Closed Bug 1686824 Opened 4 years ago Closed 1 year ago

Hangs when checking for new mail on IMAP accounts after sleep/wake on Surface GO

Categories

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: eberger, Unassigned)

References

Details

Attachments

(4 files)

136 bytes, text/plain
Details
2.74 MB, text/plain
Details
213.34 KB, text/plain
Details
50.21 KB, application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:84.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/84.0

Steps to reproduce:

I have recently installed 78.6.1 on my main Win10 laptop and also a Surface GO. Both are running win10, but the Surface GO is updated with the 20H2 and the main laptop is not. The main Win10 laptop It is current except for the 20H2 feature update. TBirds on both PCs is configured the same, linked to my AOL/Compuserve account (primary) and 3 Comcast email accounts. The server for AOL is imap.aol.com and for comast is imap.comcast.net. I have the following Add Ons on both PCs: EditEmailSubject MX, FileLink Provider for Box, and PopmailListRecipients. The install on my main laptop is fine. The one on the GO has the issue described below.

If the GO sleeps too long, then TBird (which I always leave open), will hang on trying to connect to servers and download emails. Sometimes it successfully downloads all the emails for the primary account and then hangs on the others. I can click mail button and nothing happens. No error message. But the timer just spins, the green progress bar does not show up and nothing happens. If I close TBird and restart it all the email downloads just fine and it continues to work well until the PC nexts sleeps for too long. If the GO just sleeps for short while then that is ok.

I am not using hibernate on the GO, just sleep. It doesn't seem to matter if it is sleeping so long that I have to push the power button to start up, or even just a long sleep that allows me to start up by just hitting the space bar.

I do not believe that I had this problem with 78.5 and certainly didn't have it with the last version of 68. But I the 20H2 update may have been done after my update from 78.5 to 78.6. I'm not sure.

I posted this on the Support Forum and Matt (top-10 contributor moderator) suggested to try setting the connection uses in options to "no proxy". It has been known to work on Macs that exhibited similar issues on resume from sleep. I did so and it did not solve the problem.

Actual results:

see above

Expected results:

emails should download just fine whenever I use Thunderbird, even it has been open and the PC was asleep.

I do not believe that I had this problem with 78.5 and certainly didn't have it with the last version of 68. But I the 20H2 update may have been done after my update from 78.5 to 78.6. I'm not sure.

Please install http://archive.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/78.5.0/ to see if it reproduces (check help > about to see if you are running 32bit or 64bit)

Also, what is the URL to your support posting?

Flags: needinfo?(eberger)

Sorry for the delay. The bugzilla stuff went to my junk mail. Here is the support URL

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1319646

As for 78.5 - are you saying I can just go to that link and then run this file: Thunderbird Setup 78.5.0.exe? Does that overwrite my current install and then later I can go back to the current one?

Flags: needinfo?(eberger)

yes

Ok, I reverted back to 78.5 on the Surface GO and it has the same problem. After PC is inactive for a few hours or slept, when I open TB it does not pull down new mail. If I close TB and reopen it, it works just fine. The machine is a Surface GO with Windows 10 Home, version 20H2, build 19042.685. Prior to 20H2 when I was running v68 all was fine.

I also have TB on my larger laptop. There I have v78.61 on a machine running Windows 10 Pro, version 2004, build 19041.746. On that machine all works well.

Any thoughts?

Just wanted to give you an update. The Surface GO just provided an updated on 1/29 to Windows 20h2 and I also updated to TBird to 78.7 Email downloading is still hanging after computer goes to sleep unless I close and reopen TBird.

Thank you.

Time for another update. I just installed a feature update on 20h2 dated 1/29/2021 and also updated TBird to 78.7.1. Email downloading is still hanging after computer goes to sleep when on battery power. If it sleeps while plugged in it seems ok. I tried to determine if there is a deeper sleep state on battery but couldn't figure that out.

