Closed Bug 1571655 Opened 6 years ago Closed 6 years ago

Error on sending: "unrecognized IMAP4 command"

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

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

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 741374

People

(Reporter: kenneth.harwood1, Unassigned)

Details

Attachments

(2 files)

Photo of error message
381.79 KB, image/jpeg
Details
imap.log file containing IMAP4 error entry [supporting Chris post]
100.69 KB, application/octet-stream
Details
Attached image Photo of error message —

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/75.0.3770.142 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

Send an email.

Actual results:

I press "send" to send the email, it sends perfectly okay, but then an error message pops up at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen:

The current operation on 'Sent' did not succeed. The mail server for account kenneth.harwood1@btinternet.com responded: unrecognized IMAP4 command

Currently I am experiencing no issue with people receiving my emails but I asked my technician about this issue and she found a thread on your forum with an almost identical problem (instead of 'sent' it said 'inbox') where people had not resolved the issue and it HAD been causing them issues. I'm trying to prevent this becoming an issue that stops my mailbox from working. Thanks in advance.

Expected results:

No error message.

Summary: Error message on sending → Error on sending: "unrecognized IMAP4 command"

I have exactly the same issue. But in my case the error message can be generated by clicking on ANY email folder in any of my three IMAP accounts whether sending or receiving any mails. Oddly, once I have clicked on a mail folder and the error message has been generated and cleared. Then the error message does not appear if I click the folder again. But if I leave Thunderbird open but unused for a few hours or close and reopen TB again. Then the error messages come back again.

This issue I think started just after the last TB update.

I downloaded and manually over-installed the current 60.8 version but the error messages still persist. However, they do not seem as far as I can tell to prevent mail functionality. I can still create, send, receive, delete and move messages even though the error message pop-up shows.

TB installed on Windows 7 Pro platform (fully patched with all MS updates).

IMAP doesn't have anything to do with the actual sending of the mail, however it does deal with moving mail that has been sent to the sent folder which I believe is the issue.

If you haven't tried repairing the folder I would suggest doing that first. It doesn't happen often but it might be a place to start.

Let us know what happens.

Flags: needinfo?(kenneth.harwood1)

I have used the 'repair folder' tool on all my mail folders (about 30 of them). There is no change to this issue. I notice that the original poster and I are both using @btinternet.com mail. The error message does state that TB has received an IMAP4 command FROM btinternet.com that it does not recognise. I have been into BT Web mail today via the web account interface (first time for a long time) and found that BT webmail has been updated with a new GUI interface. There may also be more changes under the BT hood that are not obvious.

I also notice that the IMAP4 error message generated by TB is not consistent, there appears to be a 'time of day' element to it. TB had been pretty much error message free during this morning and afternoon, but this IMAP4 command not recognised error has come back again this early evening. So I suspect that there might be some form of handshaking timing issue that is more prevalent when the btinternet.com mail servers are more busy.

Since I can generate the error just by clicking a folder to view it (even if the folder is empty), then I assume that TB is sending IMAP4 commands back to the web based mail servers to check for any new content that might need to be downloaded to TB to synchronise it.

I do not get any form of IMAP error message when accessing my BT Internet mail accounts via my Android Tablet IMAP client.

Flags: needinfo?(gds)

If Chris and reporter K Harwood could duplicate the problem while recording an IMAP:5 log it would certainly help. I have never actually seen this problem so I have no idea at this time what is causing it for you. You can find the details on how to create the log by looking here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging

The log should record which IMAP command is causing the problem. When you have the log, please attach it using the "Attach file" link above or provide a link to a file sharing service if you prefer. You might want to redact personal info that might appear in the log before attaching it.
Thanks!

Flags: needinfo?(gds)

Not sure if this fixes it or not but some have suggested on bt forum that you change your Server setting | Server name to "mail.btinternet.com". Maybe it was previously "imap.btinternet.com". I recommend a tb restart after changing this. This is just a shot in the dark so still need the logs (unless this really does fix it).
Edit: If your current "Connection Security" setting is STARTTLS, you might also try using SSL/TLS on port 993. Again, a tb restart recommended. "Normal password" should be fine.

Regarding Logging.
I created the batch file and ran it as administrator (UAC confirmation box opened and was enabled) as described in the link you gave. I was able to observe the IMAP4 error message appear when clicking one of my 'Sent' folders (that folder was empty by the way). Having observed the error message appear, I decided to see what the log file said about it.

