Closed Bug 373451 Opened 19 years ago Closed 18 years ago

"Get Mail" has erratic behaviour ("Get Msgs" is interfered by PopTray Mail Notifier)

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Mail Window Front End
Platform:
x86
Windows XP
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: davito9w, Assigned: mscott)

Details

Attachments

(5 files)

before swap
18.20 KB, image/png
Details
after swap
17.49 KB, image/png
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log where didn't recover the first account's mail.
73.96 KB, application/octet-stream
Details
first test, no bug
20.24 KB, application/octet-stream
Details
second try, bug
23.33 KB, application/octet-stream
Details
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2 Build Identifier: version 2 beta 2 (20070116) I have 13 mail accounts on 2 different ISPs. They are all configured to store mails in separate folders. Checking intervals vary from 5 minutes to 90 minutes. In most accounts I checked "Automatically download new mails", in a few I did not. Tb knows the passwords for all the accounts where I asked for automatic download. When I ask for a global download, Tb checks some accounts but not all that were set to automatic. If I ask immediately for a second check, often TB suddenly discovers new mails to download. Sometimes, I have to select each account separately in order to get the mails. Sometimes the "forgotten" account is the first (default) account. Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: 1. Drop down the Get Mail button or use the File menu to check all accounts 2. Then check if TB hasn't forgotten an account Actual Results: Tb checks some accounts, not always the same. Expected Results: Tb should check all accounts which were set to Automatic.
Version: unspecified → 2.0
It happened again this afternoon. I noted exactly what happened: 1 Get all mail, TB retrieves 6 mails in my main mailbox 2 Get all mail, TB finds nothing new 3 Get mail for a specific account (which is set to automatic download), TB discovers 20 mails, 9 from yesterday, and 11 from today.
Once again today. I noted again 1. Load TB (I only noticed this when loading TB) 2. Click Get All New Mail and wait for the throbber to stop throbbing -> No new mail 3. Redo 2. several times just to be sure. 4. Select each account in turn and Click Get mail. One of the accounts has new messages! (sorry if the buttons and menu options are not exactly identical to the english version, I use the french version of TB and I don't know how to switch to english)
Once again today: clicked once on Get all mail, TB retrieved mails from the first 2 accounts (maybe tested more, but I can't be sure), I took the time to check as spam 2 mails from my second mailbox and forward them to spamcop, then tried again Get all mail and suddenly TB found 31 mails on a 3rd account. I believe that all the times this has happened, it was on accounts from the same ISP. Could it be that the queries are arriving too fast?
My last hypothesis seems wrong. The problem disappeared after I swapped the accounts in TB. I attach two screen shots. The green accounts are in automatic mode with password memorized in TB, the red accounts are non automatic or TB does not know their passwords, and the orange account is the one which had the problem the most often before and which does not have any problem after the swap.
Attached image before swap —
Attached image after swap —
False hope! While re-arranging the accounts did improve non-primary accounts, I had this morning a problem with the primary account. I booted this morning (I had shut down yesterday evening) and loaded TB, asked to download all mails, and TB recovered more than 50 mails from a secondary account. After the throbber had stopped, I asked to check for my primary account and TB downloaded 3 mails, all more than 10 hours old!
A few more comments: - none of the accounts which are set to automatic in TB are primary accounts for the ISP (which means all the accounts which are set to automatic should have the same behaviour, I don't see why my ISPs would answer for some accounts and not for the others). - none of my accounts are set to check mails upon TB startup. - The problem seems to arise only if I try to manually check mails after loading TB. If I load TB and wait until he checks, it seems to work (although, since the bug is erratic, it is difficult to prove).
Is there a way to log the traffic between tb and he mail servers? My firewall shows me the outbound requests but not the answers. A full log would allow me to understand better what is going on and where the problem comes from.
http://www.mozilla.org/quality/mailnews/mail-troubleshoot.html#imap shows you how to get IMAP or POP3 protocol logs.
Thanks. Now I have a tool to help me investigate. I will post as soon as I find something positive.
I got one. I'll attach the log.
On second thought, I am not quite sure the mail was already there when TB first checked, it was sent only a few seconds before. I will catch another example (more solid) of the bug.
I have got it. Here is how I did it. I sent a mail from my gmail account to my ISP mail account. I tested using webmail that the mail had arrived, then I loaded TB and I pressed Check all mails. I had to do it twice to catch tb not recovering the mail. I'll attach both logs for comparison purposes.
Attached file first test, no bug —
This time, tb downloaded without problem the test mail.
Attached file second try, bug —
Same procedure as the previous attachment, this time tb did not recover the mail. I had to select the account and press check mail to get the mail.