See Also: → 1674811

I use hibernate on linux and tb seems to wake up and connect fine for me. I haven't tried it on windows in a while so there may be a real difference.
Anyhow, reporter eberger, maybe if you could provide an IMAP:5 log it may help. See https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging for details. Start tb recording the log, then cause windows to sleep long enough to cause the problem and then wake it up. Then in tb, click the "get mail" button. If it works OK, save and attach the log. Shutdown tb and repeat the process until it fails and save and attach the "bad" log. If it fails right away, that's OK, just attach the bad log only. So at most I want to see a good log and a bad log.

I've not done a process like this before, but I think I get it. The page you sent me too has many options. I have a win10 machine and my email is imap. So if I understand I create this bat file and save it with the name: "create_imap_log.bat" and I believe I have removed the appropriate quotation marks. See below.

set MOZ_LOG=IMAP:5,timestamp
set MOZ_LOG_FILE=%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\imap.log
%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe

Then I run this file as an admin while TB is open and then wait for my system to go to sleep and then press Get Mail in TB. If it hangs, I have what I need. If not do I need to start over, or just wait a longer time and try again till it hangs?

The file will write to the desktop and then I attach it here.

Am I correct?

That seems almost right. Not sure if you really have to run as admin but guess it won't hurt to try just running it as a normal user. If tb runs and produces a log, you are OK either way.
Looks like your batch file tries to get tb from the x86 program files. If you are running a 64 bit tb version it is probably installed to just "Program Files" w/o the 86.
You probably still need the quotes around the last line of the batch since there are spaces in the path..
The resulting logfile has .moz_log appended to the name so it will be at c:\users\<your-user-name>\Desktop\imap.log.moz_log. (This trips up a lot of loggers and is mention only down in the "fine print" of the logging web page.)
Yes, I would suggest restarting tb between runs since the log file is erased and starts fresh at tb startup.
I think I suggested running once and saving and posting the log with a good wakeup. Then shut down and run again until you get a bad wake up. So I want to see a log with one good wakeup and one with a bad wakeup. (If bad occurs first, that's OK.)
Also, for each log posted, describe exactly what you were doing in tb while recording it.

Sorry I am a newbie at this. By the way I have the 32-bit TB so the file was ok as is.
I had TB open, I ran the file, I sent myself a message to TB, TB downloaded it successfully, I closed TB and the log file says it has 0 bytes.

I think the problem is that I don't know how to stop the process so the file will write. Please advise.

I had TB open, I ran the file, I sent myself a message to TB, TB downloaded it successfully, I closed TB and the log file says it has 0 bytes.

That's probably the problem. You need to shutdown tb and then run the file. Running the file starts tb in logging mode (due the MOZ_LOG* settings). See if that works better and your log file should contain text. When doing logging you must always start tb using the .bat file, not in the normal way.

Thanx. Got it. I have it working now. I capture some successful TB downloads. Now will let it sleep overnight and capture what I presume will be a failure. However, since I last reported this problem win 20h2 had another update and so did TB to 78.8.0. But I think this problem will still occur. Stay tuned.

Attached file my bat file

Ok. I have followed your instructions (hopefully). I have attached 3 files. I ran the log file 3x. Once with TB started, downloading email, and closed. Once with TB started, downloading email, then a non-deep PC sleep, downloaded again successfully, and closed. Once with TB started, downloading email, slept for 9 hrs, power button to restart Win10, and failure. I changed the file name by adding test1, test2, or test3 to the end and then inserting at the top of the file a few lines of description of what I did. I have also uploaded the bat file. Hopefully this is all clear. Thanx much.

The log file for the failure was 18 MB above the upload limit. I uploaded it to Box. here is the link
https://app.box.com/s/lgz2ojtz1xryvl6fwtgtftwag8n0amxi

It looks like while the computer sleeps that the Comcast account (on a dovecot server) times out and drops the connection. If the sleep is shorter, it doesn't. This can be seen at time 14:43 in the large "box" log with the series of DONEs and logouts logged. However, there should be a reconnect attempt to the dovecot server that I never see in the rest of the log which goes on for about 3 more minutes downloading some email.
Did you try to click on the Inbox of the comcast/dovecot account and the click "get mail"? Or maybe did you wait for the check new mail timer (default 10m) to check for new mail?
I have a local dovecot server that I can experiment with and let this computer sleep a while (usually takes about 30m default for an imap server to timeout an idle connection) and I will see if I see what you see.
Also, how many of each type of account do you have? (1 aol-compuserve/3 comcast, per comment 0) Is there one or multiple accounts of each type? Sometimes its hard to tell from the log since everything gets interleaved. Also, what is is the check for mail timer set to for each account.? You can disable this or set it to so many minutes, default is 10.
Also, is the problem always with the Comcast account(s) or does it vary?
You also say it is only failing on the "GO" computer, but is OK on your main laptop? Is this still true? Both running same tb version?

