is hitting me too.

I haven't followed people's comments exactly, but if my ISP is dropping the POP
connection prematurely Thunderbird/MozMail should still handle it.

Software configuration:

My ISP's POP server identifies itself thus:
+OK POP3 PROXY server ready (7.0.031.3)
<FD20477C1A6B1E7C9F8DEDC7BA584A382C3C66C2@pop01.iprimus.com.au>

Thunderbird version 0.7.3 (20040803) (also happened with previous versions)

Norton AntiVirus 2003

Win2k SP4


    
    

    
  
I got the same problem now with Mozilla 1.7.3.

I've fetched mail (while I fetched mail I visited some pages in Navigator if
that matters) and then I've deleted several of the new mails and marked some as
Junk. Some minutes later I tried to fetch mail again and got his "processing"
alert. Anything I could do is to restart mozilla. After restart Mail/News
mozilla told me that the msf-file now gets recreated, so it seems to have been
corrupted. I use a POP3 server, too.

    
    

    
  
ozilla 1.7.3
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910

I doubt this message relates to the state of the ISP.  When I get this message
if I exit Moz and restart it all works just fine until a few days later when the
message reappears.  Note:  I normally have moz mail up and running 24 x 7. 
Sometimes it will go 6 months without the error and then it seems to happen a
number of time over a period of a few weeks and then stop happening.  No pattern
is obvious.  I do not delete the MSF file and Moz does not itdicate it is doing so.

I have 4 mail accounts, two of which are busy and are set to auto-download.  The
other two are relatively inactive and set do NOT auto-download.  IT is the busy
auto-downloading accounts which get the error.

    
    

    
  
After suffering with this bug for over a year, I have migrated from Mozilla
1.7.3 to Firefox 1.0 & Thunderbird version 0.9 (20041103)

I have confirmed the bug still occurs with Thunderbird 0.9 but at least I no
longer have to close down a browser with 20 tabs so I can read my email. This
bug still requires a restart of Thunderbird when it occurs, but it is of less
impact to me now. BTW - the conversion from Mozilla to Firefox/Thunderbird took
a matter of minutes - very impressive.

& the bug description as I see it:
I see this error using Norton AntiVirus 2004. If Norton stops an incoming virus
& I acknowledge the Norton alert pop-up window in a short period of time, all is
well. 

If a virus-infected email arrives when my machine in unattended & I don't get a
chance to acknowledge the Norton pop-up I see this error from Thunderbird.
Thunderbird requires a restart before it will talk to the POP server again &
download more mail.

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #60)
> After suffering with this bug for over a year, I have migrated from Mozilla
> 1.7.3 to Firefox 1.0 & Thunderbird version 0.9 (20041103)
> 
> I have confirmed the bug still occurs with Thunderbird 0.9 but at least I no
> longer have to close down a browser with 20 tabs so I can read my email. This
> bug still requires a restart of Thunderbird when it occurs, but it is of less
> impact to me now. BTW - the conversion from Mozilla to Firefox/Thunderbird took
> a matter of minutes - very impressive.

The same here - it's still a pain, but at least you don't have to restart the
browser...

> 
> & the bug description as I see it:
> I see this error using Norton AntiVirus 2004. If Norton stops an incoming virus
> & I acknowledge the Norton alert pop-up window in a short period of time, all is
> well. 
> 
> If a virus-infected email arrives when my machine in unattended & I don't get a
> chance to acknowledge the Norton pop-up I see this error from Thunderbird.
> Thunderbird requires a restart before it will talk to the POP server again &
> download more mail.

I don't have antivirus, and I am getting the same behaviour on both Windows and
Linux. But I have a slow connection (dial-up) and fetching messages over POP3
from long distance - slow transfer with a lots of errors. So I think that the
problem is that the network layer does not handle connection errors and timeouts
properly.

Product: MailNews → Core

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #60)
> I see this error using Norton AntiVirus 2004. If Norton stops an incoming virus
> & I acknowledge the Norton alert pop-up window in a short period of time, all is
> well. 
> 
> If a virus-infected email arrives when my machine in unattended & I don't get a
> chance to acknowledge the Norton pop-up I see this error from Thunderbird.
> Thunderbird requires a restart before it will talk to the POP server again &
> download more mail.

