433486 - IMAP server email not downloaded correctly but still deleted from server

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(MailNews Core :: Networking: IMAP, defect)

Description

[Cel]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.14) Gecko/20080404 Firefox/2.0.0.14
Build Identifier: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14

Using apple mac email account. Use vodafone usb modem with laptop for internet access. Connectivity varies with the vodafone modem.

Click on server inbox in Thunderbird and can see new emails.
Select emails and then >Message >Move to inbox.

Currently staying in Wales for a few weeks where my internet connection with vodafone sometimes stops and hangs and at times I restart it.

I have noticed 3 times in past week that thunderbird has transferred messages from apple account, could be 10 in number and normally very small emails size wise, but creates 10 empty emails with no subject, sender etc (just a dash). The emails do have a timestamp which is the same for them all.

If I check on the apple server the emails have all been deleted. So I loose the emails.

I have been using thunderbird for about 3 months in earnest as moved to a new laptop with vista which no longer allows me to use my previous version of Outlook 2002 fully, and this issue has only happened recently.

Today I have used the config editor to change the server setting to not delete emails due to this issue.

This has only happened recently and so could be due to my vodafone connection just not working too well where I am currently staying (lived in London previously with quite good connection) or possibly a bug in thunderbird when loosing internet connectivity.

Regards Cel


Reproducible: Couldn't Reproduce

Steps to Reproduce:
Very difficult to reproduce this one as it depends upon my internet connection which varies.
Actual Results:  
not able to reproduce at will

Expected Results:  
not able to reproduce at will

not able to reproduce at will

Comment 1

[Cel]

18 June 2008
Hi Bugzilla team. The above has happened again this morning. I am now using a broadband connection which is working well.

I opened thunderbird (TB), clicked on inbox and could see 17 emails. I selected them all and then right-clicked to move them to Inbox. TB hung and did not seem to be doing anything. I went into Firefox (FF) and logged on to Apple Mac account and could see the emails ok. logged out of apple account via FF.

TB still hanging so I closed it down and then went back in. No messages given when closed TB. The emails still showing, right-clicked again and then move to inbox. Still hanging. Left for 5 minutes and then closed TB, no messages given etc.

Re-opened TB again and this time 17 mails had been created in the local inbox but none had a message body. Size column of 0 and date stamp of 09:01.

I quickly logged back into apple account and moved the messages still there to another folder. TB will delete them if I connect to mac again (it seems to do this even though I have tried to turn it off to stop loosing mails when this issue happens).

So the issue has ocurred again. I get about 40-50 emails a day to do with my work as I work for myself and so don't want to loose them esp if they are from clients etc.

Apart from this problem all else seems to working well and I enjoy using TB but the above can cause me problems if I loose emails. I only use the std functions of sending and receiving emails.

Kind Regards Cel

Comment 2

[Cel]

Hi a further update. 

This has happened again today and I think part of/all of the problem maybe with my apple mac account and how TB behaves when a server is slow. The apple server is taking a long time to login (3-4 minutes) when I use the .mac web page to access my email and so TB takes a long time to connect etc. Again I had empty messages downloaded. Pls note that the .mac account is IMAP and not POP3.

One other issue I noticed that maybe related to speed and caching?? possibly, is that last night I cleared out >200 emails from my inbox and organised them to extra folders in TB leaving 3 emails in the inbox. After having the issue with deleted emails and opening and closing TB all of the emails I put to folders were back in the inbox. The original I moved to the folders were still in the folders.

Although I have not shut my PC down since last night I did close TB. The emails were not in the inbox when I opened TB this morning but were after I had the issue with mails not downloading fully. So looks like TB went to some cache to get this information, a cache which is possibly cleared when the PC shuts down?

Please note that these emails do not exist on my mac account so they must have come from TB.

One other change to my use of TB is that for the past 4 months I have been using it on a Vista PC. Before this it was on XP. Not sure if this makes a difference but I did not experience this issue with XP.

I hope the above helps.

Kind Regards Cel

Comment 3

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

I'm not sure what you mean, why do you have to move messages from inbox to inbox?

When this happens, does "rebuild index" (in the folder properties) help?

Comment 4

[Cel]

Hi Magnus, sorry for delay in replying to you.

In the left hand window listing my folders I have a folder for my apple mac account that shows the inbox messages on the server. I select them all and then right click and move them to the local inbox folder on my PC choosing the menu item >move to folders >local >inbox. Sorry for any confusion caused.

I have not tried rebuilding the inbox folder on the PC when this happens. I will try next time this occurs. Unfortunately this only seems to occur when my apple account is 'slow' so I cannot reproduce at will. Since previous post the problem has not occured as the apple server has been ok. I appreciate this makes it difficult to look at, am a programmer myself. Will update as soon as this issue occurs again.

Kind Regards Cel

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Cel, do you still see this problem when using version 3.1?
(it should be gone)

Comment 6

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

RESOLVED INCOMPLETE due to lack of response to previous comment. If you feel this change was made in error, please respond to this bug with your reasons why.