486953 - IMAP folders always appearing empty - response "S-INBOX:PARSER:Internal Syntax Error: %s:: no atom characters found" to QUOTAROOT command

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Networking: IMAP, defect, P5)

Description

[Erik Holzer]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5
Build Identifier: every and all 2.x version

occurs with every version newer than 1.5.x
occurs with merak mail server (by icewarp software)
in the imap debug log, it says after the QUOTAROOT command, "S-INBOX:PARSER:Internal Syntax Error: %s:: no atom characters found"
because the mail server is responding with a path containing backslash characters.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. take any thunderbird 2.x
2. create an IMAP account
3. connect to a merak mail server (IMAP)

Actual Results:  
4. see that the list of folders is complete but all folders are empty.

Expected Results:  
the folders contain elements and these were visible in any thunderbird 1.5 version

it is impossible to use IMAP anymore with certain mail servers.

Comment 1

[Melchert Fruitema]

(In reply to comment #0) 
> 
> occurs with merak mail server (by icewarp software)

Which version? 

> in the imap debug log, it says after the QUOTAROOT command,
> "S-INBOX:PARSER:Internal Syntax Error: %s:: no atom characters found"
> because the mail server is responding with a path containing backslash
> characters

please attach the debug log, if feasible.

> 
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1. take any thunderbird 2.x
> 2. create an IMAP account
> 3. connect to a merak mail server (IMAP)

@ step 2 & 3: Easier said than done. Which configuration is required? Is there a  working demo server (package)?

> 
> Actual Results:  
> 4. see that the list of folders is complete but all folders are empty.
> 
> Expected Results:  
> the folders contain elements and these were visible in any thunderbird 1.5
> version
> 
> it is impossible to use IMAP anymore with certain mail servers.

Why is that, is there a problem with the connect protocol?

Comment 2

[Melchert Fruitema]

(In reply to comment #0)  
> > in the imap debug log, it says after the QUOTAROOT command,
> > "S-INBOX:PARSER:Internal Syntax Error: %s:: no atom characters found"
> > because the mail server is responding with a path containing backslash
> > characters

Interesting support query, refer to:

<http://www.icewarp.com/support/search.php?query=QUOTAROOT>

Any comments?

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

see also bug 380551, bug 363666 and bug 327754.
seems like they+we go through series of problems.

Comment 4

[David :Bienvenu]

are they quoting the quota response? I suspect not. But a protocol log would be helpful.

Comment 5

[Melchert Fruitema]

Given a demo merak mail server account from reporter, I added an IMAP account in Tb 2.0.0.19. Herewith some my findings.

Scenario 1: 
Composed a message and sent it to my bugzilla email address. The Sent folder appeared and a copy of the message was in it. 
The message was received and I did sent a reply that did not show up in the Inbox folder.

In subscriptions, I checked Inbox and Sent. The message copy in Sent vanished.

Scenario 2: let's save a draft (and a template)
-----------------------------------------------
I'm getting a prompt (this looks like a bug from another report!):

  Confirm
  -------
  "There was an error copying the message to the Sent folder. Retry?"

I clicked on the Cancel button and got another prompt:

  Save Draft error
  ----------------
  "Unable to save your message as draft. Please verify that your Mail & Newgroups account settings are correct and try again."

Verified settings in Copies and Folders (of my Merak imap account 'Bug 486953'):

-  sent messages copied in folder Sent,
-  drafts kept in folder Drafts,
-  templates kept in folder Templates.

Repeating ... the same observations.

In a 'flash' (on 600Mhz iBook) I see that the draft and the template are saved, but, I assume, the sync with mail server removes them again.

Comment 6

[Melchert Fruitema]

(In reply to comment #1)
> (In reply to comment #0) 
> > 
> > occurs with merak mail server (by icewarp software)
> 
> Which version?

assumed the latest available (for Windows XP)!
 
> 
> > in the imap debug log, it says after the QUOTAROOT command,
> > "S-INBOX:PARSER:Internal Syntax Error: %s:: no atom characters found"
> > because the mail server is responding with a path containing backslash
> > characters
> 
> please attach the debug log, if feasible.
> 
> > ...
> > 2. create an IMAP account
> > 3. connect to a merak mail server (IMAP)
> 
> @ step 2 & 3: Easier said than done. Which configuration is required? Is there
> a  working demo server (package)?

Got a test merak server account, kindly provided by reporter, for debugging the problem at hand.

(In reply to comment #5)
> <snip>
> 
> Scenario 2: let's save a draft (and a template)
> -----------------------------------------------
> I'm getting a prompt (this looks like a bug from another report!):

This bug 484387 reports that (possibly) drafts are sent to recipient when saving a copy of the message composition as a draft.

> 
>   Confirm
>   -------
>   "There was an error copying the message to the Sent folder. Retry?"
> 
> I clicked on the Cancel button and got another prompt:
> 
>   Save Draft error
>   ----------------
>   "Unable to save your message as draft. Please verify that your Mail &
> Newgroups account settings are correct and try again."
> 

I should add the other possible user action: click on the OK button!

Comment 7

[Melchert Fruitema]

Attachment: log - Merak 8.5.0 IMAP4rev1 Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:14:49 +0200

Note/MM: Log showing the first merak server connection by Tb 2.0.0.19 (MacOS X) of the day.

Comment 8

[Melchert Fruitema]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Created an attachment (id=372321) [details]
> log - Merak 8.5.0 IMAP4rev1 Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:14:49 +0200

So, the IceWarp Software email (merak) server version is 8.5.0. 
 
Note: The current download version is 9.4.1. 
      (Refer to <http://www.icewarp.com/>)

> 
> Note/MM: Log showing the first merak server connection by Tb 2.0.0.19  (MacOS > X), of the day.

The log contains the following lines:

110409216[64e4b40]: 694f400:biz.krs.at:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * QUOTAROOT W:\Mailbox\biz.krs.at\bugzilla\inbox\ ""
110409216[64e4b40]: 694f400:biz.krs.at:S-INBOX:PARSER:Internal Syntax Error: %s:: no atom characters found
110409216[64e4b40]: 694f400:biz.krs.at:S-INBOX:PARSER:Internal Syntax Error on line: %s: * QUOTAROOT W:\Mailbox\biz.krs.at\bugzilla\inbox\ ""

Comment 9

[Melchert Fruitema]

Attachment: OK Merak 8.5.0 IMAP4rev1 Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:39:32 +0200

This log has been created on latest Tb trunk / Windows XP SP2 (prof)

Comment 10

[Melchert Fruitema]

back level IceWarp email server product version 8.5.0; current version is 9.4.1;

The support forum on http://icewarp.com/ suggest that the problem has been fixed (search for "QUOTAROOT" and Thunderbird). However, it is unclear which release target version was aimed at.

Comment 11

[Erik Holzer]

it seems it was corrected in 8.9.1

however, i have purchased this version 8.5.0 and upgrading would cost me LOTS of money - which i am not willing to spend, because everything elese on 8.5 is running perfectly fine.

surely, there will be some way you could integrate a fix, stripping everything before the last backslash character, or ignoring this malformed response, to get things running as they were in thunderbird 1.5.x

regards, erik

Comment 12

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Bienvenu, WONTFIX ?

Comment 13

[David :Bienvenu]

one issue with accepting syntactically incorrect protocol is that we might inadvertently break our handling of correct protocol. Our parser doesn't recover from bad protocol so it's a bit scary. But since we're more or less ignoring this response, technically we could probably fix this. But it's a pretty low priority.

Comment 14

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Removing myslef on all the bugs I'm cced on. Please NI me if you need something on MailNews Core bugs from me.