Just further to this... If I acknowledge the Norton alert pop-up & then just let
Thunderbird do it's thing I do not need to restart Thunderbird. It's the
combination of me acknowledging the pop-up alert in Norton & then immediately
hitting "Get mail" in Thunderbird which causes the error. 

If I acknowledge the pop-up & then just leave Thunderbird to fetch mail at the
next interval (I have it set to check every 10 minutes) all is well.

I hope this information helps someone else while we are waiting for a proper fix.

    
    

    
  
For me, this bug no longer occurs since about one year now. We have seen the
according alert ("Folder being processed ...") does NOT come up from Mozilla but
from the according mail server. Then we found out that killing some "sticky"
mails directly on the server helps resolving this process.

Maybe I did never ever receive wrong formatted e-mails since one year. I guess
it would be a good idea to have some of these wrong formatted e-mails isolated
in order to check why mail servers hang on these.

    
    

    
  
I still have this issue, more or less often, on both Windows and Linux. My
theory is that the problem is somewhere deep in the mozilla network library,
which is not robust enough in case of network problems. I am using dial-up for
my thunderbird home e-mail and the server is literally across the planet (in
central Europe, I am currently in Australia), so the connection is often slow
and low quality. I am having problems with thunderbird trying to download
messages, when it quite often stops, especially on longer messages, and does
nothing. Manually pressing Get New Messages button returns just the known "is
being processed" message. So restart and again. Sometime it takes three restarts
to get all messages (~200 on average), sometimes ten, sometimes it just works
with no restart neccessary. The problem seems to be more obvious when the line
is under load from other applications, i.e. when I am downloading patches for my
debian installation, or running windows update, or just browsing the net.
I have similar problems with firefox downloads. If I start download of several
files simultaneously, or if I download and browse at the same time, the download
quite often stops in the middle as if finished.
So I would guess it is in the networking code shared by firefox and thunderbird...

I have already got sources and build thunderbird on my machine to look at the
problem, but I haven't found time yet to start looking at the code, and as I
haven't done any mozilla hacking yet, it will probably take a while to start to
understand it...

    
    

    
  
Same story as in my Additional Comment #47 in April.
This time I had been using dialup webmail for about 10 days (interruption in DSL
connection), and I had cc:ed one of my own messages to myself (so it would
automatically download into Mozilla when I next connected). Then, in both dialup
and DSL, I could not download messages - got Mozilla status line, "Downloading 1
of n". In webmail I moved a few messages to a different webmail folder. It seems
that the offending message was the cc: message from me.

    
    

    
  
I've been tracking behavior such as this for two years now on Outlook/Express,
Eudora, and mh.  Thundebird deals better, but gives lesser info.

THere are three types of messages that cause these hangs.  
1) messages with malformed Subject: (and perhaps other) headers
2) Messages with no content
3) Messages improperly byte-stuffed or crlf'ed

The first is impossible for the popserver to deal with.  Seems to me that mailers
must have a way to separate the poppping of mail from the display of mail, and
that the two should post separate errors.  

The second *may* be illegal according to various RFCs, but is is *so* easy
to check for.  It seems that the email harvesters out there are begining to
cut costs and are checking for bounces to scrub their email lists and are 
doing so with the smallest mails possible.

The third is truly a POP server error.  The protocol is clear that lines of
messages must not begin with a '.', but must be byte-stuffed '..', and must
end with a <CR><LF>.  That said, mh has always ignored the crlf issue, but 
does fail on the lack of byte-stuffing.

Mail clients can be resisient (and should be, IMO) to these protocol lacks.
Even Outlook correctly balmes the server and gives helpful (if not precise)
diagnostics.

-sam

    
    

    
  
I have a little light to shed on this.

My previous installation (Thunderbird 1.0, Norton AntiVirus 2003) exhibited the
reported buggy behaviour. There was some kind of installation issue with my
previous installation of NAV as it would not load all the program updates via
LiveUpdate. I think the bug occurs when the POP connection is terminated
unexpectedly, and that's what I think NAV was doing when it encountered a
message with one of those malformed headers inserted by a virus.

