1591843 - Confusing error message about IMAP - "You may have exceeded the maximum number of connections to this server"

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(MailNews Core :: Networking: IMAP, defect)

Description

[Robert Miles]

Attachment: cax2.PNG picture of confusing error message

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:70.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/70.0

Steps to reproduce:

Started Thunderbird, with two email accounts using IMAP already added.

Actual results:

Error message:

Unable to connect to your IMAP server. You may have exceeded the maximum number of connections to this server. If so, use the Advanced IMAP Server Settings dialog to reduce the number of cached connec...

Note - it SOMETIMES works properly.

How do I tell which account if more than one uses an IMAP server? How do I identify which cached items to reduce, WITHOUT losing any messages?

Expected results:

Normal start, with downloading any new messages at the four accounts set up.

I use a beta Thunderbird version, 70.0b4 (32-bit).

Comment 1

[gene smith]

Tb by default makes up to 5 connections to each imap server, one for Inbox and one more for each of the most recent folders (mailboxes) you have selected. Some servers (accounts) may not allow all 5 connections and limit it some. This is not a fatal error and only a warning that the imap server returns to the user. Tb runs fine with just one connection but you may see better performance with more.

Sorry, but the message doesn't tell you which server is complaining. Maybe this should be fixed. A possible way to know which server (account) is causing the problem is to disable all but one account and click on folders and messages in that account to see if the message occurs. If not, disable that account and enable another account and restart tb and check the next account for the error.

Unfortunately, tb doesn't have an explicit way to disable an account. However, you can effectively disable an account by going to "Server Settings" for the account and unchecking/disabling the following items and restarting tb after making changes:

Check for new messages at startup
Check for new messages every ___ minutes
Allow immediate server notification when new messages arrive

If a folder in the "disabled" account is not selected (clicked on) no communication to the server will occur. So with just one account (server) "enabled" at a time, you can tell which server is causing the error. Once the offending server is determined, go to Server Setting / Advanced... and reduce the "Max number of server settings to cache" by one, restart tb and test the enabled server/account again. If you still see the error, reduce the number again and test again.

Once the problem is fixed you can go back and reset the three items listed for each account to their original settings (by default all 3 are checked/selected). So now all your accounts are enabled again.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

maybe a yahoo frontier account?
see https://mzl.la/2pvoBnk

Comment 3

[Robert Miles]

What's a yahoo frontier account?

One of the accounts is on a Yahoo server, but not either of those using IMAP.

The next beta version for 70 made it more obvious how to reduce the connections to each IMAP server, so I reduced the number to 4 for each IMAP account, and I have not seen the problem since.

Comment 4

[gene smith]

Ok, glad that fix it. But curious about what in beta 70 made how to do the change more obvious?
Anyhow, since the feature to reduce the number of connections per server exists so servers don't complain, I will go ahead and close this bug.

Comment 5

[Robert Miles]

One of the changes from 70.0b4 (32-bit) to the next beta version - I didn't notice what, but it might have been restoring the ability to scroll down far enough to see the portion of the settings for connections per server.

Comment 6

[gene smith]

(In reply to Robert Miles from comment #5)

One of the changes from 70.0b4 (32-bit) to the next beta version - I didn't notice what, but it might have been restoring the ability to scroll down far enough to see the portion of the settings for connections per server.

Well, the "advanced..." server setting screen where you set the number of connections is a very small pop-up and doesn't scroll and the setting is right in the middle. At least that's how it is on my system. Anyhow, thanks for the reply.