My bug is still here. I am currently using build 20070326 (french). On 56 logs, 10 contain at least one problem. Should I post these here? I'd rather not, as some of these logs contain mails I sent or received! I don't have any problem with sending those logs to someone, but posting them on a public page is another matter!
Still there. 17 bugs out of 102 logs. I just had one case which hadn't happened before. Previously, I believe the bug always happened when more than one of my accounts had mails. So that TB recovered mails from some of my accounts but not from all. This time, TB told me he had no mails to recover while one of my accounts did have mails.
Last status: 33 bugs out of 208 logs. The actual bug rate may be actually higher than this, since sometimes I did not check manually all my accounts to see if the mails had been retrieved. 2 new comments: I never saw a partial download, that is when TB starts downloading the mails from one accounts it gets all the mails. It is rather a problem of testing an account or not. Today was interesting because TB hadn't found any mail to download while I knew there was one. I examined the log with a file viewer after doing the Get all mails but before manually retrieving the faulty account. I did not find the account's user login. Of course, I can't be sure TB flushes the log file often enough for me to view its full contents live. I proceeded with retrieving manually the mail, then I exited TB and I re-examined the log. I found only one occurrence of SEND: USER for the faulty account, but this may not mean anything since maybe TB only logs to each account once. I guess the best way to be sure would be to check WHEN TB sends the account login command. Then I could check if the login for a faulty account is sent more or less at the same time as for the other accounts or if it is sent a few seconds later (which would match the time for me to decide TB will indeed miss one account read). But I couldn't find any time information in the log. Is there any way to activate it? If not, next time I see the problem occurring, I will exit TB before manually checking the missed account in order to get a log containing only the automatic requests.
(In reply to comment #19) > But I couldn't find any time information in the log. Is there any way to activate it? A solution when MS Win: Debugview + "SET NSPR_LOG_FILE=WinDebug" Attached logs to Bug 325649 are example. See Bug 86396 comment #6 and http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/DebugView.html for NSPR log with DebugView.
WADA, Thanks for your suggestion. I tried it, but I got mixed results: I had the time stamps, but the contents were much less detailed: I could not find the account login names in the log. So I will use the two-runs trick instead.
(In reply to comment #21) > the contents were much less detailed: I could not find the account login names in the log. So I will use the two-runs trick instead. Secure connection? If so, login information is probably hidden for security reason. Is login name really used very important(key factor) in your problem analysis? Did you use same "SET NSPR_LOG_MODULES=..." as previous test? Did you terminate Thunderbird? Please note that NSPR log is buffered. Another technique - force buffer write by writing many polling logs. 1. SET NSPR_LOG_MODULES=pop3:5,nsHttp:5,nsSocketTransport:5,nsHostResolver:5 (See http://www.mozilla.org/projects/netlib/http/http-debugging.html) 2. Capture log using Debugview only while testing of POP3 connection
I only need to see the login name, not the password. Ok, I found it now, it was hidden in so many unrelated messages that I missed it the first time. Thanks.
I finally caught it! Here was the situation: my pop notifier (PopTray) warned me there were mails in 3 different accounts. I loaded TB and used Get all mail. It recovered mails from 2 of my accounts but missed the third, which is my main account. I exited TB and reloaded and redid a Get all mail. TB told there was no mail. I re-exited and reloaded and redid Get all mail and this time it recovered the 7 mails from my main account. What is interesting is that there was no trace of my main account login in the first 2 logs. I can post the logs here (748289 bytes) if someone thinks it can help.
(In reply to comment #24) > my pop notifier (PopTray) warned me there were mails in 3 different accounts To Frederic Da Vitoria: What will happen when PopTray is disabled? What will POP3 protocol log say? 1. Disable PopTray, 2.Get All Msgs with NSPR logging and repeat "Get All Msgs".
Ok, I'll test it. I'd like to point a few things though: - I don't see how an external pop notifier could prevent TB from querying an account (but of course it could give problems in getting the answer). I suppose TB logs every thing which happens, not only successful Pop conversations! - When I first noted my problem, I was not using PopTray. I had the idea of using PopTray only because to log the problem correctly (without too much useless things in the log) I needed to load TB and start a new log when there was mail to fetch.
(In reply to comment #26) > - I don't see how an external pop notifier could prevent TB from querying an > account If PopTray is MUA(mail client) type, PopTray also logins to your POP3 server, using same your user-id/password which Thunderbird uses. (If not, haw can PopTray know there are mails in POP3 server?) If PopTray is proxy type, PopTray intercepts all requests from Thunderbird and all responses from POP3 server. In any case, PopTray can interfare with Tb's POP3 server access. This is the reason why check without PopTray is required for problem determination.