New installation (Thunderbird 1.0, NAV 2003) does NOT exhibit the reported buggy
behaviour. NAV, this time, has loaded all its program updates. I've had the new
installation for >1 month.

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #66)
> I've been tracking behavior such as this for two years now on Outlook/Express,
> Eudora, and mh.  Thundebird deals better, but gives lesser info.
> 
> THere are three types of messages that cause these hangs.  
> 1) messages with malformed Subject: (and perhaps other) headers
> 2) Messages with no content
> 3) Messages improperly byte-stuffed or crlf'ed
> 
...
It seems unlikely that these are the only causes:  If I get the problem and
shutdown Moz and then restart it _with_the_same_email_waiting, the problem does
not reoccour.  
I suppose that it is possible that the pop server reset itself, but all messages
then download without problem.

    
    

    
  
I get an issue (on 1.7.5) where sometimes mozilla will stop retrieving mail
(clicking "get messages" gives the "folder is being processed" error or
sometimes does nothing at all).
Closing mozilla completly and re-opening, it then proceeds to "build summary
file for folder inbox"
Its a pop3 connection and I have a fair number of mail filters running
(including junk mail filtering)
Is this the same thing as mentioned in this bug or is this something different?


    
    

    
  
I've started getting this alot in recent months and I've been wondering whether
other people have had the same experience, or whether my mail server is the one
that's up to no good.

    
    

    
  
i got this problem 2-3 times this week with TB 1.5 ID:2005110712

--> only on one pop account (other can retrieve mails without problem)
To solve: need to restart
OS: win XP pro SP2

    
    

    
  
i havent had this for years no. does deleting the indexes (*.msf) fix it ?

    
    

    
  
I still get this error. Should removing the indexes make any difference when rebuilding them is what the compacting function does?

    
    

    
  
doesnt compacting only remove the marked for delete mails from the mbox files ?
anynway, i used to have that problem on a daily basis. stopped happening with a new profile. all customers of mine that had that problems since could fix it by deleting their indexes and rebuilding them ...

    
    

    
  
I still get this error, but less often than before.  It used to happen several times daily.

I'm almost sure that the error is due to a timeout; I use the "Spamfu" proxy to filter out spam.  If it's heavily swapped out, or the distributed hash servers (dcc, razor, etc.) take a long time to respond, then Mozilla seems to time out the connection (after about 30 seconds?) and any attempts to use that mailbox again will fail until you restart Mozilla.

I'd bet that increasing the network timeout for POP connections and/or cleaning up better on timeout would fix the problem, but that's a guess based on watching the symptoms, which are repeatable.

    
    

    
  
there's a pref that controls the network timeout - it's under your control :-) I think there's even UI for it under the advanced options.

    
    

    
  
Increasing the network timeout wouldn't fix the real bug--the real bug is that there's something that apparently doesn't get cleaned up properly if the connection times out.

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #75)
> I still get this error, but less often than before.  It used to happen several
> times daily.
> 
> I'm almost sure that the error is due to a timeout; I use the "Spamfu" proxy to
> filter out spam.  If it's heavily swapped out, or the distributed hash servers
> (dcc, razor, etc.) take a long time to respond, then Mozilla seems to time out
> the connection (after about 30 seconds?) and any attempts to use that mailbox
> again will fail until you restart Mozilla.
> 
> I'd bet that increasing the network timeout for POP connections and/or cleaning
> up better on timeout would fix the problem, but that's a guess based on
> watching the symptoms, which are repeatable.
> 

I second this observation. While I was on a dial-up line fetching my mail from POP3 server over half of the world (Australia<->Europe), I was hitting this problem VERY often. Now I am back in Europe and have a fast line, I see the problem very seldom.
So it is most likely a connection not cleaning up after itself in case of a timeout.
Here comes an idea - if the timeout is under user control, what about setting it very low (say 1 second). Will that trigger that problem on even fast line? I can't test it at the moment, sorry.

    
    

    
  
No, increasing the timeout is not a fix for the bug - that's why the bug is still open. I was just responding to the previous comment.

