Closed Bug 1364748 Opened 8 years ago Closed 7 years ago

After a while, TB cannot send/receive emails without being restarted - likely caused by ExQuilla

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Untriaged
Version:
52 Branch
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED INVALID

People

(Reporter: viktor+tbbugzilla, Unassigned)

Details

(Whiteboard: [add-on: ExQuilla])

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/57.0.2987.133 Safari/537.36 Steps to reproduce: TB usually runs on my computer non-stop. Since the update to v52.1, it often happens that the connection to the server seems to close without notice so I can't send off an email I just prepared. Because it's an IMAP connection, saving it doesn't work either. At first I thought it's a server problem but the problem goes away right after restarting TB. Without being an expert on the topic, it looks as if the IMAP connection times out and cannot be reestablished without TB being restarted.
Which mail provider/ISP are you using? Charter perhaps? Maybe Gene can assist here.
Flags: needinfo?(gds)
Is this just a sending problem? Fwiw, sending doesn't use I map and doesn't keep a constant connection.
Flags: needinfo?(gds)
You're right of course, sending by itself doesn't use IMAP but SMTP. However, moving the message in question to the respective folders on the IMAP server such as "Sent" or "Draft" indeed does involve IMAP. The bug I'm describing doesn't allow me to send, i.e. cannot reach the SMTP server, and it also doesn't allow me to save my draft, i.e. cannot reach the IMAP server. A restart of TB solves the problem each time.
Jorg, mail provider is Google (G-Suite).
Start *Windows'* safe mode with networking enabled - win10 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12376/windows-10-start-your-pc-in-safe-mode Still In Windows safe mode, start thunderbird in safe mode - https://support.mozilla.org/kb/safe-mode-thunderbird Does problem go away?
(In reply to viktor+tbbugzilla from comment #3) > You're right of course, sending by itself doesn't use IMAP but SMTP. > However, moving the message in question to the respective folders on the > IMAP server such as "Sent" or "Draft" indeed does involve IMAP. > > The bug I'm describing doesn't allow me to send, i.e. cannot reach the SMTP > server, and it also doesn't allow me to save my draft, i.e. cannot reach the > IMAP server. > > A restart of TB solves the problem each time. So you are saying that you apparently lose both imap and smtp connection. If you can establish smtp connection, the message will send OK and when you restart TB the message will be in Sent folder (at least that works for me, even if imap is down during the send). But if both are down you are pretty much hosed. How often does this happen? Are your server settings fairly conventional, something like this?: imap.gmail.com, port 993, SSL/TLS, Normal password smtp.gmail.com, port 465, SSL/TLS, Normal password Another thing to try, in addition to the safe mode suggestion, is in normal mode when this happens, ping your smtp and imap server url from a cmd box to see if they respond. If they do, that probably means tb is somehow hung up and refusing to communicate. If not, then of course the servers are down. I just upgraded my tb from 48.5.0 to 52.1.0 on Win10 and have sent a few random test emails, randomly spaced, from gmail smtp and have yet to see a problem. Another temporary workaround is you might set your sent and drafts to go into a folder under "Local Folders". I think that should work without IMAP so maybe you won't lose your work.
@Wayne I might not have been entirely clear by using expressions such as "after a while" and "often". It doesn't happen every few hours but rather ever few days, sometimes once per day. I use this machine productively so I can't keep it in safe mode that long. @Gene I can confirm all you said, both servers down until TB restart, conventional server settings (auto discovery). I did not ping the servers from the PC, I'll do that next time it happens and will post the results. Having said that, even then the same server connection still works fine from my iOS and Android devices that are in the same subnet. So I'm pressed to assume the pings will go through.
Well, if working on other devices I'm sure the ping would work too. One thing I saw, after I updated on win10, after a while tb popped up a small window near the bottom saying "Failed to connect to server <my gmail address>". I only saw it once and I was still able to send an email right after seeing it. Are you seeing anything like this when your connection(s) go away? Curious too if you are using wireless or ethernet to your router? I've seen a few problem with tb on wifi freezing but only when setting up a new account and downloading huge mailboxes via imap. Moving to and selecting other folders of the account usually causes the "lock up" to resume. I also see that "Failed to connect to server ..." pop up then sometimes too.
I can confirm that I'm connecting to the router via wifi and I do encounter the same messages about failed connection attempts to the server from time to time. Sometimes, it still works after that but sometimes it doesn't with the described effect.
Ok, so it just happened again right this moment. Before that, several streaks of 2-3 days it worked fine without. Streaks because I had to restart the PC sometimes in between after a Windows Update. I updated to the latest TB version in the meantime, by the way. So it's 52.1.1 now. And I thought it's a good opportunity to exactly document what's happening. When sending the email, after a while TB tells me that the connection to the SMTP server (smtp.gmail.com) timed out. Pinging smtp.gmail.com works fine, though. Before discarding the email, I'm following Gene's advice and select a different IMAP folder in the folder list to see if that will reset the connection. The status bar says "[my@email.com]: Sending login information...". Clearly, a connection cannot be established because the last emails in that folder are not being downloaded. After about 5 minutes, nothing left but to close TB and restart it. OK, that's a new one.. it still won't connect. Ping still works fine. Let me close it again and also check in Task Mgr if it's really shut down. I guess that was the issue. The TB process - specifically, one reminder - was still open. Closed it now, will now restart TB. As expected, all works fine now.
>When sending the email, after a while TB tells me that the connection to the SMTP server (smtp.gmail.com) timed out. Pinging smtp.gmail.com works fine, though. Do you see problems before trying to send any email? Can you tell if emails were coming in right before trying to send? >...select a different IMAP folder in the folder list... That might have an effect on incoming email if it is broken down since it might re-establish the imap connection. I wouldn't expect it to affect sending via smtp connection. >Clearly, a connection cannot be established because the last emails in that folder are not being downloaded. So you are saying incoming emails are not downloading? If so, this means both imap and smtp are broken down. Did you see any pop-up boxes about tb losing the server connection? >...The TB process - specifically, one reminder - was still open... So shutting down tb did not kill the processes? When I run tb I see a single item under "Application" (Sent Mail <my.addr@gmail.com> Mozilla Thunderbird" and one under "Processes" (thunderbird.exe *32). When I shutdown tb, both go away. You aren't somehow running two tb instances, right? Do you have any other accounts other than gmail running on tb? (Sorry, you may have already said.) But, if so, do they have problems? I will try to keep latest tb running constantly on this win7 pc and see if I detect any problems with gmail sending or receiving. You say you are keeping tb running for days (except when windows updates). Do sleeps or hibernates occur during this time, which might be relevant? I am set up to sleep after about 30 minutes, but I should try to match your set-up.
One more thing: Are you using "default" server settings, specifically server: imap.gmail.com port 993 conn sec: SSL/TLS Auth meth: OAuth2 X check for new msgs at startup X check for new messages every 10 min X allow immediate server notification when msgs arrive and under "Advanced" Max server connections to cache: 5 None of these should theoretically affect sending via smtp. However, you might want to uncheck the "check every 10 min" since gmail supports the IDLE capability so it will provide the immediate notification if that is checked. Any any case, let me know how you have these set, if not default, and I will match your settings. Under outgoing connection, don't think there is much choice. Mine are default (as determined by automatic setup): server: smtp.gmail.com port: 465 conn sec: SSL/TLS Auth meth: OAuth2 (On older tb versions, I think this detected as "Normal password" for imap and smtp). If not right, auth method *might* affect server connections if security not accepted for some reason.)
> Do you see problems before trying to send any email? Can you tell if emails were coming in right before trying to send? I guess you mean to find out if the sending attempt blocks TB or if it happened before. I can't confirm this for sure but I believe the issue is not directly related to the sending attempt. Will put special attention to this next time. > Are you using "default" server settings? As I confirmed already before, I'm using default server settings, exactly as you describe, both for incoming and outgoing. > So you are saying incoming emails are not downloading? If so, this means both imap and smtp are broken down. Did you see any pop-up boxes about tb losing the server connection? Yes, and no pop-up boxes. Frankly, I don't think it's a network connection issue per se because as you state correctly, it would not affect both smtp and imap at the same time. I really think it's some other issue that at random times just locks TB out in some way, for the lack of a better term. To answer your questions about my exact setup: - I'm running TB constantly on Win10 Pro. No sleeps or hibernates. - I have two accounts running in TB. Gmail, and a private Exchange Server using the ExQuilla extension. I did not check this thoroughly enough the last time to say for sure but I am almost confident that when the issue arises, both accounts are affected. - Next to Lightning, I'm using the add-ons "Send Later", "Google Tasks Sync" and "Provider for Google Calendar". I could temporarily do without the former two but I need the calendar sync. And about killing TB: If you open a calendar item, or even an email in a separate window, closing the main window will not kill the whole process. I believe that's by design.
I don't have (or need) any of the extensions, add-ons or calendar stuff (Lightning) but I will continue to run base tb on win7 and periodically send an email to see if it locks up. So far, after about 18 hours, still OK. Thanks for checking your server settings. Yes, I now see you said you were running the auto discovery settings. However, at least for me, the OAuth2 thing didn't appear until I setup a brand new connection to my gmail account on win7. My existing gmail setups on linux didn't automatically migrate to OAuth2 when new tb versions came in but remained at "Normal password". Anyhow, if your gmail is using OAuth2 for sending and receiving then we are matching.