However upon opening the imap.log file created on my 'desktop' to review it. The file was completely empty. Hence why it is not attached.

In order to test that the batch file and IMAP logging was working. I sent a test message from one of my IMAP accounts to another. I then deleted the received message from the second account and also deleted the test message from the sending account. I then opened the imap.log file again, and found it was full of log entries that related to the IMAP actions just described. So this proves the log file was working. However processing my 'test mail' as described above did not generate any IMAP error messages. So this populated log file is not of any value as it just logs what looks like a perfectly good working system. Hence this populated log file is not attached either.

I will continue to try this logging task and see if I can capture an 'error message' event in it. If I am successful, I will of course upload it in a later post.

Regarding mail server name.
My account servers are and have always been mail.btinternet.com and never been set to imap.btinternet.com
My 'Connection Security' settings was and still are SSL/TLS on port 993

Regarding Logging an update.

I closed TB down and re-ran the batch file. The batch file started TB running as expected. Only this time upon starting TB I got an IMAP4 error message appear straight away as part of the TB starting up process i.e without me clicking on any folders or undertaking any mail actions.

I opened the log file and found references to IMAP4 error from timestamp 08:38:07:528000

This log is now attached. I see this as a good log file as it is relatively short in length and the error was generated as a 'start up' event and therefore is not bogged down by any interaction that I personally might have had with the TB application.

Thanks, the log explains it. It appears that the imap provider, btinternet, is claiming the capability to support imap rfc for ID, https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2971 , but returns an error when tb sends the ID command. Notice that ID is in in the returned capability string:

2019-08-08 08:38:07.216000 UTC - [4456:Unnamed thread 107FE190]: I/IMAP 1B4EF800:mail.btinternet.com:NA:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 UIDPLUS NAMESPACE QUOTA STARTTLS AUTH=PLAIN SORT SORT=DISPLAY MOVE ID THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT THREAD=REFERENCES THREAD=PARTICIPANTS X-THREAD X-FIRSTLINE CONDSTORE

When tb sends the ID command, btinternet responds with the error:

2019-08-08 08:38:07.512000 UTC - [4456:Unnamed thread 107FE6D0]: I/IMAP 1BF8E800:mail.btinternet.com:A:SendData: 4 ID ("name" "Thunderbird" "version" "60.8.0")
2019-08-08 08:38:07.528000 UTC - [4456:Unnamed thread 107FE6D0]: D/IMAP ReadNextLine [stream=1BF66880 nb=34 needmore=0]
2019-08-08 08:38:07.528000 UTC - [4456:Unnamed thread 107FE6D0]: I/IMAP 1BF8E800:mail.btinternet.com:A:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 4 BAD unrecognized IMAP4 command

Although you will see this error pop up, it really causes no harm since the ID command is really just for informational purposes and doesn't affect incoming email (and has no relation to outgoing email). Also, once connections are established, you won't see this again until connections are dropped due to inactivity which often occurs after about 1/2 an hour. Also, when you send an email and tb has been idle a while, you will see this when tb opens a new connection to the server to save the message to Sent folder.

Since sending ID is completely optional, other clients such as mobile mail apps may not even send it.

So either just ignore the error or notify btinternet of the problem and ask them to either remove ID from their capabilities or just return an empty OK response to the ID command which is acceptable per the rfc.

Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 6 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID

Thank you for the explanation and suggestion.

I don't know what country you are located in, but BT in the UK are a monolithic entity in this country for which there is no access to people in the BT product management groups that can make decisions of that nature and act on customer requests. I know because I am a retired ex BT employee and know something about how BT works internally. The people that would even understand what the issue is, are not in any way customer facing. As BT is a near monopoly in the UK, the UK government has created a company structure where the company is split into different operating divisions. BT Retail is the 'customer facing' division. BT OpenReach is the lines provision part of BT and BT Wholesale own the network. Each division is not 'in law' (competition laws invoked by OFCOM) allowed to exchange customer specific information between them. Although they are all part of BT Plc, they are forced to operate as completely different companies within the BT Group. Therefore progressing a change (initiated by just one customer) to the way that the email servers are configured to solve the issues of a very small number of customers, is just not going to happen. Particularly, as BT policy is stated in the T&Cs for email that the customer interface is via WebMail. BT go on to state (paraphrased) that POP & IMAP interfaces are provided 'as is' without technical support.

