225816 - unable to get new IMAP inbox messages

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Networking: IMAP, defect)

Description

[Kasimir K]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007 Firebird/0.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4a (20031030)

Thunderbird does not check for new messages in a IMAP inbox. Other folders OK.
When I delete INBOX.msf and start up again, Thunderbird checks and downloads new
mail, and creates new INBOX.msf. The new INBOX.msf is corrupt too, and once
restarted, Thunderbird wont check new mail, until INBOX.msf is deleted again.

New mail checking at startup, scheduled checks and clicking on get mail button
all fail.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. use thunderbird as an imap client
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
afert INBOX.msf is deleted, T-bird checks inbox for new mail, untill it is
restarted, after which it fails to check new mail.

Expected Results:  
check for new mail

I was using t-bird 0.3 succesfully before, then the problem appeared. Tried 0.4a
and Mozilla 1.5, same problem.

Comment 1

[Kasimir K]

Couple things I should add. Firstly, I reported this as Thunderbird bug, but the
same thing happens with Mozilla 1.5's mail client, so it seems to be core problem.

Secondly, it affects one imap account, but not another.
The bad server is Dovecot, and it has following capability:
CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 SORT THREAD=REFERENCES MULTIAPPEND UNSELECT LITERAL+ IDLE
CHILDREN LISTEXT LIST-SUBSCRIBED STARTTLS AUTH=PLAIN
The good server is
Gordano Messaging Suite IMAP4 server v9.00.3138
CAPABILITY IMAP4 IMAP4rev1 LOGIN-REFERRALS ACL

The non-working imap inbox is shown in the folder list in italics, which I
belive means, that the folder is not selectable. I think it has something to do
with subfolders: I don't have them in my inbox, but another folder containing
subfolders is also shown in italics.

Comment 2

[Scott MacGregor]

sending over to David.

Comment 3

[David :Bienvenu]

It's not a corrupt INBOX.msf - the imap code has incorrectly decided that it
can't get messages from the INBOX, but it's the imap code that's at fault, not
the .msf file/db code.

when you click away from the inbox and then click back to it, does it download
new messages for the inbox? Or does it never download new messages for the
INBOX? This sounds like an ACL problem, except that ACL is not listed as a
capability. Can you attach or e-mail me an imap protocol log of a session that
starts without an INBOX.msf, and one that starts with an INBOX.msf? Here are
instructions for generating a protocol log:

http://www.mozilla.org/quality/mailnews/mail-troubleshoot.html#imap

also, if you could e-mail me your prefs.js, that would be helpful too.

Comment 4

[David :Bienvenu]

the server is telling us that the INBOX is NOSELECT:

3380[22dfd90]: 22dda20:mail.kasimir-k.fi:A:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * LIST
(\Noselect \Children) "/" INBOX

that means we can't select it, which means we can't get new headers. What kind
of server is this? Potentially, we could work around this by ignoring the
\Noselect attribute on the INBOX, but I'd like to know why this server is saying
the INBOX is noselect.

I think this is just an error on the part of the server. Also, the \children
list attribute is not defined by rfc 2060 - is it a new attribute?

Comment 5

[Kasimir K]

With server do you mean this:
3380[22dfd90]: 22dda20:mail.kasimir-k.fi:NA:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * OK
dovecot ready.

Dovecot's homepage is at http://dovecot.procontrol.fi/

Or is this something I should ask my service provider?

Comment 6

[David :Bienvenu]

Both, actually. I think you'll need to know from your ISP which version of the
Dovecot server they're running, and then ask the Dovecot server people about the
bug, and if it still exists in the newest version of their server. I'd probably
start with Dovecot and see if they say - "oh yes, we fixed that", or "we're
doing the right thing", or "oh, we didn't know about that". Let me know, thx.

- David

Comment 7

[Kasimir K]

The problem has vanished, inbox works normaly. Before LIST gave us:

1128[233f8c8]: 233ece8:mail.kasimir-k.fi:A:SendData: 4 list "" "INBOX"

1128[233f8c8]: ReadNextLine [stream=233fb88 nb=33 needmore=0]
1128[233f8c8]: 233ece8:mail.kasimir-k.fi:A:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * LIST
(\NoInferiors) "/" INBOX

1128[233f8c8]: ReadNextLine [stream=233fb88 nb=40 needmore=0]
1128[233f8c8]: 233ece8:mail.kasimir-k.fi:A:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * LIST
(\Noselect \Children) "/" INBOX

1128[233f8c8]: ReadNextLine [stream=233fb88 nb=22 needmore=0]
1128[233f8c8]: 233ece8:mail.kasimir-k.fi:A:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 4 OK List
completed.

but now:

168[22d4030]: 22d2f88:mail.kasimir-k.fi:A:SendData: 12 list "" "INBOX"

168[22d4030]: ReadNextLine [stream=22dffa0 nb=33 needmore=0]
168[22d4030]: 22d2f88:mail.kasimir-k.fi:A:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * LIST
(\NoInferiors) NIL INBOX

168[22d4030]: ReadNextLine [stream=22dffa0 nb=22 needmore=0]
168[22d4030]: 22d2f88:mail.kasimir-k.fi:A:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 12 OK LIST
completed

My ISP uses the latest Dovecot, and the Dovecot developer hadn't come across
this before. 

I guess this is not a bug at all then, more like error in server config, and
Mozilla was just following standards more precisely that MS OE, which worked
fine all the time, not bothering about any noselects...

Thanks for your attention, and I hope this helps even a tiny little bit in
development of this magnificient mail client!

.k

Comment 8

[David :Bienvenu]

It's always nice to know we're working correctly :-)