Too many IMAP connections

[Nous19]

Hi every one,

I have 5 IMAP connection on the same serveur and every time I open TB, I have the same popup message saying thet TB could not connect the IMAP serveur, that there is too many connection to the serveur.*I reduce the connection in cache memroy to 1 for each connection but I still have the same problem.

Any idea to solve this problem ?

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy Nous19,

[1] i do not have an imap account, so this is mostly from reading.

[2] more info needed ...
- program & version? --- ex = firefox 1.5.x
- new or upgraded program[s]? --- ex = thunderbird 1.0.7 upgraded to 1.5.x
- new or upgraded program profile[s]? --- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Folder
- operating system and version? --- ex = windows xp home service pack 2; Mac OS X v10.4.3 (build 8F46)

[3] imap cached connection settings
http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP:_advance ... figuration

the 1st item on that page mentions that the server is talking about "connections per TCP-IP address". why do you have 5 connections to that server?

take care,
lee

[Nous19]

Program : Thunderbird
Ver : 1.5.0.2 do not remember the first version but it is updated version
OS : the same problem with XP Pro SP2 and Ubuntu 5.1

The Imap settings are good as TB works if I use a maximum of 2 accounts

Thank you for the answer

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy Nous19,

purely from reading this ....
http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP:_advance ... figuration

"Tools -> Account Settings -> Server Settings -> Advanced -> IMAP -> Maximum number of server connections to cache" defaults to 5. Courier IMAP servers default to 4 connections per TCP-IP address. This mismatch can cause apparent hangs, data loss, and messages to be downloaded instead of just headers. If you have one Courier account you need to lower the Thunderbird setting to 4 or less. If you have two Courier accounts you need to lower the setting in each account to 2 since it's 4 connections per TCP-IP address, not per account. If you don't know whether you have a Courier IMAP server it doesn't hurt anything to lower the values.

... it seems you have hit the limit set by your imap server.

again, what is the reason you need 5 connections? is there a way to reduce that need?

take care,
lee

[Nous19]

I suppose that the problem comes from the serveur than.

I need these connections because I have accounts from different companies i own but they all are on the same serveur ...
If you see another way to get the mails (I wish not to forward the mails from all the accounts to another adress, but it is the only solution I see ...)

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy Nous19,

[1] thanks for the info!

[2] so, you have five accounts all on the same imap server and _that_ is why you need 5 connections.
i dunno enuf about this to really help you. i'll see if i can find someone who DOES use imap and ask that person to drop in here.

[3] in the meantime, you might want to contact your server operator - pro'ly your isp - and ask them about possibly changing the limit for your ip address.

take care,
lee

[makaiguy]

I'm not familiar with IMAP either, but from reading the above, the setting for maximum connections refers to connections from YOUR COMPUTER (which is what it means by TCP-IP address). By having more than one connection, your computer can make more than one request at a time, thus speeding up the operation. If you only had ONE connection, you would still get mail from all your accounts, it would just take a little longer because it could only process one request at a time.

So you need to follow the instructions given above, and lower the number of connections to what your server can handle.

[Nous19]

Thanks but I already reduced the maximum number of connection to 1 instead of 5 and it is still not working.
I use also a patch to increase the maximum connection allowed (limited under XP) to improve the download with emule so on the computer, it should be ok (i tried of course with emule turned off)

Thank you for your support !

[tanstaafl]

It would help to know what type of IMAP server your using and who is your email provider. I assume you're not using IMAP offline mode (tools -> account settings -> offline & disk space -> offline -> select folders for offline use).

Unless you're using a Courier IMAP server you normally don't need to touch that setting. That problem only exists because Courier IMAP servers typically have a limit on the number of connections they can cache yet the email client can't tell when it exceeds that limit, causing the bookkeeping to get messed up. Everybody else seems smart enough to refuse to let the email client make another connection if they can't handle it.

"the Imap settings are good as TB works if I use a maximum of 2 accounts"

If you're using a Courier IMAP server with two accounts you need to lower the number of connections to cache in each account to 2 because Courier typically only supports 4 connections per IP address, not per account. 2 + 2 is less than or equal to 4 , thus avoiding the problem. 4 is the typical magic number, but some Courier servers have a different value.

This might explain the problem, but normally you don't get a popup. It just causes silent errors (such as data loss). Its also possible your problem is due a server side limit on the total number of connections the server can support (for everybody, not just your PC).

I used a cports.exe program to monitor how many tcp-ip connections where made between the email client and one of my IMAP servers. It reported Outlook Express only used one connection. So seeing whether you'd have the same problem with Outlook Express probably wouldn't help. Please ask your email provider what type of IMAP server they're using, and if they have any per PC or per account connection limits.

Just to be crystal clear, how many accounts do you have and how many connections is each account configured for when things work?

[Nous19]

I am using offline option and all the folders are selected.


To be clear :

NOT working : 5 accounts,1 connection for each account

Working : a maximum of 4 connection whatever the configuration : 1 account, 4 connections ; 2 accounts, 2 connections, 3 accounts : 1 connection for 2 of them 2 connections for 1 of them

It is friend of mine who owns the mail serveur, I will ask him if the limit of the connection on the server can be set a little bit upper to see if it solve the problem.

Thanks again for your help !

Jean

[ffoz]

Hello,

I had the same problem with a Courier IMAP server. The limit is 4 concurrent connections from the same IP. This limit can be easily changed, but i think TB should be able NOT to cache connections.

If you can't make the ISP change de Courier config, and you have more than 4 IMAP accounts on the same server, you'll be unable to use TB. I've tryed to set the mail.server.server1.max_cached_connections to 0, but when i start the program again it sets this value to 5.

I'll open a request so it can be changed to 0.

greetings,
ferran