540914 - IMAP: New mail often not displayed in folder pane (read & unread folders). Mail not seen until going offline

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Chuck]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.7) Gecko/20091221 Firefox/3.5.7
Build Identifier: 3.0

Setup: IMAP with 150 subscribed folders, frequent checking for new mail, all filtering done at IMAP server.  TB is left running overnight.

Problem: New mail not displayed in some (no pattern detected yet) folders.  Those folders may have all mail read, in which case the folder name does NOT change to bold black, and folder names with previously unread mail do NOT change to blue.

Other folders (no pattern detected yet) seem to work as expected.

Not a problem with TB2.

Workaround: I have to manually step through each folder name in the folder pane with the down arrow to "update" the folder's display.  When I do this, the message count and bold or blue color change occurs and I know I have new mail.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1.See details field above

Actual Results:  
1.See details field above


Expected Results:  
New mail should be indicated by either a bold folder name (no previously unread mail) in the folder pane or a blue folder name (previously unread mail) and an updated message count.

One shouldn't have to manually refresh the folder by highlighting the folder name to be informed of the new mail.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

So the mails are in the folder but the folders aren't updated ?

Comment 2

[Chuck]

How could I differentiate?

When I highlight a folder that appears to have all mail read and it turns bold black and adds a message count e.g. (1), I also see network traffic indicating it's checked the IMAP server.

Comment 3

[Chuck]

Updated to 3.0.1 today.  Still seeing issue.

When the program is first loaded, new mail arrives and the folders are updated as expected.  It appears subsequent new mail isn't reliably displayed (black to bold black, bold black to blue, updated message counts).

Comment 4

[Chuck]

(In reply to comment #1)
> So the mails are in the folder but the folders aren't updated ?

I was able to determine that the mails are NOT in the un-updated folders.

Comment 5

[Chuck]

I found the logging feature and let it run overnight.

HERE'S WHAT APPEARS IS HAPPENING:

If there's no new mail found in the INBOX folder, *none of the other subscribed folders are checked for new mail.*

Below is the log for a ten-minute new mail check that does NOT find any mail in the INBOX, however I DO have new mail on the IMAP server in other subscribed folders - TB never pulls it down unless I manually refresh a folder or restart TB.

2010-00-26 10:46:37.156000 UTC - 3124[326cd40]: 4424000:luxsci.net:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 1265 OK UID FETCH completed

2010-00-26 10:56:36.968000 UTC - 3124[326cd40]: 4424000:luxsci.net:S-INBOX:ProcessCurrentURL: entering
2010-00-26 10:56:36.968000 UTC - 3124[326cd40]: 4424000:luxsci.net:S-INBOX:ProcessCurrentURL:imap://[e-mail]:993/select%3E/INBOX:  = currentUrl
2010-00-26 10:56:36.968000 UTC - 3124[326cd40]: 4424000:luxsci.net:S-INBOX:SendData: 1266 check

2010-00-26 10:56:37.078000 UTC - 3124[326cd40]: ReadNextLine [stream=4453c48 nb=25 needmore=0]
2010-00-26 10:56:37.078000 UTC - 3124[326cd40]: 4424000:luxsci.net:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 1266 OK Check completed

2010-00-26 10:56:37.078000 UTC - 3124[326cd40]: 4424000:luxsci.net:S-INBOX:SendData: 1267 UID fetch 3767:* (FLAGS)

2010-00-26 10:56:37.187000 UTC - 3124[326cd40]: ReadNextLine [stream=4453c48 nb=33 needmore=0]
2010-00-26 10:56:37.187000 UTC - 3124[326cd40]: 4424000:luxsci.net:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * 467 FETCH (UID 3766 FLAGS ())

2010-00-26 10:56:37.187000 UTC - 3124[326cd40]: ReadNextLine [stream=4453c48 nb=29 needmore=0]
2010-00-26 10:56:37.187000 UTC - 3124[326cd40]: 4424000:luxsci.net:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 1267 OK UID FETCH completed

2010-00-26 11:06:36.984000 UTC - 3124[326cd40]: 4424000:luxsci.net:S-INBOX:ProcessCurrentURL: entering

Comment 6

[Philippp]

I also have the impression that this happens, but I cannot confirm it.

You did try setting mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new to true ?
Otherwise, I think there is also a property of each folder, whether it should be checked.

Comment 7

[Bernie Durfee]

I've been struggling with this bug as well. I'm using...

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.7) Gecko/20100111 Lightning/1.0b1 Thunderbird/3.0.1

...there are certain folders that just never get updated when they have unread messages. I'm using DavMail IMAP to connect to Outlook Web Access.

When new messages arrive in Exchange, they are moved into subfolders by rules. Thunderbird doesn't have a problem with 95% of the folders. The few folders that it does have a problem with consistently do not show unread message count until I click on them.

mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new is set to true.

Comment 8

[Bernie Durfee]

(In reply to comment #7)
> I've been struggling with this bug as well.

Actually I think I just solved my problem. The problem seemed to be with folders that have a space in the name, e.g. Small College. The debug log shows...


904[5aeca80]: c33a000:mymail.com:A:PARSER:Internal Syntax Error on line: %s: * STATUS INBOX/Educause/Small College (UIDNEXT 365 MESSAGES 118 UNSEEN 0 RECENT 118)

...I changed the name of the folder to 'SmallCollege' and the unread counts work fine now.

Sounds like my problem is...

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311915

...which is a bug then in DAVMail. I'll contact them. Thanks.

Comment 9

[whaid]

It's the same issue as in bug 533928, please vote for it !

Bug 533928 is easily reproducible using filters and is critical !!

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Priority should only be set by developers please.  Resetting to --
See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=fields.html#priority

Comment 11

[JLP]

Je confirme ce comportement.
c'est un problème critique car il empêche d'être averti des nouveaux mails.
c'est la fonction même du logiciel !
en juillet 2010 ce problème persiste.

Comment 12

[Chuck]

This is still an issue well over half a year later and with TB 3.1.2.

How about upping the priority?  I would expect not receiving email to be a high priority bug?

Even manually stepping over the folders to retrieve new mail doesn't always work - I have to 'go offline' to see new mail.

Anybody working on this?

Comment 13

[Chuck]

Jeezus H. Christ, I just watched TB delete my 'Unemployment Insurance' folder containing all my life-saving documentation for the last year and half for no F***ing reason!

Deleted locally, and from my IMAP server.  If I hadn't made it an 'offline' folder and recently saved it, I would be begging my IMAP host to recover that info from their backups.

Good bye Turdbird, I can no longer afford to waste another 10 hours over the weekend trying to debug alpha product ware and then lose my critical data!

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Not to be insensitive, but deleting from imap folder sounds odd, like a server issue. If you are still reading bugmail, do you have automatic compact running or some strange antivirus software?  Does the problem happen in safe mode?
 http://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/safe-mode

Chuck is most likely gone, so we don't have a testcase.