Thanks, I understand better. AFAIK, PopTray is not a proxy, TB works the same whether PopTray is loaded or not. Of course, I had to give to PopTray the logins/passwords for the accounts I ask him to check.
Yesterday (june 13) I've got the problem twice, and both times without PopTray (or any other pop software AFAIK). Both times, the missed account's name wasn't in the log. Could it be my firewall? I don't like much the idea of deactivating it, even for tests, but if someone feels it should be tried... I still have the logs, so if someone is interested...
Problem of all next match? 1. when "Get All New Messages" only 2. specific account(s) only 3. always occur 4. Same result both when PopTray=on and popTray=off (PopTray has no relation) If so, do you use Global Inbox? See Account Settings/Server Setting Advanced. If "Global Inbox", what is your choice of "Include this server when getting new mail"?
I installed 2.0.0.4 Just to be sure, I unactivated my firewall during one of the tests and I still got the problem. So the last test was: no PopTray, Comodo firewall unactivated (what they call "Dsiable mode"). Once again TB missed one of the accounts.
@WADA: 1. yes, only in this situation AFAIK 2. I don't understand your question. It can happen on almost any account. Here I have problems to push the tests. I use TB to collect mails from several boxes from 2 different ISPs. The problem only occurs with one of the ISPs, but this doesn't really mean anything since the two other boxes (from the second ISP) never receive any mail. But all the accounts from the first ISP have had the issue at one time or another. One of the accounts of this first ISP is my main account and it has had the problem too. 3. No, my current statistics say it happens about 20% of the time. But when TB misses something it is the whole account. I never saw TB recover only part of the mails of an account. It is like TB forgets an account is there, or he thinks the account should not be checked at all. 4. yes, and as I said above, I even got it without PopTray and without Comodo firewall. I don't use a global inbox, I set TB to put the mails from each account in a different box.
I see, I understand your environment and phenomenon better now. (I simply taught you how to get NSPR log with time stamp, and simply let you know a check item in problem determination.) Mutiple POP3 accounts on single POP3 server? If yes, serialization or contention may occur. Please note that all POP3 accounts of same POP3 server accceses thru same IP address and port number.
I can understand this. What I can't understand is why TB doesn't do something about it or warn the user (me for example ;-) ) that he had a problem. Doesn't TB know something went wrong? I suppose he should. When I had the problem, I could not find the login for the missing account in the log. Which seems to mean that TB did not send it. So TB "knew" something went wrong. Why didn't he tell me? If he can't be sure to retrieve all mails in such a situation, why doesn't he query the accounts from the same ISP sequentially?
Before analyze what exactly happens and whether this is bug(always "this is "SPEC" if MS) or not... Possible/practical workaround if reason is multiple accounts on single server: - Specifiy different prime number in "check for new messages every NN minutes For example, 7 for first, 11 for second, 13 for third. This was my workaround of old problem(already resolved) when other contention which occurred among mail download/filter, Junk move, Junk purge and so on. Try above for several days, with PopTray, without "Get All New Messages". Will "no mail download even though mail exist" occur frequently?
FYI. I have 4 accounts on a POP3 server, but I set 7/11/13/17 for them because of problem in the past. And I never noticed phenomenon of "no download of second or later", because mails were/are downloaded periodically, even for second or later account ( Junks arrives every day :-) ). And, it is impossible that I notice the phenomenon happen when "Get All New Messages", even if the phenomenon occurred/is occurring, because I don't use PopTray nor other mail checker.
WADA, I could try your suggestion, but I won't because it would be completely contrary to my way of using mails. Let me explain. I spend most of my time on my computer with many windows opened at the same time. The mail is only a background application for me (except of course when I am reading or writing mails). If I followed your suggestion (I did have TB loaded permanently at one time), TB would fetch mails permanently and I could miss the fact there are new mails (I have often missed TB's notifier). This is why I use an external notifier which won't disappear before I do something about the waiting mails. But this means that when I run TB, I want to get all the mails at once. I don't want to wait for the programmed interval. So this bug is not really a problem for me (if TB misses an account, PopTray will warn me). But still I feel this is a bug which may be more serious for other users.
(In reply to comment #37) > (I have often missed TB's notifier). This is why I use an external notifier I see. Another possible workaround. (which I dislike. maybe rather hate) Use "Global Inbox" feature for multiple accounts on a server. 1. Define dummy POP3 account for a POP3 server(not Global Inbox). 2. Change all of multiple accounts setting to "Inbox for different account" Enable "Include this server when getting new mail". 3. Copy all mail folder files/.sbd directories to directory for dummy account. Because "Inbox" of dummy account is shared, mail download(=login) is serialized when "Get All New Messages". If you require folder pane display for each account, define dummy POP3 account for each account, then make filter of "If X-Account-Key: is accountN move to Inbox of Account-N".
