162272 - mailbox in use makes my type password over and over

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 91656

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Account Configuration, defect)

Description

[Daniel André]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.1b) Gecko/20020721
BuildID:    2002080304

When I am using my mail program to check an account that I share with others, I
have to re-enter my password, if others are checking it at the same time I dio.
Every time I get the error PASS command did not succeed, Mailbox in use, I need
to enter my password again. The whole mail checking stops and freezes until I am
back at my computer and type in the password again. Not everyone has access to
such passwords, and mail should just try again, instead of deleting the password
and making me type it over and over again.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.reproduce a mailbox in use error 
2.see that you have to enter your password over again
3.

Comment 1

[Malcolm Rowe]

I presume that you're using POP3 to access the mailbox?  If so, then this is 
caused by a fault with the POP3 protocol.  Access to mailboxes under POP3 is 
synchronised (only one person can have it open at one time), but the protocol 
does not allow the client to distinguish between 'invalid password' 
and 'mailbox locked'.

Most mail clients have logic to 'guess' whether the mailbox was locked by 
looking at the message returned with the result of the PASS command, but this 
isn't very reliable, as the specification doesn't require that anything is sent 
after the +OK or -ERR result.

Mozilla 'forgets' the password if it gets an error return after submitting the 
password in order to avoid spamming the server with incorrect passwords when 
checking for new mail.  If we repeatedly try to log on with an incorrect 
password, we can end up locking out the user (bug 138815).

Comment 2

[Daniel André]

Yes I use the POP3 protocol. But how can it be that the program can not
distinguish between mailbox in use and invalid password? It DOES give me
different error messages when it reports mailbox in use, than when it reports
invalid password! I've recieved both errors..

Comment 3

[Malcolm Rowe]

I didn't think that we were interpreting the message returned after -ERR, 
although I might be wrong.  When it gives you the different error messages, is 
it just quoting the server's response, or does it look like it is interpreting 
it first?  For example, Eudora just quotes the server, and the error message 
looks something like 'The server replied: invalid password'.

It might be useful to generate a POP3 log, just to confirm that the server 
isn't acting oddly (though I doubt it).  Set the following environment 
variables before you run mozilla:

set NSPR_LOG_MODULES=POP3
set NSPR_LOG_FILE=<filename>

... and then run mozilla and generate the mailbox locked error.

Comment 4

[Daniel André]

How do I set the environment vriables? I've set them through the command line,
using set, and running the set command shows me the two varibles, but the output
file remains empty..

Comment 5

[Malcolm Rowe]

Reporter, make sure you have completely quit mozilla (including quicklaunch, if 
that's enabled), then go to a command prompt, issue the set commands, and run 
mozilla from *that* command prompt.

I've just tried it, and the logging works.  I can't test the original problem 
though, because my ISP 'implements' mailbox locking by blocking until the 
mailbox is unlocked (grr), and my local Exchange server doesn't lock the 
mailbox exclusively.

Comment 6

[Daniel André]

Attachment: Log file for the requested test case, demonstrating a mailbox in use error.

Here is the attachment that shows some of the output file, where you will find
the error "mailbox in use".

Comment 7

[Malcolm Rowe]

Daniel, what exacltly is the message that is returned to you by Mozilla when 
you get the mailbox in use error?

Is it:
'The PASS command did not succeed.  Mail server webmail.activeisp.com 
responded: mailbox in use'?

Comment 8

[Daniel André]

Yes, that is the message that I receive.

Comment 9

[Malcolm Rowe]

Mozilla is just echoing the message that the server returned, so we're doing 
the same thing whenever we get an error after PASS.

I've done some digging, and this is actually a duplicate of bug 91656.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 91656 ***

Comment 10

[Ninoschka Baca]

Verified Duplicate.