IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

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FerchogtX
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IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by FerchogtX »

Hi there!

I'm having serious issues lately with this dreaded MS service and Thunderbird. Basically, it takes forever to read emails, and to retrive information from the server... it's really annoying, I have a yahoo and gmail accounts and they work normaly.

I've read on other forums that Microsoft's implementation of IMAP sucks, so that is why Thunderbird and many other email clients have so much problems retriving emails and information from their servers... Or Maybe I'm missing a configuration in Tunderbird to get rid of this issues...

Any inputs on this?

Thank you so much in advance. :D
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DanRaisch
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Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by DanRaisch »

The Outlook servers have been more laggy than usual lately, and that's saying something. I think it's just issues on the MS side of things.
MossyRocky
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Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by MossyRocky »

I'm having all of these issues and more. IMAP syncing never completes, emails never get sent out, emails never arrive, etc. Now I'm getting the message that I have too many connections open, which has never happened before.

Trying to use Thunderbird is useless at this time, so I'm having to revert to using webmail, which is fast and snappy as always.

Is MS putting non-MS email clients at the bottom of the heap, priority- and resource-wise, so we'll get fed up and buy Outlook?
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tanstaafl
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Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by tanstaafl »

I don't have any problem with my Outlook IMAP account in Thunderbird. Perhaps your problem is due to what disk your mailbox is on. I'm talking server side, not your PC. I've seen that determine who runs into a problem before with several email providers.
Bplayer
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Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by Bplayer »

I came here searching for answers on slow performance with Thunderbird and outlook.com. Over at least the last week the performance has been quite poor on two separate accounts, one on my laptop and the other on a desktop. Thunderbird will bog down and be slow to open a message. To see the message immediately I just open the Windows Mail client and the response is almost instantaneous.

My first impression was a performance issue at the MS server end, but Mail responding well shoots that down. It look more like an interface issue between MS and TB.
MossyRocky
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Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by MossyRocky »

I don't know if this is a coincidence or not, but I suddenly started having problems with Bitdefender earlier in the week and that's also when problems with Outlook.com on Thunderbird started. I uninstalled Bitdefender yesterday and replaced it with F-Secure, and all problems went away. I'm on Win 7 Pro 64-bit.
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tanstaafl
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Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by tanstaafl »

I'm still using the free version of BitDefender on my desktop and haven't had any problems with my email accounts.
Bplayer
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Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by Bplayer »

This is the first time in 10+ years using TB that I have lost a message (switched to imap about 18 months ago), and it is related to the recent poor performance with outlook.com.

Two email, related to an ebay purchase, showed up in my inbox. TB retrieval progress bar was about 25% when clicking on either of them, and it stayed this way for minutes. Switching to Windows Mail showed all the details immediately, no delays. I then selected both emails from the Inbox on TB and dragged them to an offline folder. Everything seemed fine as the offline folder showed the header info (subject, sender, etc), but I was not able to open the message by clicking on it. After closing and reopening TB there were two empty emails (no subject, sender, etc) and no body. Of course they were gone from the TB and Windows Mail Inbox.

Max servers are set to 1, and synchronize all messages locally is checked. I cannot find any other setting that would have an influence.
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tanstaafl
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Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by tanstaafl »

If you have poor performance problems consider temporarily disabling global search/indexing in tools -> options -> advanced -> general, and unchecking "keep messages for this account on the computer" in synchronization&storage. That will eliminate it downloading messages in the background which will hopefully improve performance.

You will have to use a different search mechanism such as the quick filter bar in the interim. Your offline folders won't disappear, they will just be ignored until you enable them again.
Bplayer
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Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by Bplayer »

^^^ Thanks. I am trying it out.
MossyRocky
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Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by MossyRocky »

Regarding my earlier post about my problems going away when I uninstalled Bitdefender and replaced it with F-Secure, it was indeed a coincidence. The problems are back.

This is not the first time stuff like this has happened with outlook.com IMAP. The last time was quite a while ago and the problems eventually got sorted out. I guess I just have to be patient for a bit longer. If MS doesn't clear things up, I'll just have to find another email provider (one that works with Thunderbird) or find another email client.
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tanstaafl
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Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by tanstaafl »

I'm running into frequent error messages about the connection to the Outlook IMAP server timing out. I can never get the list of folders to subscribe to refresh, its always blank. It also resurrected two deleted child folders of the inbox, despite the account having been compacted..

http://downdetector.com/status/outlook
Bplayer
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Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by Bplayer »

Yep, that it. Something has changed in the interface that is causing TB performance/connection problems. The Windows Mail client or web mail do not seem to be affected.
mmortal03
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Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by mmortal03 »

I'm noticing something similar, where it's getting stuck downloading messages, just going extremely slow and timing out connecting to the server. Disabling global search didn't help. I didn't try unchecking "keep messages for this account on the computer", because I specifically use that feature.
brucegz
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Joined: October 31st, 2010, 2:16 pm

Re: IMAP Issues with Thunderbird and Outlook.com?

Post by brucegz »

I started having the exact same problems in the past week. I tried disabling all Add-Ons to no improvement. My other email accounts in TB are working quick and good, no issues. Only Outlook which happens to be the default. I'll be watching this thread to see if any further light is shed but based on what I'm hearing, unless there was TB build that I missed, seems maybe a Microsoft side issue. Frustrating. :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
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