665855 - Thunderbird fails to recognize moves/deletes done in other email clients

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Anthony DiSante]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.17) Gecko/20110424 Thunderbird/3.1.10

I access my IMAP email via 3 clients: Thunderbird, webmail, and iPhone.  Over the past few months (not sure exactly when it started), I've noticed an annoying bug: if I delete an email using my iPhone, or move that email from my inbox to a subfolder using my iPhone, then TB will fail to show the message as deleted/moved.  It will still be sitting there in the inbox.

I've tried things that seem like they might force TB to check the server and update its "view" of the message store, for example checking for new mail, compacting the inbox, going offline, all to no avail.  The only thing that does work is quitting TB and restarting it: then, once I enter my email password and TB connects to the server, the moved/deleted message is properly gone from the inbox.

At first I suspected this might be an iPhone problem, but checking the same account via webmail shows the iPhone version of the inbox (i.e. message moved/deleted properly) rather than the TB version.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. On iPhone, go to Mail app and move or delete an email from the inbox.
2. In Thunderbird, view inbox and observe that message is not moved/deleted.
3. ???
4. Profit!


Actual Results:  
Thunderbird doesn't notice that the message has been moved/deleted.

Expected Results:  
Thunderbird *does* notice that the message has been moved/deleted.

Comment 1

[Anthony DiSante]

A couple more details:

This Thunderbird bug also occurs if the move/delete is done in the webmail client, rather than in the iPhone Mail app: either way, TB fails to remove the message from the inbox, until I quit and restart TB.

Also, after moving/deleting the message, if I go into TB and check the destination folder (whether it's Trash or another folder), TB *does* display the message in that folder.  So, TB apparently does know that the action occurred; it's only the inbox display that fails to update.

Comment 2

[David :Bienvenu]

Is your server sending notifications to Thunderbird's open connections that the messages have been deleted? An IMAP protocol log would tell you - https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging

Comment 3

[Anthony DiSante]

I've enabled the IMAP log; what text should I be looking for within it?

Also, are the entries in this log chronological?  Each line starts with what appears to be a timestamp (although a quick test of one of them shows it's not a standard unix timestamp, unless it's currently 1974), but they're not in numerical order, and some of them are negative.

Comment 4

[David :Bienvenu]

unless you requested a timestamp in the logging environment variable, there's no timestamp. The log entries are strictly chronological.

You should see an unsolicited response from the server where it tells the connection that the \DELETED flag has been added to a message without Thunderbird actually running a url to do so.

Comment 5

[Anthony DiSante]

The text DELETED only appears twice in the log.  Here are those two lines:

-74451200[7fd502a1b670]: 102ed000:mail.server.com:NA:ProcessCurrentURL:imap://[e-mail]:993/search%3EUID%3E.INBOX.Junk%3ESEARCH%20UNDELETED%20SENTBEFORE%2022-Apr-2011:  = currentUrl

-74451200[7fd502a1b670]: 102ed000:mail.server.com:S-INBOX.Junk:SendData: 4 uid SEARCH UNDELETED SENTBEFORE 22-Apr-2011

Comment 6

[David :Bienvenu]

And you did delete a message from an other client, either webmail or iPhone while the logging was going on? If so, it sounds like the server is not sending a notification to Thunderbird. You can try toggling the offline button on and off to cause Thunderbird to set up a new connection, which is marginally better than shutting down and restarting.

Comment 7

[Anthony DiSante]

Yes, I did delete a message during the logging period.  And I already did try going offline; that didn't fix the problem, only quitting and restarting did.

So if the server isn't sending the notification, does that mean the server is misconfigured?  So I should contact the email server admin about it?

Comment 8

[David :Bienvenu]

going offline and online again should be equivalent to restarting, especially if you switch folders. 

It's up to the mail server as to whether and how often it synchronizes state changes between different connections. The client can issue commands that force the server to flush state changes, but not necessarily push those out to other connections. So it may not be mis-configured.

Comment 9

[Anthony DiSante]

> going offline and online again should be equivalent to
> restarting, especially if you switch folders.

In terms of this issue, it is not equivalent.  No amount of going offline and back online, nor viewing different folders, causes TB to remove the message from the inbox.  Only restarting TB does that.

> It's up to the mail server as to whether and how often it
> synchronizes state changes between different connections.
> ... So it may not be mis-configured.

Well, I can't imagine that the behavior I'm seeing could be considered correct.  The changes show up instantly via iPhone and webmail, whereas in TB, they're not merely delayed; they never occur at all, unless I restart TB.

Doesn't the fact that iPhone and webmail both do the right thing suggest that TB is doing something wrong here?

When I *view* a message in another client, TB correctly marks it as "read" nearly instantly.  Is there some specific text I can look for in the IMAP log to see where that command occurs?

Comment 10

[David :Bienvenu]

(In reply to comment #9)
> > going offline and online again should be equivalent to
> > restarting, especially if you switch folders.
> 
> In terms of this issue, it is not equivalent.  No amount of going offline
> and back online, nor viewing different folders, causes TB to remove the
> message from the inbox.  Only restarting TB does that.
> 
> > It's up to the mail server as to whether and how often it
> > synchronizes state changes between different connections.
> > ... So it may not be mis-configured.
> 
> Well, I can't imagine that the behavior I'm seeing could be considered
> correct.  The changes show up instantly via iPhone and webmail, whereas in
> TB, they're not merely delayed; they never occur at all, unless I restart TB.
> 
> Doesn't the fact that iPhone and webmail both do the right thing suggest
> that TB is doing something wrong here?

I use IMAP on two computers and a phone, and deletes from the other computer or phone are always reflected in Thunderbird.
> 
> When I *view* a message in another client, TB correctly marks it as "read"
> nearly instantly.  Is there some specific text I can look for in the IMAP
> log to see where that command occurs?

You'll get an unsolicited \SEEN flag change response.

You might try disabling the use of IDLE, if it's turned on - perhaps that's broken on your server. account settings, server settings, advanced button.

Comment 11

[Anthony DiSante]

>> When I *view* a message in another client, TB correctly marks it
>> as "read" nearly instantly.  Is there some specific text I can
>> look for in the IMAP log to see where that command occurs?
>
> You'll get an unsolicited \SEEN flag change response.

Will it literally show \SEEN (with the backslash) in the IMAP log?  That text doesn't occur a single time in my IMAP log, despite the fact that several times today, I viewed messages on my iPhone, which TB correctly marked as read automatically.

> You might try disabling the use of IDLE, if it's turned
> on - perhaps that's broken on your server. account settings,
> server settings, advanced button.

I've just enabled this, and sent another test message, then deleted it via iPhone, and still, TB fails to delete it from the inbox.

Comment 12

[David :Bienvenu]

(In reply to comment #11)

> Will it literally show \SEEN (with the backslash) in the IMAP log?  That
> text doesn't occur a single time in my IMAP log

Are you doing a case-insensitive search? It could be \Seen, \SEEN, etc.

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Anthony ?

(In reply to David :Bienvenu from comment #12)
> (In reply to comment #11)
> 
> > Will it literally show \SEEN (with the backslash) in the IMAP log?  That
> > text doesn't occur a single time in my IMAP log
> 
> Are you doing a case-insensitive search? It could be \Seen, \SEEN, etc.

Comment 14

[Phoenix]

Resolved per whiteboard