245811 - If I want to check for new POP mail by clicking The "Get Mail" button, intermittently it does not work.

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Henry Kupets]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
Build Identifier: TB 0.6 Build 20040502

The TB configuration:
1)I have my profile saved in my home directory on the Netware 6.5 server (Drive 
H: mapped to my home directory).
2)The TB account settings | server settings: everything is unchecked. We don't 
want on our network the email client to check for new messages every few 
minutes.

If I leave the TB window open for some time ?! without checking my mail, when 
after that I click on the "Get Mail" button, nothing happens.  No indicatioin 
in the status bar that the TB is trying to connect to the mail server to pop my 
messages.  The only way to fix it is to restart the TB.
The problem is intermittent.  Sometimes even if I leave the TB window open for 
few hours it will do the job when I click on "Get Mail"


Reproducible: Sometimes
Steps to Reproduce:
1.Create a TB mail prfile on the server's mapped drive
2.In the TB configuration- account settings |server settings uncheck everything.
3.Check for new mail couple of times and leave the TB window open for a while 
(the time is uncertain). Click on the "Get mail" button after that.

The problem can be reproduced approximately 7 times our of 10.
Actual Results:  
No indication in the status bar that the TB is trying to connect to the mail 
server to POP new messages.

Expected Results:  
Host contacted.  There are no new messages on the server. 
  Or
Host contacted.  Downloading ...

I've enabled TB logging.  Attached are two log files after two instances of 
problem reproduction.  The very end of each file is when the TB "Get Mail" 
button stops working.

Comment 1

[Henry Kupets]

Attachment: Thundrbird log file

Comment 2

[Henry Kupets]

Attachment: Thundrbird log file

Comment 3

[Daniel Schonfeld]

Would like to add that the same bug appears in the linux version and cannot seem
to find a solution for it.

Linux 2.6.8.1
KDE 3.3.3
Thunderbird 1.0
POP3 mail accounts - about 4 of them.  Primarly using the main account, which is
the default account for the default user.  The one that comes with TB.  I leave
thunderbird open for prolonged time and cannot check mail until I restart the
program again.  Happens every single time TB is open for some amount of time.

Comment 4

[Peter Wilson]

This also happens on TB 1.0.6. I have two mail accounts defined. Clicking on the
"Get Mail" button sometimes does nothing. Clicking on the down arrow and
selecting "Get All New Messages" works fine. 

Comment 5

[Mark Glover]

I'm new to bugzilla, so please forgive bad etiquette.

This bug is still happening on version 1.5.0.4 (20060516).

Interestingly, it was not happening on the version that I had before that (sorry, can't remember the number, but was downloaded about March 2006), but was happening on an even earlier version (downloaded about September 2005).

My system is Toshiba Satellite M50, Windows XP Home SP2.

This bug has started to occur within the last week or so, which is not long after I installed version 1.5.0.4 (20060516).  3 other bugs have started to occur simultaneously with this one.  I am looking for reports of these other bugs, (but having difficulty finding them)  They are:

1.  Auto check of mail isn't happening after the first check on start up.
2.  I get the compact mail boxes dialog box when I select any folder after startup.  Nothing happens when I select OK (probably because there is no compaction possible!)
3.  On first startup, the number of unread messages in the Inbox is incorrectly reported as a higher number than the actual number, until I select another folder, then re-select the Inbox.

These are all repeatable.

Comment 6

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

To all problem reporters:

This kind of problems is reported in many cases by users who love "keeping big Inbox file size". An example in MozillaZine Knowledge Base/Thunderbird FAQ;
 http://kb.mozillazine.org/Knowledge_Base 
 -> Thunderbird / Frequently encountered issue
    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Category:Issues_%28Thunderbird%29
    -> N / New messages do not appear
       http://kb.mozillazine.org/New_messages_do_not_appear
       -> Link of 'this workaround'
          http://kb.mozillazine.org/Inbox_stays_blank
Try procedure described in this "Inbox stays blank" article (deletion of Inbox.msf) first.
(Q1) Will situation be improved?

Since recreation of Inbox.msf is executed just after starting of Thunderbird, contention of ".msf" recreation(and/or compaction) and mail download (at start up and/or every NN minutes) may occur, if file size of "Inbox" is very large.
See next article, then try some know-hows described in there.
 http://kb.mozillazine.org/Knowledge_Base 
 -> Thunderbird / All Thunderbird articles
    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Category:Thunderbird
    -> Articles in category "Thunderbird" / K / Keep it working(Thunderbird)
       http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keep_it_working_%28Thunderbird%29
        (There are many links to important "Account Settings" items.)
(Q2) Will situation be improved?

To Henry Kupets(bug opener):

Another possibility - problem when profile on Network drive.
Some issues are already reported when profile or mail directory or some other files/directories are held on network drive or remote directory.
As far as I remember, there is locking problem when file on network drive by some network file servers.
Try next test.
  1. Create a mail folder for test(say "TEST")
  2. Copy some mails to TEST(many mails as possible, to force long compact time)
  3. Delete some mails but not all mails(generate deleted but not erased mails)   
  4. Compact folder for "TEST"
  5. Try to copy(and/or delete) some mails to(from) "TEST" while compaction
(Q3) Will (4) and (5) successfully complete?
     Or similar problem will occur when your mail directory on network drive
     of "H:" by Netware server?

Comment 7

[Oleg Ostrozhansky]

*** Bug 348771 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[David :Bienvenu]

is this bug happening on the trunk or TB 2.0 Alpha builds?

Comment 9

[Oleg Ostrozhansky]

Attachment: States of threads, by Process Explorer (OpenOffice file)

More info about my setup is in bug 348771.

TB 1.5.0.5 (20060719), WinXP

Does everyone else seeing this problem have password NOT stored for the account?  (I've read that TB silently skips accounts for which it doesn't have a password, so I'm wondering if the problem is it "forgetting" the password -- just a WAG)

Removing Inbox.msf and compacting Inbox did not make any difference (I didn't try renaming Inbox).  But while the problem was happening, I moved a message from Inbox to another folder, and compacted Inbox again, and all these operations were performed properly.  Still can't get new messages.  (And by the way there were no new messages between the time TB successfully connected to the server, and now -- I checked via Webmail, and there are no new msgs).

(sorry for compressing the attachment, it was too big without compression)

Comment 10

[jwq]

There are a large number of bugs filed against failure of the "Get Mail" button; Bug 165832 is a tracking bug to which I've added several unconfirmed bugs reporting this issue.

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Henry appears to be gone. Daniel's address is invalid.

That leaves Mark, Peter and Oleg.

Comment 12

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

Resolving incomplete since there's no additional useful information since last comment.

Please comment if the issue still occurs in the latest supported 2.0.0.x / trunk nightlies.