I haven't tried to sleep the tb computer yet but I see the same problem (I think) when I start tb with my test dovecot server shutdown. In that case, even after the dovecot server is started, tb never attempts to connect to it on its own (i.e., during timed check for new mail). It does make the connection if I

  1. Click Get Messages using pull-down menu and selecting the dovecot server, or
  2. If I select the Inbox of the dovecot server.

Edit 11/21/21: See comment 42. Couldn't duplicate the problem.

Just clicking the "get messages" button itself only checks the currently selected account (probably your aol/compuserve). You have use the pull-down and select check "all" or a specific account to ensure it connects and new mail is checked for other accounts.

Clicking the Inbox of the account causes an imap SELECT to occur which triggers a connection and check for new mail.

So reporter eberger, do either of these activities cause your dovecot/comcast accounts to pull in new mail? Or is the only fix for this a tb restart?

Whatever is happening here does not seem right. Tb should not just forget about a server because the connection never occurred at startup or is lost. I don't think there has been any changes to IMAP code that would cause this, but I will look closer. I suspect this has been the behavior since day 1 and may be the root of this bug and possibly other unsolved bug reports.

Gene,
Thanx for all the work. I will try to answer some of your questions.
I have one compuserve account that uses imap.aol.com and port 993
I have 3 comcast accounts that each use imap.comcast.net
I don't know what a dovecot server is so I can't respond to those comments.
My internet service is provided by comcast.
On my main PC, Win10 Pro version 2004, OS build 19041.804 I have no problems. Computer can sleep all day and when I open it up either the email is current or becomes so quickly. That PC is already running from a power supply that is plugged in. I have not yet updated it to 20H2.
The PC that I have trouble with is a Surface GO, Win10 Home version 20H2, OS build 19042.804
Both PC are running TB 78.8.0.
I did not used to have the problem on the GO. I'm unsure if it started with recent TB updates although at Wayne's suggestion I reverted to 78.5 and still had the problem so it may be the update to 20H2. I'm in no hurry for 20H2 features so have not updated my main PC and also don't want to risk the TB problems.
Currently compuserve checks mail every 5 m and the comcast accounts every 10 m. I just changed all of them to 1 m to see what happens.
When I open TB after a long sleep and I check email I typically am in the compuserve which sometimes updates and sometimes doesn't. I then press the Get messages and select Get All New Messages. Then it hangs. The progress circle in the upper left rotates and the hourglass shows up and nothing happens. At the point the only way to get new mail is to close TB and open it again.
Now that I have set the mail to check more quickly, I will check tomorrow morning and just open it and see what it does.
Keep in touch and thank you.

From comment 19:

Then it hangs. The progress circle in the upper left rotates and the hourglass shows up and nothing happens. At the point the only way to get new mail is to close TB and open it again.

Is this just true for the comcast accounts. Or can you access mail in compuserve without seeing a "spinner" spinning or hourglass? Also, can new mail come in on compuserve account while just the comcast accounts are "hung". Or are you saying you can't do anything or receive new mail or read old mail on any account after the long-time sleep and then wakeup?

From the "box" log:

I ran log file to open TB. I let PC go to sleep for 9 hrs.
I opened back up the Surface Go and had to press the power on button.
TB opened and downloaded messages in my main Compuserve account, but none of my Comcast accounts.
The hourglass rotated but the system hung up. I waited 2 min and then shut down TB.

Same question. Was the system hung or was tb hung? I think you mean tb hung. Were you able to read messages on compuserve acc't and maybe receive them or was the hang problem only on the comcast accounts?

Observation:
If I configure an account to not check email at startup and tell it to check messages every X minutes, when I start TB and don't select a folder on that account, no check for emails occurs at all, not even every X minutes.

I can then select any folder on that account and check for new mail in Inbox on a timed basis starts occurring.

Other than this and that I sometimes have to click a folder for periodic updates to occur after a sleep, I don't see any hangs or refusal to respond. My last test was with all IMAP accounts running in tb ok and polling for new mail as expected. Then I let the computer hibernate for over an hour. This caused all the imap connections to timeout. Then I resumed it. No problems at all. All accounts started polling for new mail as expected.

So my linux laptop running tb is behaving as you describe your main PC as behaving. I also have win10 on this with latest updates (dual boot). Not sure if that is 20H2 or not. Anyhow, I'll reboot and try the sleep with that (I don't think I have win10 setup for hibernate, which is OK since yours is sleeping.

Ok, I booted into windows and updated to 20H2. Setup tb 78.7.1 to run with logging and started it with .bat. Connected to same dovecot server as I did with linux. (Dovecot is the type of mail server used by comcast; the best I can do since I don't have a comcast account.) Let windows sleep for a bit over 1 hour and see no problem after coming out of sleep. The log shows a 1 hour time gap and then an immediate attempt to re-connect to dovecot and asks for new mail followed by more attempts on the timed interval.

I'm not sure if there are "levels of sleep deepness" depending on time in windows. So is it possible a longer sleep time is needed to see the problem? Is there a way to "force" a deeper sleep so I have to push power button to wake up, as you say you have to do? Or is that just a Surface GO feature? (My laptop is not a Surface.)

Thank you for all the investigation. You asked many questions. Let me see what I can answer.
Just opened up the GO. It had been sleeping for 5 hrs. I am fairly certain it sleeps and does not hibernate. I do notice that "fast start' is checked.
I had the mail check settings for all accounts set at 1 min.
When I opened TB the rotating circle and hour glass came up. I waited 4 min and they were still there.
Sorry I forgot to see what else I might be able to do. I will check tomorrow,
No the PC does not hang up, just TB.
Also, I have now set TB to NOT check mail on startup. So I will see if I can open it and then should I manually check mail or simply wait the 1 min for it to auto check?

Gene, here is tonite's report.
I used the TB settings described in my comment 23 above.
I opened up the GO and had to press the power button to get it started.
I clicked on TB.
I waited 3 min. Recall it was set to not check mail at start up but rather to wait and check after 1 min.
Nothing happened.
It was sitting on the Compuserve inbox when I opened it, so I clicked on one of the Comcast inboxes. I got the rotating circle and hour glass and nothing happened.
However, I did test and TB was not hung up; it just would not pull down email.
I went to Account settings and was able to check the settings just fine and during that period of time the rotating circle/hour glass disappeared. When I returned to any of the inboxes I again got the rotating circle and hour glass.
I was even able to successfully send an email to myself as checked on my other PC that received it.
I was not running the log program. Shall I redo all of the while logging and send you the info.
Also, just to remind you, I do not think this is a GO problem as GO has been working fine with TB and Windows since I purchased it in Aug 2018. It is only since the recent Win updates and TB updates that I have had this problem.

Sorry for the delay in answering. While trying to enable a "deeper" sleep mode on my windows partition I somehow managed to make it unbootable. So it took some time to get everything restored, but is OK now, I think.

So, do I understand right that you compuserve account is the "primary" account that appears at the top in tb? You have 3 other accounts down below that are comcast. I'm still not sure if you are saying ALL accounts (including your primary compuserve acc't) are failing to bring in new mail or is it just the comcast accounts?

Anyhow, when you see the problem, I know you say you can restart tb to fix it. Another thing I wonder is if you set tb to "offline" mode and then back to "online" if that fixes it too. If you are not familiar with going offline, you can click the icon at the lower left that looks approximately like ((*)) to go offline. Just click "later" in the dialog and continue. This should cause tb to logout and disconnect from all servers. Then go back online by clicking the same icon again. Does this affect the hang-ups?

Not sure if another log will help. Also, don't know of any changes in tb that would cause this either.

One thing that often helps with "server specific" problem is to provide me with a temporary comcast account if you have any spares. That way I can try this with the exact same server you are connecting with from here.

You are correct that my top account is Cserve and then the 3 comcast accounts. Typically all fail. Sometimes the Cserve works and then comcast fails. This evening all failed. I turned on the PC, TB had been running. At the bottom of the screen under Cserve account it said "Downloading message 3 of 15 in inbox," but hung and never went any further. I went off line and came back online and it had no effect.

I closed TB, opened it and all was fine. I closed the PC for 60 min, effectively a light or short sleep, opened it back up and TB downloaded fine.

If you think a temporary Comcast account might help the troubleshoot let me know and I can establish one, but I would prefer sharing that with you via email and not on this public forum. Is that possible?

Well, a temp/test account might help. I've been working on tb for several years and I think you are the first user on comcast that I've dealt with. (Most tend to be European it seems.)
Also, have not run into anyone using imap on "compuserve". I thought they went out of business years ago, but I guess they are actually AOL, who I also thought was out of business. But I guess they are hanging on or bought by ?yahoo! who was bought by ???. :) Then again, I'm on charter who is now spectrum....

Anyhow, yes, the typical way is to send the credentials via personal email (address in my bugzilla profile) rather than posting them here.

I also have an aol account just for tb testing so I might be able to somewhat closer simulate your setup with the comcast test account too.

One more request: Can you run the windows command "powercfg /a" with your "good" pc and on the "problem" laptop and include the results in the email you send me (or post it here if you prefer). This tells the various power modes that are available. Then I can compare them to the PCs I'm using. I suspect this may have something to do with it.
Thanks!

Your "Go" system's powercfg /a looks very similar to mine. I'm booted to linux now but I think in windows 10 it said supports S0 "Modern" Low Power Idle or something like that. All the other S* modes not supported. Also, I ended up turning off the "Fastboot" feature in windows since I didn't see a benefit in boot speed. Also, in windows a driver refused to hibernate so I just let let it sleep when I close the lid. (I was trying to get windows hibernate to work when I "broke" my windows setup which took a while to re-setup the way I wanted it.)

So maybe you could try running for a while on the "Go" with fast boot disabled and see if there's a difference.

Gene,
The fast boot made has no effect on the problem. Can't says that it has much effect on my boot time either.

However, it turned out that even though I had hibernate turned off, when in sleep mode the PC would hibernate after 6 hrs. I'm unable to turn if off totally but I bumped it out to 10 days so it effectively never hibernates even on battery. That seems to have resolved the problem but I will keep checking.

So that raises the question of why did hibernate start causing a problem recently, possibly related to 20H2 or recent TB updates? I guess I can let this drop for now, but I haven't yet determined if avoiding hibernate during sleep on battery will substantially effect my useful time when running on battery power.

Not sure how to answer. FWIW, I use hibernate on linux every day on my laptop and don't see problems with tb. I was trying to enable hibernate on my windows drive in the same laptop when I somehow managed to corrupt the windows partition and had to reinstall windows. And after that I was still not able to get hibernate to work on windows 10 at all (probably some setting in dell bios?).
Before the reinstall, I also updated to 20H2 and didn't see any problems with tb with normal sleep with that version. (I'm not sure I have 20H2 now or not since I re-installed to, I think, the latest win 10.)

(In reply to eberger from comment #0)

If the GO sleeps too long, then TBird (which I always leave open), will hang on trying to connect to servers and download emails. Sometimes it successfully downloads all the emails for the primary account and then hangs on the others. I can click mail button and nothing happens. No error message. But the timer just spins, the green progress bar does not show up and nothing happens. If I close TBird and restart it all the email downloads just fine and it continues to work well until the PC nexts sleeps for too long. If the GO just sleeps for short while then that is ok.

But the UI doesn't hang, you can click in other areas other than the download?

Hopefully be gone when version 91 comes out.

Flags: needinfo?(eberger)

Wayne,
Thanx for the note. Yes I am still having that problem on the SurfaceGo and I have the current 78.12 TB. Your note suggests that someone found the problem? If so thanx.

Version 91? Sounds like a long way off from 78, but thank you.

eb

Flags: needinfo?(eberger)

eb, I think 91 is the next scheduled official release of TB for 3rd quarter 2021 so should be soon. But I don't know of any specific IMAP fix that addresses your issue with deep sleep/hibernate on a specific laptop model unless maybe there are some general fixes or improvements regarding OS integration that are coming that I don't know about.

Thank you Gene. I may be replacing my Go with a new model. It will be interesting to see if problem persists.
eb

erbirAn early edition of version 91 is available from getthunderbird.com
If you download and test, suggest you first backup your Thunderbird profile. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data#w_backing-up-a-profile

Component: Untriaged → General
Flags: needinfo?(eberger)
Summary: Hangs when checking for new mail on IMAP accounts → Hangs when checking for new mail on IMAP accounts after sleep/wake on Surface GO

I will try to check this out later this month and let you know.

Flags: needinfo?(eberger)

when I get the new version, do I just install it over the existing one?
also, will it break some of my add on [EditEmailSubject MX, FileLink Provider for Box, PopmailListRecipients] like 78 did when moving up from 68?

(In reply to eberger from comment #38)

when I get the new version, do I just install it over the existing one?

Help > About will install over the existing one.

also, will it break some of my add on [EditEmailSubject MX, FileLink Provider for Box, PopmailListRecipients] like 78 did when moving up from 68?

You'll need to check

Flags: needinfo?(eberger)
Whiteboard: [closeme 2021-12-11]

Wayne and Gene,
Here is an update. I purchased a new Surface GO, new processor, quicker more memory. Running the latest Win10 and TB 91.3. I have the same problems that I reported above. If I leave the PC on and enough time goes by, for example over night, then when I return to TB I have to close it out and start it up and it works fine. If it has been left open and I go to use it, it won't pull down files and just hangs.

As I said above, it works fine on my large laptop running the same Version of Windows Pro. Just seems to have this problem on the Surface GO. I even drag over the Profile folder from my main machine so that the configurations and files for TB on each are the same.

I can live with it, but it is annoying.

Flags: needinfo?(eberger)

I went back and read most of our comments and didn't see answers to a couple things (maybe I missed them):
If you toggle tb offline and then back online, does that have any effect on the "dead" accounts after the sleep?

I still had the large log you sent via a file sharing account and see what you mean. After the about 8 hr "sleep" gap I see the comcast accounts all report a disconnect. So does aol/compuserv. Then only the aol/compuserv connects and downloads new messages. The comcast accounts don't get a connect request from tb it seems, but the aol/compuserv does.

If you click the Inboxes of the "dead" comcast accounts, does the select succeed (hourglass/spinner stops), and do you see new messages?

One more question: is "check for new messages at tb startup" selected for every account. I suspect it is since that's the default but I noticed a issue with this in comment 21.

Also, I may see the problem as described in comment 18. However, that doesn't explain why your desktop systems seems to work OK with the same tb setup. Does the desktop system really "sleep" or are you just logged off? If just logged off, the connections may be maintained, not sure. If maintained, you won't see a problem after re-login.
Edit: Just tried comment 18 again and could not duplicate. Tb tries to connect on timed intervals and does once dovecot server is running again and checks for new mail OK.

Gene,
Thank you for the follow up.
I have some interesting data to add. Yesterday I deleted a large number of message from my sent file and then also he repair, since one message was not showing. That process completed on my main PC but my SurfaceGO was down at the time. Tonight I brought it up from sleep to answer your questions. It was in the middle of downloading the Sent file items. That completed, but none of the Inboxes in any of the accounts updated. I toggle offline/online and no effect. I then went back to the sent file and found that it updated again with a new message I had just sent from my main PC. But the spinner just continues to spin and no inboxes update.

Yes, check for new messages at start up is selected on all accounts.

My desktop (actually just a high end 15" laptop, does sleep. Once I turn it on in the AM it is on all day as I come and go. I start TB when I boot up and it is on all day and does not exhibit the problems I find on the GO.

I wonder if the issue is something particular to the GO software.