    
    

    
  
sorry for the spam.  making bugzilla reflect reality as I'm not working on these bugs.  filter on FOOBARCHEESE to remove these in bulk.
Assignee: sspitzer → nobody

    
    

    
  
Since upgrading to TB version 2.0.0.6 (20070728), I am getting this error on my inbox, which has over 2700 messages in it.

I am running x86_64 Linux, openSUSE 10.2 with a 2.6.23-rc4 kernel.

    
    

    
  
This happens to me every day at least once at random. It seems to happen about once out of every 10 attempts to fetch. Each night I empty trash and compact folders in my main account, which on an average day receives over 1000 messages. Is it possible this has something to do with biff, which here is checking every 7 minutes?

    
    

    
  
Filter on "Nobody_NScomTLD_20080620"
QA Contact: esther → networking.pop
Blocks: 406848
Blocks: 341206

    
  
Flags: wanted-thunderbird3?
Product: Core → MailNews Core

    
    

    
  
Which products use mailnews core?

Supposing that it's still part of Thunderbird, I think maybe this bug should be closed down (forward-duplicate to newer bug 466933). The summary of this bug is not very specific as it doesn't specify the scenario when the bug occurs. Steps are not easy to go through and they refer to an ancient version of the product. So do many of the comments: 65 out of 83 comments are 5 years old and older. So maybe it's helpful to start afresh.

I think bug 466933 should not be duplicated against this because it has a more specific scenario, and less of the above-mentioned clutter.

Or maybe we should have one new collector bug against which we can duplicate all bugs that see the message but don't have solid steps/circumstances.

    
    

    
  
In addition to having a collector bug for unspecific / unclassified duplicates:

Another useful way of trying to find out more about the complex causes of this error message would be a meta bug for all bugs that refer to it. Quite a lot, closed, active and unconfirmed. And some of the closed fixed bugs actually have doubts if they were really fixed and even possibly valuable information that hasn't been used so far (like bug 260447, comment #26).

So:
1) Should I open a collector bug for unspecific / unexplained duplicates of this?
2) Should I open a meta/tracker bug for this?

    
    

    
  
I use SeaMonkey, 1.1.18 currently. To expand on my comment #82 I'm guessing a possible reason for my guess at biff involvement is pop server being unresponsive. It seems just as common that I get this folder being processed holdup as when I attempt a mail fetch and see one or more of the pop servers being unresponsive. It might help to narrow down if "this" could be changed to the name of the actual folder that's being processed.

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #85)
> Which products use mailnews core?

Thunderbird / Seamonkey and probably a few others.

    
    

    
  
Wow, I can't believe this bug is still open all this time.  I would second Thomas D's suggestion.  The fact is this bug was an issue on a piece of software a long time ago, and it was very specific situation where Auto-compact was turned on and the system was trying to retrieve mail at start-up, so both were happening at the same time.  I've had auto-compact turned off for so long frankly I don't know if this issue persisted.  I have to believe there are other more testable bugs on more recent software, if the issue exists at all any more.

    
    

    
  
Sorry to upset the apple cart BUT I am running the latest version and this message is still appearing, so it is NOT a dead issue but very much alive.

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #90)
> Sorry to upset the apple cart BUT I am running the latest version and this
> message is still appearing, so it is NOT a dead issue but very much alive.

Please specify what your latest version is - is it the latest 2.x version or the latest nightly build? In any case, please include the info from help -> about.

    
    

    
  
Thunderbird version 2.0.0.23 (20090812) on Win XP SP3

"folder being processed" happens to me semi-randomly.

IMHO, the blocked task should be rescheduled and logged (as part of a more comprehensive live logging system, at the very least like the Progress History Extension) rather than a modal popup.  Ideally, the log entry would include helpful info on the original task and the task that is blocked.

Moreover, if the blocking is due to fetching mail from the same source multiple times, the identical tasks can be merged -- again, without a modal popup, but with a logged message.

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #90)
> Sorry to upset the apple cart BUT I am running the latest version and this
> message is still appearing, so it is NOT a dead issue but very much alive.

