336711 - subfolders are not automatically updated on IMAP accounts

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[hpollinger]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.3) Gecko/20060426 Firefox/1.5.0.3
Build Identifier: version 1.5.0.2 (20060308)

I have an IMAP account, many subfolders and filters that sort my incoming Mails into the subfolders.
When I start Thunderbird on one computer, the Mail headers are retrieved from the IMAP server, sorted into the folders and displayed correctly. The unread mails are in the folders and each folder displays n unread mails.
When I then start Thunderbird on another computer, all subfolders display no unread mails! The subfolders are not updated, they didn't recognize the unread mails yet! I have to select each subfolder to get an updated view.
A way to update all subfolders with one mouse click or key is needed!

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Use two computers and an IMAP server, create an IMAP account in Thunderbird on both computers.
2. Set up the same filters and subfolders on both computers (the subfolders reside on the IMAP server!)
3. Start Thunderbird on one computer, send yourself a mail the activates the filter
4. "Get Mail" and see how filter is sorted into subfolder (the Mail is still on the IMAP server!)
5. Start Thunderbird on the other computer and see how the same subfolder doesn't show any unread mail
(6. Click on subfolder and see how it is updated)
Actual Results:  
Subfolder is not updated

Expected Results:  
All subfolders get updated automatically when I start Thunderbird, press the "Get Mail" button or the F5 key.

The only workaround:
Select each subfolder, wait until it is updated (takes up to 10 seconds due to slow connection and large folders).

All in all this takes several minutes which is very annoying, because it takes several minutes of my time. It should do the updating automatically.

Comment 1

[David :Bienvenu]

you can either use the properties dialog from the folder context menu on each folder you want to check, and check the "check this folder for new messages" box, or using the config editor, set the pref mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new" to true. I'd recommend the first method unless you want absolutely all your folders checked, because otherwise you'll be pinging your server pretty hard. In either case, you'll probably also need to set mail.imap.use_status_for_biff to false

Comment 2

[hpollinger]

Neither the configurations (in both combinations) nor the check box works. The folders are not updated automatically. I still have to select them to get them updated.

Comment 3

[rabbitambulance]

Worksforme if I set those checkboxes.

Comment 4

[Brian Salomaki]

I posted this in bug 288699 and bug 324612, but maybe it helps here too.  Are they duplicates?

I have Thunderbird 1.5.0.8
running on two Mac OS X 10.4 computers, one at home and one at work.  At home,
the "Check this folder for new messages" option seems to work fine.  At work,
it never happens automatically.  Most other settings should be identical
between the two setups -- I haven't done a side-by-side comparison, but set
both up using only GUI options and presumably would have picked the same ones
both times.

On my work computer which never does the automatic update, I tried deleting my
entire Thunderbird preferences folder and letting it create a new one, but the
automatic checking still didn't work.

What other debugging steps can I take to provide more useful information in
figuring out what's going on?