230297 - Feature Request: Allow me to enable an IMAP keep-alive.

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(MailNews Core :: Networking: IMAP, enhancement)

Description

[btimby_indy]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007

When utilizing IMAP for my mail (OK actually IMAP/SSL), there is the option to
cache n connections. This option is great however, at work I am behind a
firewall, which tears down connections that are idle for specified amount of
time. This is annoying, as when I come back to an idle Mozilla, I always get a
server error. moving to another message re-establishes the connection.

I think there are two ways to fix this problem:

1. Allow for keep-alives when connection caching is enabled, allow me to enter
the interval (this would be like keep-alives with SSH, ala PuTTY.
2. Rewrite Mozilla code to re-establish cached connection on failure
automatically, and not require user interaction to re-est.

Option 2 would probably be the easiest to implement, but option 1 would make me
happier, as I could control this behavior.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Buy and configure a firewall which tears down idle connections (SonicWALLs do
this).
2. Open email client.
3. go work in another window for idle timeout period (5 mins by default on SW).
4. Come back to Mozilla, and try to check mail. You will receive an error.
5. Try again, it will work.
Actual Results:  
annoyance :-).

Expected Results:  
automatically re-established the cached IMAP session, or allowed me to specify a
keep-alive interval for cached IMAP connections, which would avoid this
situation altogether.

Again, you guys rock! I love using Mozilla Mail, and I am submitting these
feature requests to simply help you make a better product.

Keep up the great work!

Comment 1

[David :Bienvenu]

we have a very poor man's keep alive - configuring the the folders to be checked
for new messages. However, if you have a lot of folders, I don't recommend it.
You can either do it on a per-folder basis (folder properties...) or for all
imap folders (use about:config to set mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new to
true). I also recommend upgrading to 1.6 before trying this! It uses the normal
check for new mail interval for the non-inbox folders as well.

Re re-establishing the connection seemlessly, it's on my list but it's not trivial.

Comment 2

[Jo Hermans]

see also 77829 - sounds like the opposite :-)

Comment 3

[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
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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:
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Comment 4

[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.