165253 - Courier-IMAP: Can't see IMAP folders the first time

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(MailNews Core :: Networking: IMAP, defect)

Description

[Michael Østergaard Pedersen]

When I start up MailNews I see a list like this:

[e-mail]
 - Inbox
 - Drafts
 - Templates
 - Sent
 - Trash

This is the cached list from last time, but when I click "Get Msgs" of if "Check
for new mail at startup" is enabled the list becomes

[e-mail]
 - Inbox
 - Trash

right after the check is done. If I reduce and expand the folder view all my
folders are suddenly back.

I'm using Courier-IMAP and have the following settings in Mozilla:

IMAP server directory: INBOX.
Personal namespace:
Public namespace: "shared."
Do not allow server to override these namespaces

Here is the IMAP communication. The first time I check for mail (and the folders
disappear) these commands are sent:

* OK Courier-IMAP ready. Copyright 1998-2002 Double Precision, Inc.  See COPYING
for distribution information.
1 capability
* CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 CHILDREN NAMESPACE THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT
THREAD=REFERENCES SORT QUOTA
1 OK CAPABILITY completed
2 login "username" "password"
2 OK LOGIN Ok.
3 lsub "" "INBOX./*"
3 OK LSUB completed.
4 lsub "" "shared.*"
4 OK LSUB completed.
5 list "" "INBOX"
* LIST (\Unmarked \HasChildren) "." "INBOX"
5 OK LIST completed.
6 list "" "INBOX.Trash"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Trash"
6 OK LIST completed.
7 create "INBOX.Trash"
7 NO Cannot create this folder.
8 select "INBOX"
...

When I reduce and expand the folder view these messages are sent:

* OK Courier-IMAP ready. Copyright 1998-2002 Double Precision, Inc.  See COPYING
for distribution information.
1 login "username" "password"
1 OK LOGIN Ok.
2 lsub "" "INBOX.*"
* LSUB (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Trash"
* LSUB (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Templates"
* LSUB (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Sent"
* LSUB (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Drafts"
2 OK LSUB completed.
3 lsub "" "shared.*"
3 OK LSUB completed.
4 list "" "INBOX"
* LIST (\Unmarked \HasChildren) "." "INBOX"
4 OK LIST completed.

As you can see the difference is that when it goes wrong Mozilla sends the command:

lsub "" "INBOX./*"

instead of this command (which is sent the second time)

lsub "" "INBOX.*"

The last is the correct command since that is what I have set Mozilla up to use
(and it works :)

Why does Mozilla insist on placing the / at the end when I check for messages
the first time even though it's not set under preferences?

This was not an issue with Mozilla 1.0 (there you just had to edit prefs.js
manually to get rid of the / at the end), but only with Mozilla 1.1

This happens with the Windows version too (tested under Windows 2000)

Comment 1

[Michael Østergaard Pedersen]

The same bug is present in Mozilla 1.2-alpha

Comment 2

[Chris A. Johnson]

I just submitted Bug# 172728 (I hadn't seen this one in my search). It appears
to be the same bug. 

The change happened between builds 1.1 Alpha and 1.1 Beta.

Comment 3

[Brian Haskin (Janzert)]

*** Bug 172728 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Brian Haskin (Janzert)]

I can confirm this using build 2002111108. 
The fist lsub command in the log looks like this,

3240[2253920]: mail.haskin.int:A:SendData: 3 lsub "" "INBOX./*"

and subsequent ones like this,

3244[226fcd0]: mail.haskin.int:A:SendData: 2 lsub "" "INBOX.*"

Comment 5

[Arno Hollosi]

This bug also causes Mozilla to delete all offline folders. I.e. Mozilla doesn't
find any sub-folders the first time (due to bug) and removes all offline data!!
After a second query (subfolders back again) a sync has to download all files
again (in my case: several megabytes). Verified with Moz 1.2.1 and 1.3a on Linux.

Comment 6

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

[e-mail], please don't set flags if you don't know how. thanks.

Comment 7

[Mark B. Elrod]

This bug appears to be caused by the default delimiter for the namespace being
set to '/' when the client is started. Once the client talks to the server it
realizes the delimiter is '.' and so it stops appending the erroneous trailing
slash. Setting the default value of the delimiter to
kOnlineHierarchySeparatorUnknown fixes this bug, however I did some research and
I think the code defaults to '/' bc all the docs for IMAP suggest strongly that
you use a delimiter and I bet some people were not setting one correctly and it
was causing problems elsewhere. Just changing this might not be the best way to
go since it may cause servers to do worse things if the user sets their inbox
value incorrectly.

It seems to me the real way to handle this is to query the server and if the
delimiter is different then the default then requery with the correct delimiter
 before deleting the folders. I will look into this approach. 

Comment 8

[Mark B. Elrod]

Attachment: sets default delimiter to kOnlineHierarchySeparatorUnknown

sets default delimiter to kOnlineHierarchySeparatorUnknown rather than '/'

Comment 9

[Mark B. Elrod]

Another approach I tried was to move the LIST command on the INBOX to before the
LSUB command. This solves the problem since during the LIST command the
hierarchy delimiter gets properly set to '.' and so the LSUB succeeds the first
time. Is there any reason we can't do a LIST before the LSUB? It appears that
the only time we get the delimiter is in response to the LIST... too bad we
don't get it in response to the LSUB.

Comment 10

[Chan Min Wai]

I've this problem solve by have unclick the show only subscribe folder.
But now a greater problem came.

Mozilla No longer know what folder is 
Sent, Template, Draft and etc (System folder)
This is actually cause some drawback.

The way to resolve this is to set manually the cooresponding folder to each of
them, luckily I only have 5 user. and that is not going to be good If I've 50
Users...

Please solve this as it is on the same line :)

Thank in Advance

Comment 11

[patrick]

pretty please with sugar on top.... fix this behaviour! 

i've just tried the latest RC for 1.4: build 2003052908 and the bug still 
persists, although the reports date way back! 

I BEG you guys! It has taken two years to get rid of the first major Courier-
IMAP problem (see 80858) and now we're stuck with this #$%^%^! Please, please 
don't make us go through this again. Go by the rfc-book and fix this (if 
possible for 1.4) once and for all!

[Don't underestimate these kind of tiny UI-issues. Their annoyance-level can 
really boost one's adrenaline]

Comment 12

[David :Bienvenu]

this won't be in 1.4 - I'll try to get to it as soon as I can for 1.5 but I have
other Cyrus issues to deal with first. I'm sorry but I only have a very small
amount of time to deal with IMAP issues.

Does your Cyrus server support personal namespaces, so that you can get rid of
the online server directory? Your folders will show up as sub-folders of the
INBOX, but I believe we show the folders correctly.

Comment 13

[David :Bienvenu]

taking to investigate.

Comment 14

[Jens Thiele]

this bug was not present in 1.0.0 1.0.1 1.0.2 (at least the debian versions - i
do not know if debian added some patches)

Comment 15

[David :Bienvenu]

can anyone reproduce this with a 1.5 trunk build from today? I can't reproduce this.

Comment 16

[Ere Maijala (slow)]

Setting the IMAP server directory seems to work now. It didn't work in my debug
build from 20030721. 

Comment 17

[David :Bienvenu]

Yes, I made some fixes to the handling of the imap server directory. Yes, we'd
like to get rid of it, but it was easier to make it work.

Comment 18

[karmak]

Just tried the 2003/08/07 nightly, and the problem appears to be solved. Thanks.

Comment 19

[David :Bienvenu]

marking fixed