Closed Bug 1655645 Opened 5 years ago Closed 5 years ago

Check for new messages at startup fails for first email account

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Untriaged
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: robertmilesxyz, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: [closeme 2020-08-22])

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0

Steps to reproduce:

A problem with some of the recent beta versions of Thunderbird, including 79.0b2 and 79b3 (32-bit):

I have four email accounts set up. The one with the highest volume is placed first.

All are set to Check for new messages at startup.

Actual results:

This setting does NOT work for the one with the highest volume.

Instead, the second one downloads new messages at startup, and the second one is the one automatically selected as the default account to look at when starting, whether it has any new messages or not.

The first account does check for messages every X minutes correctly, starting X minutes after startup.

The third and fourth accounts have too low a volume to be sure whether they check for new messages at startup.

Expected results:

It should have downloaded new messages for all 4 accounts at startup, and selected the first account to look at first.

See Also: → 1655008

Are you still seeing this when using a newer beta?
If so, which antivirus software do you run?

Flags: needinfo?(robertmiles)
Whiteboard: [closeme 2020-08-22]

Still present for 80.0b3 (32-bit).

I use Microsoft Defender.

Flags: needinfo?(robertmiles)

What happens if you change settings so that only the first account should check at startup?
pop accounts or imap?

No change for which account is shown first.

No change to the first account not getting checked at startup.

Not enough volume of messages on the other three accounts to tell if they are checked at startup.

First account uses SMTP and POP, with SSL/TLS.

I also tried changing the settings so that the first account is not to be checked at startup, but the other three are.

No change for which account is shown first.

No change to the first account not getting checked at startup.

Not enough volume of messages on the other three accounts to tell if they are checked at startup.

The default account account should be listed first both in account manager, and in the left-hand folder pane. So this part of comment 0 doesn't makes sense to me "Instead, the second one downloads new messages at startup, and the second one is the one automatically selected as the default account to look at when starting, whether it has any new messages or not."

It may not make sense, but that's still what's happening.

aceman ^^

Flags: needinfo?(acelists)

How do I identify which account is set as the default account? The account settings don't seem to say anything about it.

The account I call the first account is the one listed first both in account manager, and in the left-hand folder pane

It is not, however, the account that Thunderbird show messages in automatically when it starts; instead, it show messages in the second account in both lists.

How do I identify which account is set as the default account?
In Account Settings
Select the top account name in the list (which should be the one set as default).
Click on 'Account Actions'
The option 'Set as default' should be grey/disabled, because as it is already set as default, you cannot choose that option.
This tells you the account you selected is already set as default.

Menu app icon > Activity Manager
This should tell you account activity for that session.

The one I call first account was already set as the default account.

You forgot a step. This works, though:

Menu app icon > Tools > Activity Manager

With checking for messages a startup enabled for all four accounts, I started 80.0b3 and then enabled the activity manager.

Initially showed nothing. About six minutes later, it showed the second account being checked; no new messages.

Four more minutes, and it showed the fourth account being checked, and one message downloaded.

One more minute, and the first account was checked; 51 messages downloaded. Then those messages were indexed.

About this time, I got a message about 80.0b4 being available.

No messages about the third account being checked. Unclear if this is important; it's on the same server as the second account, and seldom gets more than one message a year.

Nine more minutes, and the fourth server was checked again.

One more minute, and the first server was checked again; one message downloaded.

Does this pattern mean that no servers were checked at startup, even though all of them were set to be checked at startup, or does it mean that the activity manager doesn't show anythin that happened before it started?

Is there a way to start Thunderbird and the activity manager simultaneously?

I upgraded to 80.0b4, and then started the activity manager.

The same pattern started again. Nothing shown immediately, then second account, then fourth account, then third account, a ten minute delay, then fourth account again. a few more messages mixed in due to reading a message then moving it to another folder, or emptying trash.

You mention the first account is pop. How frequently is it set to check for messages ? 10 mins ?

Are the other accounts imap ? If yes, in Account Settings > Server Settings, is this selected : 'Allow immediate server notification when new messages arrive' ?

re : second account - About six minutes later,
Is this an imap account ? check for new messages every X minutes - how frequently is it set to check is it 6 mins?

re :"Does this pattern mean that no servers were checked at startup, even though all of them were set to be checked at startup, or does it mean that the activity manager doesn't show anythin that happened before it started?"

I understand the Activity Manager should show everything that occurred in that session; from when you restarted Thunderbird. So it should include the 'startup' check in the list.
I'm not sure how many emails your first pop default account receives, but you would have expected the 51 messages to have not suddenly appeared in the previous 10 minutes, so based on that it doesn't look like there is a start up check.

Looks like either none are being checked or the 'Activity Manager' has an error in that it is not displaying the initial start up check or you have something that is interfering.

Do you use 'Owl' addon ? Exchange-managed-by-Owl ?
What addons have you had installed eg: Manual Sort Folders ?

