408861 - Thunderbird reports "mail server is not an imap4 mail server"

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Alan Batie]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.0.12) Gecko/20070508 Firefox/1.5.0.12
Build Identifier: version 2.0.0.9 (20071031)

This appears to be load and/or timing related, as it seems to happen mostly when I'm starting up (usually after it crashed overnight, which it's been doing a lot lately, but that's another issue) and it's fetching new mail from three separate accounts, some of which have large numbers of messages in them.  They are all imap servers which I use on a regular basis.  Admittedly, the one it seems to complain about is an exchange server, so that's debatable ;-) but I do access it using imap...

Anyway, it pops up an Alert dialog that says the server is not an imap4 mail server, while continuing to download the new mail.  I click OK and all seems well.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start Thunderbird, preferably configured to fetch mail on startup from an exchange server with a lot of new mail in a number of folders.
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
see attached image

Expected Results:  
it shouldn't complain about the imap server not being an imap server

Comment 1

[Alan Batie]

Attachment: "mail server is not an imap4 mail server" alert dialog

Comment 2

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

MS Exchange...
The alert dialog is usually issued when unexpected response for CAPABILITY Command.
Get IMAP protocol log, and check protocol level flow first.
See Bug 402793 Comment #1 for getting protocol log.
If fault of Tb is involved, attach log file(never paste long data, please.)

Comment 3

[Alan Batie]

It just happened again when my DSL connection to home went down briefly, reinforcing my guess that it's a timeout condition triggering it (that server is a cyrus imap server, but with the connection down, it didn't get that far).  So I would edit "steps to reproduce" as:

1.  configure account on imap server, set to fetch mail as quickly as possible
2.  let it get some mail
3.  unplug imap server from net

Comment 4

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

At one point I used to get the message when my connection went down, can't reproduce at will though. The code is around here: http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/mailnews/imap/src/nsImapProtocol.cpp#1385 if you are able to do some debugging.

But getting an imap log might be a good first step.
http://www.mozilla.org/quality/mailnews/mail-troubleshoot.html#imap

Comment 5

[Dale Wiggins]

I see this from time to time. I'll take a look.

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Attachment: imap nspr.log for error during shutdown

I just got this on a shutdown of build 080329 on windows. Never seen error before during shutdown.

xref bug 363039

Comment 7

[Nikolay Shopik]

TB reporting such message when it receive BYE message instead of greeting of IMAP server, sometimes IMAP can't accept connection and we should report back this to user instead of "This is not IMAP4 server"

Comment 8

[David :Bienvenu]

Attachment: proposed fix

I think this should fix it - can you reproduce this, Dale?

Comment 9

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 329747 [details] [diff] [review]
proposed fix 

I think I've seen this before - as I recall by the time we see this alert we've already alerted that the connection failed.

Comment 10

[Dale Wiggins]

Comment on attachment 329747 [details] [diff] [review]
proposed fix 

I see this from time to time in everyday use, but so far I cannot reproduce it naturally. It does appear to be timeout related.

I can however reproduce this at will artificially by putting a breakpoint in the code just before where this proposed fix goes, allowing TB to establish a connection and get the greeting. I then let the debugger sit at the breakpoint long enough for a timeout to occur. When I let the app run again it gives me the bogus error message. The proposed patch does NOT prevent the bogus error in this artificial case so I am doubtful it will fix the problem.

Comment 11

[David :Bienvenu]

Dale, what line exactly did you set the breakpoint on? I tried setting it on the Capability() line, and after hitting the breakpoint, I disconnected my router, and continued. I didn't see the alert, with my patch.  W/o my patch, I did see the alert. So I'm reasonably confident it helps in at least some situations.

Comment 12

[Dale Wiggins]

Comment on attachment 329747 [details] [diff] [review]
proposed fix 

OK, must have done something wrong before. I can no longer generate the bogus error message with this patch. Looks good.

Comment 13

[David :Bienvenu]

ok, thx, Dale - fix checked in.

Comment 14

[Thomas Bertels]

Is it intended that there's no indentation after the if in the patch ?
Was the patch actually checked in ?

Comment 15

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

If you look at the line in the patch which begins "diff" you can see that it's a -w diff. If you look at http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/search?string=AlertUserEventUsingId%28IMAP_SERVER_NOT_IMAP4%29 you can see that it's checked in.

Comment 16

[Thomas Bertels]

Thank you for the infos.
And I wasn't searching in the good repository (I tried thunderbird and mozilla-central).
I'd suggest renaming the "Thunderbird" title to "Thunderbird 2" in the mxr root page Starting Points.

Comment 17

[roger]

Hello,

I also have the issue ""mail server is not an imap4 mail server" since a few weeks now and it is getting really annoying...

The big difference for me is that it happens always at the same time: after 18H, China time and during the week end.... everyday and every week the same now...

Moreover, we are several people in the office with different windows and pc configuration and we all have the same problem. It is the same from home.

We have made in "Run, Cmd", a "tracert" (tracing route) with our server in the US (DreamHost) and it successfully reach it (trace complete).

Does anyone has an idea about what the pb could come from and how to test and to fix it ????????

Your help would be very much appreciated.

Thank you

Roger

Comment 18

[roger]

Hello,

I also have the issue ""mail server is not an imap4 mail server" since a few weeks now and it is getting really annoying...

The big difference for me is that it happens always at the same time: after 18H, China time and during the week end.... everyday and every week the same now...

Moreover, we are several people in the office with different windows and pc configuration and we all have the same problem. It is the same from home.

We have made in "Run, Cmd", a "tracert" (tracing route) with our server in the US (DreamHost) and it successfully reach it (trace complete).

Does anyone has an idea about what the pb could come from and how to test and to fix it ????????

Your help would be very much appreciated.

Thank you

Roger

Comment 19

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

(In reply to comment #18)
> Hello,
> 
> I also have the issue ""mail server is not an imap4 mail server" since a few
> weeks now and it is getting really annoying...
> 
> The big difference for me is that it happens always at the same time: after
> 18H, China time and during the week end.... everyday and every week the same
> now...
> 
> Moreover, we are several people in the office with different windows and pc
> configuration and we all have the same problem. It is the same from home.
> 
> We have made in "Run, Cmd", a "tracert" (tracing route) with our server in the
> US (DreamHost) and it successfully reach it (trace complete).
> 
> Does anyone has an idea about what the pb could come from and how to test and
> to fix it ????????

Open a new bug and follow the instructions at https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging and provide us with imap logs so we can figure out what's going on. If it's a bug or if something blocks the imap ports.