Thanks fur the suggestion, but I hate the idea almost as much as you do. As I have stated above, I have my own workaround which satisfies me. About the procedure: can I now stop testing? I feel this bug isn't Unconfirmed anymore (although the fact that no one else seems to have reported it indicates it is not very important). Since no one asked for my logs, I will archive them on cdrom.
(In reply to comment #39) > Since no one asked for my logs Log of "pop3:5,imap:nsSocketTransport:5" simply says "logon was not issued" as you said. If I were you, and if I thought critical for me, I try to do next first; 0. Create different profile to obtain data for problem analysis. - Define "multiple POP3 accounts on a server" only - Leave messages on server - Not download on start up, not download periodically - Disable all other access - start page, software update check, ... 1. Activate PopTray 2. When mails arrive and mails exist in multiple account's mail box, 2-1. Shutdown Thunderbird, start Thunderbird of profile for test with NSPR_LOG_MODULES=all:5 and NSPR_LOG_FILE=WinDebug. 2-2. Start DebugView, and disable capture at DebugView 2-3. Send some (large) mails to account to which login is done first. 2-4. Enable capture at DebugView, then "Get All New Messages". 3. Shutdown Tb for test, and restart Tb for daily use, and "Get All New Messages", and "Get Msgs" for failed accounts. 4. Check log content to see what happens.
I think I have the same problem (multiple POP accounts, mail that is on the server is sometimes not found). The symptoms of the problem occur whether there is mail on the POP server or not. I've installed the "Tb Progress History" add-on (http://forum.addonsmirror.net/index.php?showtopic=2031&mode=threaded) which shows more detail of the Get Mail process. When it "sticks" on getting the mail for an id it has performed the following tasks: Connecting to mail.btinternet.com Connected to mail.btinternet.com It fails to progress to the next step when it would issue: Connect: Host contacted, sending logon information (so no blue bar) There are no new messages on the server (for example, if none) Most of the time it works fine for all my ids, then sometimes it "sticks", and the id it sticks on varies. When it sticks, there is no error message or indication that it has failed to contact my mail server (if it was a network problem then I would expect an error message from Thunderbird saying something had timed out - it does not get as far as the sending logon information so no blue progress bar). Having stuck on an id, the get mail messages indicate that it is able to carry on and get the mail for other ids (not sure if this process is sequential or in parallel - the successful get mail messages appear after the one that sticks). Having read other threads I have been compacting my folders regularly (using xpurge) but the problem has re-occurred since. All the ids share a single inbox so if it was a folder problem I would not expect the problem to be limited to a single id. Is this the same problem, a duplicate of one of the other ones showing similar symptoms, or should I open a new bug report ?
I don't know if it is coincidence but since I've installed Thunderbird version 2.0.0.12 (20080213) I haven't had any occurrences of mail "sticking" ... keeping my fingers crossed.
As you were, problem still occurs.
Adding "interfere by PopTray Mail Notifier" in bug summary, in order to avoid confusion.
Summary: "Get Mail" has erratic behaviour → "Get Mail" has erratic behaviour ("Get Msgs" is interfered by PopTray Mail Notifier)
Wada, I disagree with the title change. As you can see iin comment #26 and #29, had the problem without PopTray. I suggest we ask leamphil if he uses any pop tool at the same time as TB. The bug does not happen with me now, but I resigned some of my mail boxes which were getting only (lots of) spam, so this is not surprising. Sorry, you'll have to find another user to continue investigations. Maybe leamphil?
(In reply to comment #45) > The bug does not happen with me now If so, close as WORKSFORME, please.
I don't use PopTray or any other similar tools. I've still got the problem and in response to the title change opened a new bug report (420673) ... will someone please tell me whether they want to continue with the bug under this report or under my new one ??
The bug disappeared for me due to changes in my mail configuration. leamphil's comment suggests it actually still exists.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 18 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
(In reply to comment #47) > and in response to the title change opened a new bug report (420673) Oh, you've opened new report, before I recommend you to open separate bug. leamphil, thanks for your quick action. (In reply to comment #48) > leamphil's comment suggests it actually still exists. Although "something wrong while Get All New Messages" is common, there is no evidence that phenomenon on your PC and phenomenon at leamphil's PC. Fortunately, leamphil has opened separate bug (Bug 420673). Frederic Da Vitoria, see Bug 420673 if you will experience similar problem.
I am not in a position to check if this is exactly the same problem, since the issue has disappeared for me :-) It is probably still here, but it occurs so seldom I don't notice it. My mail rate will probably increase significantly in one month from here. If my bug creeps up again, I will use leamphil's add-on to check.
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