264479 - from offline to online with dial-up modem: very long delays with no indication except hourglass cursor

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Backend, defect)

Description

[Gene Cooperman]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a4) Gecko/20040927
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a4) Gecko/20040927

I had used broadband (wireless) to download onto my notebook
computer an IMAP folder with 3,000 messages.  I then deleted about 1,000.
I reconnected from a different site using a dial-up modem.

The help system does not tell me what to expect.  What I see
is that it downloads some headers quickly.  Then the messages
that had been deleted from my INBOX reappear, but with an
empty letter icon on the left.  Then the hourglass icon continues
for about 20 minutes.  At times, I see "Loading message", etc.
at the bottom.  At times I see nothing at the bottom.
The "spinner" (the M/Dragon icon at the top right) shows onlyh
the "M" as if there is no activity.  Occasionally, I see the
Trash folder getting more messages, and eventually, the
empty letters for the deleted INBOX messages start to disappear
again.

Continuing, I may have clicked on INBOX, I don't remember.
But then all of my valid messages in INBOX get the empty
letter icon on the left, and I can't view them.  I see
"Loading message" at the bottom.

Since this continued for a very long time.  I clicked on the
bottom right icon to go offline.  The hourglass icon continued
and the "Loading message" at the bottom continued even though
I was offline.

I'm guessing that when I went online, Mozilla spent the
20 minutes re-downloading the messages that I had deleted
from my INBOX.  Then Mozilla seemed to transfer those
messages to my Trash folder.  Finally, Mozilla then notified
the IMAP server (and only then) that the given messages
should indeed be deleted.  I don't understand why Mozilla
couldn't have deleted the given messages (about 1,000)
based only on headers and no body.  If it used headers only,
it should be much less than 20 minutes -- even with a
slow 56kbps modem.

I'm guessing that the offline facility was optimized for
broadband use.  If so, at least the help facility should
say something about limitations in using the offline facility
with a slow connection.

Of course, I may have misunderstood how the offline facility
should be used.  If so, I apologize for my misunderstanding.
Perhaps these comments will help to make clearer the documentation.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Pick an IMAP folder with 3,000 messages or so.  In my case,
    this was about 55 MB of mail.
2.   Download using broadband, and then go offline.
3.  Shut down computer (notebook).  Then restart, delete 1,000
    messages, and then go online again.  Watch it sync.
    (After deletion, I had about 45 MB of mail.)

Actual Results:  
The slow performance with little user feedback described
above.

Expected Results:  
It should have been much faster.  If its operation of
sync'ing is interrupted by going offline again, then
it should reset its state (turn off the hourglass cursor,
and remove the "Loading message" string at the bottom.

Comment 1

[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 2

[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.