One more question: Are you set up to keep all emails locally or just headers? It "defaults" to keeping all emails locally but want to make sure that's really how you are configured. Just to be clear, this is under Account settings | Synchronization & Storage | Keep messages for this account on this computer (and more fine grained under "Advanced"). I am testing with Keep messages... checked/enabled and all folders under Advanced for gmail are checked/enabled for offline use except Spam and Trash. Also, I have set up my gmail account on a win10 so I can test with it in addition to tb on win7.
Ok, so I was gone for a couple of days during which time my computer and Thunderbird both stayed on. Just now, I ran into the old issue, and I can give some additional feedback. 1. I can confirm that the issue is not related to Gmail. I did indeed try to send an email from my Gmail-Account, but the other (Exchange) account is not working either. I can neither send (SMTP), nor read from or write to IMAP folders, or Exchange folders for that matter. 2. The problem did not appear only when preparing the email. Comparing the times of the last received email in TB and on my phone, TB has not received any emails for the last 3-4 hours. Gene, in answer to your last questions that I skipped because I was out of the country and very busy: Yes, I do use Oauth2. Also, I have many subfolders in Gmail that I don't need offline, so I ticked away some of the folders in "Items for Offline Use", such as "Spam" and "Bin" as well as some custom folders under Inbox. Only the last 100 days are synchronized. But after today, I really don't think it's a mailbox configuration issue.
You might see if there is anything of interest in the "error console" (ctrl-shift-j). I have had tb running constantly in win7 for about a week with no problems. I also had it running on win10 the same way but shut it down right before your last post but saw no problems. Will keep running on win7. You've probably restarted tb by now, but if not, you might try running wireshark to "sniff" the imap and smtp traffic when you try to send and receive email. It would be good to know if tb is trying to communicate. Not real familiar with the "sync last X days" feature. I assume that it removes emails older then X days from local storage. You might try turning that off for a while and see if that makes a difference (restart tb after setting to make sure it takes effect). Other than this, I'm stumped!
viktor, you might want to follow this bug 1366591 I am also working on. It may be related to your problem. However, I think only you are reporting the eventual failure of smtp and imap together. You say you are using a plug-in or extension that supports Exchange protocol? This is not just another imap server, right? Is this a commercial product? I don't want to "point fingers" but is there any chance that somehow it might be causing the communication lockup?
Gene, I ran into the issue again and checked the TB error console (ctrl-shift-j). Almost all the errors are coming from the (commercial) exchange client plugin ExQuilla. I will raise a support request with the developer, maybe he can confirm if the problems I have are related to his plugin.
So was the report misleading all along (since you said IMAP in the original description) and you're really experiencing a problem caused by the ExQuilla add-on which doesn't use IMAP but Microsoft's exchange protocol? Do you have any issues when ExQuilla is disabled/removed?
@Jorg, why misleading? I think I made it clear very soon in the thread that my issue has indeed nothing to do with IMAP. And no, I cannot confirm if my issue is caused by ExQuilla or not. I'm running the latest version of the plugin, released just a couple of days ago, but I'm still experiencing the described issues - and not just on the Exchange account but also on the Google account (i.e. IMAP and SMTP). I can't disable/remove ExQuilla because I am dependent on receiving and sending Exchange emails. As I explained, I'm running a couple of other plugins, too. Those that I don't really need, I have disabled now - let's see if it'll change anything.
Sorry, you have to raise your issue with the ExQuilla support.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 7 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
Summary: After a while, TB cannot send/receive emails without being restarted → After a while, TB cannot send/receive emails without being restarted - likely caused by ExQuilla
Whiteboard: [add-on: ExQuilla]
(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2) from comment #22) > Sorry, you have to raise your issue with the ExQuilla support. I think reporter is saying he will check a few other plugins that he can remove and see if they affect the problem; so status/resolution still subject to change...? May not have anything to do with ExQuilla.
Is it possible to run *independent* instances of TB. One would have only the exchange account with ExQuilla and the other only with imap account(s)? Since Viktor has to have the exchange account, this might be a way to troubleshoot the problem without disabling ExQuilla. If the imap only instance never fails and exhange instance does, that would tell us something. I think this explains how: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Run_multiple_copies_of_Thunderbird_at_the_same_time You need separate profiles and run each instance with cmd line arguments: -profile <path to profile> -no-remote
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