Gmail IMAP fails every other time

[Brian3579]

I have a Thunderbird configuration with multiple email accounts. Up until about four days ago all was working with no problems.

Now, when I start Thunderbird, at least one of the email accounts shows the email account name but no “>” to the left of the name and no folders under the name.

If I end and restart Thunderbird the email account(s) once again shows all the folders under the email account name. And the “Inbox“ text is blue - Thunderbird thinks that all the unread messages are new, even though they may not be.

The above cycle repeats for each successive stop/restart of Thunderbird.

All the accounts are accessed as IMAP. Some accounts are Gmail, other various MS accounts – but the problem only seems to occur for the Gmail accounts. The PC WIN10 is fully updated, as are all the apps, including Thunderbird.

Any suggestions on how to resolve this issue?

[tanstaafl]

There is a regression bug in Thunderbird 52.2.0 that effects Gmail IMAP accounts. The Gmail IMAP servers are responding slowly or not at all. This can cause some or all of the IMAP accounts folders to not be listed. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1373161 . Sometimes if you exit Thunderbird, wait 30 seconds for the process to die, and start Thunderbird again it will manage to retrieve the folders.

I haven't run into that bug but noticed one of my two Gmail IMAP accounts consistently complains about a invalid IMAP command on startup.

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Go_back_to_an ... hunderbird if you want to temporarily go back to an older version. Uninstalling doesn't delete your profile, which has your settings, address books, mail etc. You could also do a custom setup of an older version in a different directory.

[Brian3579]

You are right. Starting yesterday I gradually installed old versions of Thunderbird starting with 52.0. Last good version was 52.1.1.

Thanks for your reply.