Is there not an additional tick box configuration setting in TB that could be added in a future update that could suppress the sending of the informational ID command that the BT Mail Servers don't recognise.

I ask this, because Mozilla products like Firefox and TB seem to be able to respond more effectively to making changes in reasonable time-frames.

Yes I could just ignore the error message, but it is an irritation that does not help my OCD tendency to want to see everything working perfectly, even if it is a 'false positive' error.

Thank you for reading........

I looked in the tb code and found this:
mail.server.default.send_client_info

If you set it false using the "config editor" in tb, it should stop tb from ever sending the ID command (again, restart tb is recommended). This will affect all your accounts but doubtful that other servers will care either. If it does cause problem for others, it's possible to define new prefs that are server specific.

Let me know if this works. P/S: Yes, I know what you mean. Had a similar problem with my ISP email, charter.

Edit: But there seems to be a lot more complaints about this at bt forum than there were with my problem with Charter:
https://community.bt.com/t5/Email/unrecognised-imap-4-command-when-using-thunderbird/m-p/1959282

This issue actually came up with another server in the past. So marking this as a dup.
For good info see: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=741374#c14

Resolution: INVALID → DUPLICATE

Thank you so very much. I really do appreciate your tenacity to follow through with a solution.

I need to monitor TB operation for a couple of days to be absolutely sure. But initial test results look good. I toggled the line you quoted from true to false and re-started TB. Sent a 'test message' to myself and clicked on all my 30+ folders. So far at least, I have not seen the error pop-up.

Thank you also for the link to the BT community page. That just re-enforced my comment about BT being monolithic and unresponsive to customer issues. It's always someone else's problem in BTs eyes....never theirs.

With your permission. I would like to document your fix on the BT community page for others to try.

PS - I have just seen your follow up message about a previous instance of this issue on a different ISP provider and a comment that the config line you quoted was introduced to solve that previous issue. That would seem to indicate that it is indeed a permanent fix to the problem.

Thank you once again

Chris

With your permission. I would like to document your fix on the BT community page for others to try.

No problem.

Chris, I read your write up on the bt site. If they allow links I might suggest linking directly to this bug so the BT technical people can see the log you recorded and read other comments to analyze the problem. Also, just to be clear, tb is not just sending the ID command and bt is rejecting it. Bt actually first tells tb that it supports the ID command (in the capability response) and then bt rejects it. Maybe there is something about the ID request command that tb sends that all other servers accept but, for unknown reasons, bt rejects.
Also, I noticed that some responders to your post didn't think it helps. One (rugbyguy) says he tried it. But looking at is previous posts it seems he is using POP3 and not imap. Also, another responder said he is using an "EM" client. In that case, maybe EM client doesn't send ID at all since, even if supported by bt, it is completely optional.

Gene,
URL link posted on the 'BT Community' site as per your request.

Thanks again for your support

PS - Since implementing your fix, I have been running TB for several hours without any return of the IMAP4 error message.

Gene,
One final reply from me just for your information.

You obviously had more faith in BT than me. Someone in authority on the BT community website has taken notice of your assessment of the issue and posted that BT have implemented a 'fix' on their new updated IMAP front end software on their servers.

To test, I changed the TB config line back from 'false' to the default 'true'. So far, the BT fix seems to be working and holding.

Here's the solution. GoTo:
Tools > Options > Advance > General tab. Click on "Config Editor" bottom right
Except the warning. Look for string "mail.server.default.send_client_info"
Double click on it to make it false. Close out and close Thunderbird and restart and it's fixed no more notifications.

This stops Thunderbird from sending ID info to your server It is something with your provider or server you use for Thunderbird.

(In reply to Robert from comment #18)

Here's the solution. GoTo:
Tools > Options > Advance > General tab. Click on "Config Editor" bottom right
Except the warning. Look for string "mail.server.default.send_client_info"
Double click on it to make it false. Close out and close Thunderbird and restart and it's fixed no more notifications.

This stops Thunderbird from sending ID info to your server It is something with your provider or server you use for Thunderbird.

You might see a prompt about you Password just click ok if you have not changed it.

Flags: needinfo?(kenneth.harwood1)
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.

Attachment

General

Creator:
Created:
Updated:
Size: