178289 - IMAP hangs at checking for e-mail if connections timed out / reset

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(MailNews Core :: Networking: IMAP, defect)

Description

[Greg Wilkins]

I use IMAP with several folders marked as check for new email.
When I run behind a firewall that timesout idle connections, IMAP will hang
as it tries to check for new email.

The symptoms of the hang are cursor is the clock icon when over 
folder list or mail list, but is normal over mail itself.
The moz icon is not spinning, nore is the stop button offerred as
an option.  Hitting get msgs does nothing (not even spins the icon).
But clicking offline and then back on again fixes everything.

This is completely repeatable.  I have used ethereal to observer
what is happening.  Normal IMAP chitchat goes on over 5 
connections.

Then after an idle period, the firewall terminates all the
connections. You can see RST packets being received for all
connections.

Mozilla does not appear to notice this and continues to 
periodically send IMAP noop packets from the ports
that have been reset.

I can still ping the site OK - so connectivity is not lost.

When I hit the offline button, you can see IMAP close packets
being sent on all connections - for which there is no response.

I can send my capture file - but I wont attach it as it contains
my email and probably my password etc.

Comment 1

[Sean Redmond]

I have also been experiencing this problem since upgrading to 1.3a on a Linux
7.0 workstation. Though I don't think there is a firewall in the mix for me. A
short while after starting up Mozilla, I will get the clock icon after clicking
on a different mailbox. Rarely, the problem just clears up after a few minutes,
but usually the only thing that fixes it is exiting all Mozilla windows and
waiting a bit.

Comment 2

[Mark Holland]

This don't think this is limited to a specific os. I have observed the same
behaviour under WinNT 4 (SP6) and Win2000.

Comment 3

[Nis Jorgensen]

I can confirm this for two independent installations of 1.4 on windows 2K/XP,
and two different IMAP servers, UW and Cyrus.

Mozilla 1.4
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030612 

Comment 4

[Bengt Bergholm]

I can confirm parts of this problem, except the connection timeout/firewall
being the problem. My IMAP-server is on my firewall box, but internal trafic is
only checked for sanity and not blocked or NAT'd in any way. Neither does it
happen all the time. Though switching between online and offline mode solves the
problem. Mozilla still fetches mail from a POP3-account when this problem
occurs. Can this litle nasty bug pls get som attention? :) Or do I have to
switch to Thunderbird?

Comment 5

[Eric Raymond]

I have the same problem.

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 7

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Bengt reported INVALID
"I located my problem to the IMAP server not being able to attain at
mailbox lock when I had two IMAP clients polling the same account at
once so it wasn't realted to Mozilla at all"