827549 - [B2G][E-Mail] autoconfig fails for aol.com e-mail accounts due to lack of startTLS support; manual setup prone to failure due to AOL docs suggesting startTLS on port 587 in most cases

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia::E-Mail, defect)

Description

[J Zimbrick]

Repro Steps:

1. Update device to Unagi build 20130104070203.
2. Open the E-mail app.
3. Press the button in the top left corner to open the e-mail menu.
4. Press the cog button in the bottom left to open the Mail Settings menu.
5. Press the "Add account" button.
6. Enter a valid aol.com e-mail address.
7. Observe that the account will not be added, the device seems to stay indefinitely on a screen displaying "Please wait while your account is set up" and a loading symbol.

Actual Results:  User is unable to successfully add an aol.com e-mail account on the e-mail on.

Expected Results:  User is able to add an aol account to the e-mail app without issue.

Notes:

Seems to happen 100% of the time, tried multiple times on three different phones.

When trying to add an aol account manually an error message is displayed that reads:

 Unable to establish a connection with "smtp.aol.com". There may be a problem
 with the network.

This is with the the imap hostname set as "imap.aol.com" and port number as 933.
As well as smtp's hostname set to "smtp.aol.com" and the port set to 587.

Comment 1

[Andrew Sutherland [:asuth] (he/him)]

Your build is too old; a fix for this bug landed on Jan 4th:
https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/commit/447509a96c3d0e03d0bfd5991e706dbd8c135f7a

The problem with the manual config is that you need to use port 465 (SSL), not port 587 (STARTTLS).  It's not clear if port 933 for IMAP is a typo in the bug only; port 993 is the proper IMAP port.

Comment 2

[amiller]

UCID: email-007
https://moztrap.mozilla.org/results/case/61728/

Comment 3

[Nick Davidson]

Attachment: error when trying to set up AOL email on a device

Issue still repro on on Unagi build 20130114073222 with automatic set up of AOL account - Getting error "Unable to automatically configure your account. Correct your email address or try manual configuration option"

For this test account [e-mail] / Passw. QQ111111 was used.
According to AOL account set up  suppose to have following settings:
• Email Address: [e-mail]

• IMAP Username: [e-mail]

• Incoming Mail Server: imap.aol.com

• SMTP Outgoing Server Address: smtp.aol.com (Set the port to 587)
• SMTP Username: [e-mail]

• SMTP Password: same as used to login to Mail

Manual set up with SMTP port 587 did not worked I had to use port 465(which is originally set up on SMTP for aol on a device). Every other settings were correct and account was successfully (manually) set up on a device.
Is it possible prepopulate incoming and outgoing mail servers for AOL account and username for each one of them -same as email address user enters in.

PS: Friends don't let friends use AOL (LOL)

Comment 4

[Nick Davidson]

Attachment: Aol suggested email settings VS. settings that are working.

This is just a comment -> In manual set up menu can  words host name  be changed to -Incoming Mail Server and -Outgoing Mail Server for better clarification?

Comment 5

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

Right. We don't support STARTTLS in Gaia yet, so SMTP on port 587 won't work. I'll send an email to the tb-planning list to talk about updating our config file in the DB, if port 465 does indeed work.

As for changing the strings, I think that would have the potential for more confusion, since listing the protocol name removes any possible ambiguity about what protocol we're expecting (e.g. POP, IMAP, ActiveSync).

Comment 6

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

Let's reopen this. If sending mail over SMTP port 465 works fine, then the fix for this is pretty easy. Either 1) update the Mozilla ISPDB, or 2) add a local autoconfig file for aol.com.

Comment 7

[David Palomino [:dpalomino]]

Hi, 

As the issue is only affecting to @aol.com mail accounts, it's not a certification blocker. 

However, as it seems something easy to solve (comment #6) and not risky, maybe it's worth to try to solve it... 

Cheers, 
David

Comment 8

[Chris Lee [:clee]]

AOL.com emails users are important, however, based on the volume of users for our target markets, this is not a blocker.  Moving to a future release.

Comment 9

[Nick Davidson]

Attachment: Manual mail set up suggestion.

(In reply to Jim Porter (:squib) from comment #6)
> Let's reopen this. If sending mail over SMTP port 465 works fine, then the
> fix for this is pretty easy. Either 1) update the Mozilla ISPDB, or 2) add a
> local autoconfig file for aol.com.

I agree with Jim Porter that it should be pretty easy. Either 1) update the Mozilla ISPDB, or 2) add a local autoconfig file for aol.com.  This way we don't have to bring small problems which are easy fixes in new (future) release.
Settings needed to be updated as stated in attachment of comment 4.   
Username for both IMAP and SMTP settings is full email address user have  ( for example:  [e-mail])
Hostname for IMAP ( AKA incoming email server) is  imap.aol.com / port 993
Hostname for SMTP ( AKA outgoing email server) is  smtp.aol.com   / port 465
If somebody can update auto-config file with this info we will be good to go!
PS:  Suggestion:  manual set up settings can be confusing for non-technically savvy person may be Host name under IMAP settings can be changed to Incoming mail Server  and Hostname under SMTP settings can be changed to Outgoing Mail server?  
Or may be banners should say instead of IMAP settings ->  Incoming mail / IMAP Settings
And instead of SMTP settings -> Outgoing  mail / SMTP Settings
Well something that it will be more clear for the and user.
See attachment for visual Pic.

Comment 10

[Nick Davidson]

Issue with automatic set up of AOL email still repro. would it be possible to add settings mentioned in comment 9 to auto-config file?

Comment 11

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

Based on my email to tb-planning back in January, everyone was fairly hesitant to add this config, since it's not explicitly supported. If there's no chance of adding STARTTLS support to the email app anytime soon, it would probably be worth adding local configs on a purely temporary basis, though.

Comment 13

[Jack Liu]

It's very important to customer that supporting AOL email account, mark leo?.

Comment 14

[Andrew Sutherland [:asuth] (he/him)]

I'll implement the gaia-local autoconfig entry for port 465 and file a bug against the ISPDB to change the default precedence to SSL.

Comment 15

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

(In reply to Jack Liu from comment #13)
> It's very important to customer that supporting AOL email account, mark leo?.

We shipped 1.01 with this bug and cannot take this into 1.1 scope at this time, as it's too late to address this for 1.1. We should get this added into the productivity's team backlog, as this is important to eventually address.

Comment 16

[Jack Liu]

Hi Jason, well, can it be fixed in v1.2?

Comment 17

[Andrew Sutherland [:asuth] (he/him)]

This will be fixed for v1.2.  Bug 847032 implementing startTLS support in the e-mail app should land by early next week at the latest.  I'm also still going to pursue changing the ISPDB entry to use SSL instead of STARTTLS to try and fix things for existing 1.1/1.0.1 devices.

Comment 18

[Andrew Sutherland [:asuth] (he/him)]

This was addressed by bug 847032.  Bug 910064 is probably still a good idea to implement for aol.com, although it is now much less essential.