My Win specs on the main laptop are Win 10 Pro, 21H1, installed 7/23/2020, OS build 19043.1288, Experience 120.2212.3920.0
and the specs on the GO are: Win 10 Pro, 21H1, installed 8/20/2021, OS build 19043.1288, Experience 120.2212.392.0

On the GO, if you click the Inboxes for the "dead" accounts, does that bring in new mail?

My desktop (actually just a high end 15" laptop, does sleep. Once I turn it on in the AM it is on all day as I come and go. I start TB when I boot up and it is on all day and does not exhibit the problems I find on the GO.

When you say "I start TB when I boot up" I assume that might be from several days ago. You're not restarting TB on main system every day, right?

On the GO system, if you click on the Inboxes of the dead accounts and then come back to Sent, does the spinner stop?

FWIW, usually a non-stop spinner means the connection to the mailbox was dropped so moving to another folder and then back to the problem folder (Sent in your case) might fix it since the connection will be re-established.

Clicking inboxes does not bring in new mail, nor clicking sent stop the spinner. Only way to stop it is to close and reopen TB.

I do close my main system down at night and boot up each day and immediately start TB and have it running all day. Computer is in use or sleeps but whenever I go to TB it is working fine.

Well, I'm really perplexed about the GO system!
Did you only see the spinner when you clicked into Sent just that one time?
Did it go away when you clicked into Inbox?
When you click on an Inbox(s) and don't see new mail, does the spinner stop?
Are you sure there is really new main in Inbox?
Can you read the emails in the Inboxes when you don't receive new mail?
(Sorry, may have asked some of these before...)

Gene,
This is getting complicated.

  1. If the GO sleeps while plugged in all ok. If it sleeps over a long duration unplugged, then I have issues.
  2. If I check Sent messages on an of the accounts the spinner stops and I can pull down messages.
  3. Even when spinner is spinning I can send messages from compuserve and comcast.
  4. Even when spinner is spinning compuserve will receive new mail but comcast does not.
  5. When I click on any inbox the spinner starts spinning endlessly, but clicking on any other account mailbox (sent, junk, etc.) stops the spinner.
  6. Closing and restarting TB makes everything work again.

This seems a bit different than I recall the problem before, but this is what I saw this morning and an overnight sleep of the GO.
Thanx for continuing to puzzle on this one.

I tried again to duplicate by setting a secondary account to check for new mail at startup, check for mail every 3 min and notify immediately and then selected inbox of main (top) account and restarted tb. Then hibernated the computer on battery with Inbox of top account still selected.
On another computer I then sent an email to the secondary account and waited about 4 hours before waking up the hibernated computer. On wake-up, it shortly (within 3 min.) received the email I sent 4 hours before and did a pop-up notification that the mail had arrived. This is while still selected on Inbox of top/main account.
I can't figure what is special about the GO system that would cause this not to work.
I assume your "main" systems works like I just observed on mine.

My main system is always plugged in and does work like your say.
I have new observations on the GO, based on some of your suggestions.

When it sleeps and fails to retrieve mail I find the following:
Clicking the inbox on any of my accounts causes the spinner to spin endlessly. However, if I click the sent box it does update the sent mail and the spinner stops. But when I click again on inbox it spins endlessly. I also found this curious observation. I clicked on the bulk/spam box and found there was a new message there that should not have been junk. I pressed Shft-J and it moved to the inbox. That caused the inbox spinner to stop spinning and it pulled down both the reclassified junk message and a new waiting email.
I will let it sleep again and then try sending a new email and see if that jogs it into action. Apparently, emails already in the inbox are not retrieved, but something sent after I am trying to get it up and running works. So tomorrow I will see if a new email does the same trick as reclassifying a junk message.

Say, one other question, possibly giving a hint to the main problem. Periodically I copy my profile folder to my Go, to update all the local folders and my address book: C:\Users\Elliott\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird
That works fine except for two curiosities. When I do that I no longer see the Compuserve/Inbox in my favorites list. I have to find it in the complete list and re-designate it as a favorite. The inboxes for my comcast and gmail accounts are not similarly affected. Also the columns in my compuserve/inbox do not retain their settings from my main PC but go back to default and I have to readjust them. I would have thought all this info should be in my profile.

Thank you.

Yes, if you send yourself a message after the wake up, would be good to know that that works.