All four accounts are set to check for messages every 10 minutes.

The second and third accounts are IMAP type. The first and fourth accounts are POP/SMTP type.

The first account often receives more than 200 messages per day. I often log into the browser window of that account in order to release the messages that the provider incorrectly marked as spam, shortly before starting Thunderbird.

No addons are installed. Do the beta versions of Thunderbird even allow addons? A few were installed long ago but now deleted due to beta versions that refused to allow them.

There was a known issue that could occur using certain addons and I wondered if they you had used 'Manually sort folders' in the past and whether it had been not just disabled but removed and nothing left in the 'prefs.js' file.

If you restart Computer in 'Safe Mode with Networking' and then start Thunderbird as per normal and open the Activity Manager.
Do you see different results in the Activity Manager ?

I use three user profiles, and two installed versions of Thunderbird.

One user profile is used mostly for email; it's the one I've mentioned above.

The second one is used mostly for newsgroups, and hasn't been used for months.

The third one was created to test Thunderbird startup; it gives a message that it needs an email account before it can do anything.

The first two each have a prefs.js file; I can open them with Notepad but cannot change them.

The first TB version is now the 80.0b4 beta version.

The second TB version is 56.6.0 (32 bit), and is used for trying some addons that not longer work under the latest beta version.

I've forgotten how to restart to safe mode with networking. The help file and HP's Virtual Assistant don't seem to recognize that this mode exists. Do you have any info on how to restart that way on an HP desktop?

Now using 80.0b5 (32-bit).

I currently have all four accounts set to downloaded messages at startup.

The second account downloaded several messages at startup, and the Account Manager showed this even though it was started after this download took place.

Four minutes later, the fourth account downloaded one message, then the first account downloaded 85 messages. Before startup, I used the web interface to the first account (to delete spam), and it showed that dozens of messages were waiting for download.

Another 5 minutes, then the second account downloaded 2 messages and deleted its message about its first download. Unclear if the deletion was due to running short of space in the Activity Manager window.

Another 4 minutes, and the fourth account was checked but had no new messages, then the first account was checked and 4 more messages were downloaded.

Then I started reading messages, and shutdown the Activity Manager.

(In reply to Anje from comment #18)

There was a known issue that could occur using certain addons and I wondered if they you had used 'Manually sort folders' in the past and whether it had been not just disabled but removed and nothing left in the 'prefs.js' file.

How do I tell if part of an addon is left in the 'prefs.js' file? I was able to look at the file using a text editor; searching for each of the three words in 'Manually sort folders' found nothing.

I have no addon shown as disabled but not removed.

I updated to 81.0b2 (32-bit). It does NOT fix the problem.

HP has not replied to my request for how to restart to safe mode with networking on this model of computer.

(In reply to Robert Miles from comment #22)

HP has not replied to my request for how to restart to safe mode with networking on this model of computer.

It does not matter if HP or Dell etc. You are using 'Windows 10' OS. That type of info is easily located using google for the microsoft support info.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/12376/windows-10-start-your-pc-in-safe-mode

Anje, thanks. I probably remembered the safe mode required company-specific methods for versions of Windows before Windows 10, and was therefore looking in the wrong place.

In safe mode with networking:

No background tasks were using significant amounts of CPU time.

I used the web interface access to account 2 first, and saw that there was at least one message ready to download.

I then waited over 10 minutes, in case that was important (apparently not).

I started 81.02b2 (32 bits).

The second account was checked immediately, and the second account messages were displayed, as before.

I started Activity Manager; it showed the activity on account 2, but none on the other accounts yet.

Seven minutes later, accounts 4 and 1 were checked; messages were downloaded for account 1.

Ten minutes after that, accounts 4 and 1 were checked again, and messages were downloaded for account 1.

I started reading messages on account 1. No change from previous behavior in what was show under Activity Manager, except the Indexing messages were displayed on;y for a fraction of a second.

I sent test messages from account 1 to accounts 2 and 3. They were shown immediately. Ten minutes later, messages about checking account 2 and 3 started appearing.

I checked the account settings, and found that Allow immediate server notifications when new messages arrive was enabled for accounts 2 and 3, and not available for accounts 1 and 4. I disabled it for both.

Back in normal mode, I started TB and started reading messages for account 1.

A few minutes later, account 1 was finally checked for new messages. The every 10 minutes checks continued for account 1.

Account checks for accounts 2 and 4 started a few minutes after that. In other words, NO account was checked at startup.

This was with all four accounts set to check for new messages at startup.

Today, the checks for new messages seem to be back to normal, with no more software changes and no more Thunderbird setup changes.

My guess at what did it is that something I did yesterday was the first half of the fix, but finishing the fix required a Windows reboot (after power off), and did not work with the previous Windows restarts (without power off) or withe the previous Thunderbird restarts.

I'm still using 81.0b2 (32 bits).

per comment 26

Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 5 years ago
Flags: needinfo?(acelists)
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
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