BECAUSE it is so very much alive, my suggestion was to make examining and fixing the problem of this bug more efficient by resolving it as a duplicate of a more recent version of the same / a similar bug, where we can re-focus on the current issues around this error message (cf. my comment #85 and comment #86). But I am not completely sure about good solution.

> this message is still appearing
Comment #90 is the proof that we need to clarify the summary of this bug and/or perhaps create a new collector bug for unspecific reports of this bug. "this message is still appearing" doesn't help much because we're trying to find the situation / cause for "this bug". Note that (the appearance of) the message itself is not a bug, although the UI is also under discussion which is another aspect again.

I'm quite sure we also need a meta bug for all issues that relate to this error message. But I am waiting for developers' opinion how to handle this more efficiently because of their knowledge, overview and experience.

    
    

    
  
I'm using Shredder 3.0pre, I don't see this message anymore.

-[Unknown]

    
    

    
  
What's here doesn't seem to have resulted in any fixes, and no group or person seems to have taken a serious lead in triaging/organizing pop bugs this past year. Also, the regressing bug number has never been identified.

This is a non-meta bug, so it may gives users the false impression that it may lead to some solution, which is quite unlikely, whereas other bugs may have good detail [1]. So possible directions for this bug are:
* close
* someone takes the lead to modify it to a meta bug about getting new mail, which related bugs [1] could block to this
* go in a direction with someone else's "excellent idea" :)

--- 

[1] Possible related bugs ... help diagnosing and detailed information that may lead to a fix will certainly be appreciated, but please do not comment in a bug unless you have detailed info.  pop3 log per https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging are often useful/required. 

 Bug 227665 -  RETR Command fails and no subsequent mail retrieved.
 Bug 267062 -  get new mail fails silently if we're currently downloading mail into the same inbox
 Bug 261992 -  GetMail button inoperative with Global Inbox
 Bug 438680 -  Get Mail fails after mail server is restarted

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?field0-0-0=short_desc;bug_severity=major;bug_severity=normal;field2-0-0=longdesc;value0-0-0=retrieve%20get;short_desc=mail%20message;field2-2-0=short_desc;value2-0-0=pop%20pop3;type1-0-1=substring;value1-0-1=pop;value2-2-0=imap%20junk%20tag%20past%20focus%20filter%20index%20search;type2-0-0=anywords;product=MailNews%20Core;product=Thunderbird;field1-0-1=component;type1-0-0=anywords;type2-1-0=notsubstring;type2-2-0=nowordssubstr;short_desc_type=anywordssubstr;type0-0-0=anywordssubstr;field2-1-0=component;negate1=1;resolution=---;query_format=advanced;value2-1-0=imap;value1-0-0=pop%20pop3;field1-0-0=short_desc

    
    

    
  
As Wayne and I and the bug opener have pointed out (comment 85, comment 86, comment 89, comment 93, comment 95), this bug isn't actionable any longer, and the original description doesn't apply any more because of old age.

However, due to the very broad summary, the underlying problems of many comments and duplicate bugs might still exist. So it's not really fixed, and not really working. It's not a perfect duplicate, but a way of indicating that the problem persists in other ways.
--> Therefore: Duplicating against more recent variant in bug 466933 as a way out.

Wayne, we should not turn this into a meta bug, it's too old and big and confused.
--> A new meta bug and/or collector bug might still be needed for unexplained cases of getting the "This folder is being processed" error msg, as I propose in comment 85 and comment 86.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 15 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE

    
  
Whiteboard: see comment 96 to understand "duplicate" resolution

    
    

    
  
This cannot be a duplicate of bug 466933 as long as that bug remains a Thunderbird bug. This core bug was filed long before Thunderbird existed, and remains a Suite bug for me and I'm sure others.

    
    

    
  
Hello Felix, thank you for pointing out that this bug relates to Core and/or SeaMonkey as well. Still, for all the reasons mentioned above, it's no longer actionable in its current shape. If you think this should live on as a bug against Core, please file a new followup bug with clear and concise Steps to reproduce, Actual Results and Expected Results.
Flags: wanted-thunderbird3?

    
  
No longer blocks: 341206

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