I always forget which of your accounts works and which don't on GO. I thought you said your main account (compuserv?) can fetch new mail after wake up and the other secondary account didn't receive new mail after wake up. Is that right?

Anyhow, I mostly work with low level protocol stuff and didn't even know about the "Favorite" folder thing. Yes, I would think it must be stored somewhere in the profile so it comes back between sessions. However, I'm not sure copying the full profile between computers on a regular basis is really something recommended to do and might somehow be contributing to the issues you are seeing. But I guess it is a way to sync your local folders and address book.

Another way might be just to copy the local folders part of the profile from your main system to the GO system:
C:\Users\Elliott\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles/ew29pz1v.default-release/Mail/Local Folders/*
and just the address book database file(s):
C:\Users\Elliott\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles/ew29pz1v.default-release/abook*

This might be worth try but not sure it will help or even work, especially the address book copy. :).

Will let you know about the email wakeup. I tried once and it didn't work. You are correct the compuserve account does seem more reliable than the comcast and gmail.

Relative to keeping the GO install of TB current compared to the main TB install, what would you suggest other than the periodic copying of the profile? You seem unsure about copying local folders and the address book? Is that another forum to post on for this one? Or I guess I should post on that topic separately and see what responses I get.

By the way, when I originally installed TB on the GO, the first thing I did was to copy over the profile folder in order to get all my email accounts set up and the other items. So I guess if that is a problem, it was from the very beginning. But in my readings, it seems like that is the way to get different TB installs to match. I recall reading about a for-purchase software that would do it, but then read that it wasn't needed, that that is what the profile copy is for. Thoughts?

Thank you.

Is that another forum to post on for this one? Or I guess I should post on that topic separately and see what responses I get.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/thunderbird (primary forum)
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=39 (legacy forum?)

Someone there can probably help you better than I can, especially for syncing Local Folders and Address Book.

I don't know how much you have in Local Folders but you might consider copying them on main system to one of your (lesser used) IMAP accounts and then copying that back to Local Folders on the GO device rather than copying the whole profile between machines.
But not sure if just copying the abook.* file(s) between devices would suffice to sync the address books, so I recommend asking on support forum.

FYI there is also this: https://thunderbird.topicbox.com but it is mostly for developers, planners, beta and daily testers I think.

Whiteboard: [closeme 2021-12-11]

eberger,

Do you still encounter this with version 102 or 115?

Flags: needinfo?(eberger)
Whiteboard: [closeme 2023-08-15]

Thank you for asking and excuse the delayed response. The short answer is yes I do. I am currently using 102.14.0.

If I have my Go plugged in to power so that it never fully goes to sleep, so that even when I close the screen to the keyboard it immediately opens up to face recognition when I pick up the screen, then all works fine. But if it is not plugged in to power, and I wait sufficiently long that it goes fully to sleep so that I have to push the power button to get it to open up to the face recognition login, then TBird hangs and will not check for new mail. I have to close it out and reopen it and then it s fine.

Yes, after all of that work trying so many options to figure out what is happening it is still failing.

Thanx for asking.

Flags: needinfo?(eberger)

Thanks. You will want to next test with version 115 from https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/

Flags: needinfo?(eberger)
Whiteboard: [closeme 2023-08-15] → [closeme 2023-09-15]

will do when I install 115. thank you.

Flags: needinfo?(eberger)
Whiteboard: [closeme 2023-09-15] → [closeme 2023-11-15]

I had been waiting to reply re if 115 solves the problem because the results seemed somewhat inconsistent. I also wanted to review the posts on this that track back 3 yrs!

The short answer is that 115.3 seems to solve the problem. I have tested on many days leaving the Surface GO unplugged over night and opening TB the next day. Sometimes my various mail accounts update just fine, sometimes I have to click Get Mail and then they update, and sometimes Get Mail does not work but if I click on an email and open it, that gets TB to update.

I guess I would say that it "works well enough," so you can close this out and work on more important issues. Thank you for all the efforts on this issue.

Thanks so much for the update.

Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 1 year ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
Whiteboard: [closeme 2023-11-15]
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.

Attachment

General

Creator:
Created:
Updated:
Size: