904476 - sometimes not receiving some emails to pop account

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[gary]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:22.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/22.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20130618035212

Steps to reproduce:

Not receiving all emails. There are no steps to reproduce this. It is an inscrutable bug, but very real, and reported by others through the years, but dismissed by developers because it cannot be replicated (or was not well reported, which is understandable given the weirdness of the bug).

The Bat! gets emails that Thunderbird does not (and they are left on the mail server, also accessible via web browser).

Have checked all POP settings; eliminated any possible firewall issue. 

Accounts work (receive email), just not all of the emails (some from one sender, but not others, or none at all from certain senders).


Actual results:

TBird does not receive all emails. Its omission seems to be related to accounts, and particular senders (who are contacts in the address book).


Expected results:

Should have received emails.

This bug renders TBird unreliable, and therefore unacceptable as decent software.

Will abandon Thunderbird for email if this cannot be resolved.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

You have not provided enough information to make this actionable.

- it reproduces in Thunderbird safe mode?
- it reproduces in windows safe mode?
- what AV and firewall software do you run?
- have you reported this elsewhere?  URL please
- information from help | troubleshooting

Comment 2

[:aceman]

Ensure the non-downloading message is on the server, then set up pop3:5 logging according to https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging, start TB, let it download messages from that server and attach the log here.

Comment 3

[:aceman]

You can remove contents of other (correctly downloaded) messages from the log if they contain private information.

Comment 4

[gary]

Thanks for the help.

My test candidate went away, as I received a subsequent email from her. I do know how intermittent (irreproducible) bugs are the worst.

I'll try to follow through on this if I can, and can figure out how to generate meaningful information (without internally generating too much frustration).

The instructions at https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging are inscrutable.
There is no information about setting environment variables. It is ironic that you expect users to follow a certain documented protocol that you yourself don't adequately document.

I worked as a software developer for 20, and quit because I was terminally disgusted with how poorly software was constructed. (I designed a software system 30 years ago that was much more advanced, easier to program and practically bug-free, that the industry has never been able to approach. The engineers at Apple and Microsoft were too stupid to understand its basic concepts, let alone its advantages.) Software is the only industry that regularly puts out known defective products and asks its users to devote their time to help.

Thanks again for the response. It was appreciated.

Comment 5

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

For added precision, bugs with irregular occurence should say so in their summary :)

Comment 6

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

gary, also check the TB's junk folder of the affected account, maybe missing messages ended up there.

(In reply to gary from comment #4)
> The instructions at https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging are
> inscrutable.
> There is no information about setting environment variables. It is ironic
> that you expect users to follow a certain documented protocol that you
> yourself don't adequately document.

Notwithstanding the advanced technical nature of logging and respective documentation, it might also be ironic that the information you claim to be missing is actually contained in that document in all detail:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging#Generating_a_Protocol_Log

There's a step by step instruction for every OS how to set the two environment variables which TB consults for doing the logging.

You're welcome to ask if there's any questions, as seen from comments above, we're dedicating some of our precious volunteer time to assist with your particular problem, which at this time looks more like a support problem than a bug in TB.

Comment 7

[gary]

Thanks for the replies, and the help.

Sorry for missing the details you mentioned.

I had checked junk mail (and trash) for the missing emails, FYI.

Please spend NO more time on this until I have something more substantive to report.

I can assure you that this appears to be a bug, as my wife has had the same problem with Thunderbird, using a different machine and different accounts. She is very skittish committing to Thunderbird because of it. My tolerance is higher (and there is an awful lot to like about TBird; I still check my emails using The Bat! though).

Comment 8

[gary]

Had another instance of not receiving email, in another account. The issue clearly relates to the email being from an unsolicited party from which an email has never been received before (which also means that there is no address book entry). Other than that, I have no information to impart.

Just so you know that the bug is alive, however irreproducible to you.