time stamp problem on one emailer-5 minutes fast

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miss_kitty
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Joined: August 28th, 2005, 11:12 am

time stamp problem on one emailer-5 minutes fast

Post by miss_kitty »

I just developed a time stamp problem on one emailer to me. She comes into google mail at one time, and when it's sent on to Thunderbird, it's 5 minutes ahead of the gmail time. So it gets out of order. I get a bunch of mail after it in front of it for 5 minutes. It hasn't always been this way.
How do I get Susie's email to say the correct time it comes in, like it used to?
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tanstaafl
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Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: time stamp problem on one emailer-5 minutes fast

Post by tanstaafl »

Try the IMAP received date add-on at https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/th ... te/?src=ss if you're using a IMAP account. I suspect it won't change the actual sorting (which is apparently based on the Date: header even if you chose Received in view -> sort by due to a bug in Thunderbird), but it should display the real received time in the “Received” column.

I don't know of a practical way to automate changing the Date header in messages based on the sender. You might be able to do that via a message filter if you install the Filtaquilla add-on but it would require writing some javascript to do it. The other problem is the new maintainer of that add-on seems to still be working on getting it to work correctly with 60.3.
miss_kitty
Posts: 224
Joined: August 28th, 2005, 11:12 am

Re: time stamp problem on one emailer-5 minutes fast

Post by miss_kitty »

It is an IMAP account. It's just so weird. We've had this email group for years, she and I have both been on it at least a decade and this just started, maybe a month ago. And it's only Susie's emails, no one else's.

I'll give it a look. Oh dear. Windows can't open that file.
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DanRaisch
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Re: time stamp problem on one emailer-5 minutes fast

Post by DanRaisch »

Has Susie checked the date/time on her computer?
miss_kitty
Posts: 224
Joined: August 28th, 2005, 11:12 am

Re: time stamp problem on one emailer-5 minutes fast

Post by miss_kitty »

DanRaisch wrote:Has Susie checked the date/time on her computer?
It's coming into gmail at one time, say 10:37, being sent right on to my computer time stamped 10:42, while my computer says it's 10:37. When I check her time stamp in other people's emails, it's 5 minutes different from mine.

But you want to know something. It just sent me one that was right. Like my computer is gaslighting me or something. She sent one at 8:19, time stamped in Thunderbird as 8:24. The next one she sent was sent at and correctly time stamped 11:10. It's like the thing read my post! Of course it was only one. I'll see if I can find out if she's using different devices to send. Why that would make a difference, I don't know, because it's happening after it reaches my computer. Between the time it goes into gmail and gets passed of to Thunderbird. But I'm not doing anything different. If that makes any kind of sense.
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tanstaafl
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Re: time stamp problem on one emailer-5 minutes fast

Post by tanstaafl »

Take a look at the differences between the time stamp in the Date: header and the Received: headers for the servers that the message goes through on the way to your mailbox. Normally it takes just a few seconds to go between two servers. You can use view -> message source or control-U to look at the raw message source.

For example:

Received: from fraxinus.osuosl.org (smtp4.osuosl.org [140.211.166.137])
(using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits))
(No client certificate requested)
by mx2.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTPS
for <address_removed>; Thu, 28 Feb 2019 14:58:13 -0500 (EST)
Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by fraxinus.osuosl.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 57E028200D
for <address_removed>; Thu, 28 Feb 2019 19:58:10 +0000 (UTC)
X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at osuosl.org
Received: from fraxinus.osuosl.org ([127.0.0.1])
by localhost (.osuosl.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024)
with ESMTP id ENlLdjdSG9zX for <address_removed>;
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 19:58:09 +0000 (UTC)
Received: from www1.mozillazine.org (www1.mozillazine.org [140.211.166.86])
by fraxinus.osuosl.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E176482154
for <address_removed>; Thu, 28 Feb 2019 19:58:09 +0000 (UTC)
Received: by www1.mozillazine.org (Postfix, from userid 81)
id CCB2E390051; Thu, 28 Feb 2019 19:58:09 +0000 (UTC)
.....
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 19:58:06 +0000


had a Date: header with a time stamp of 19:58:06, added a few seconds on each hop, and was received by my email provider at 19:58:13 (after adjusting for time zone differences)
miss_kitty
Posts: 224
Joined: August 28th, 2005, 11:12 am

Re: time stamp problem on one emailer-5 minutes fast

Post by miss_kitty »

It is only taking a few seconds to get to my email box. With the wrong time, 5 minutes in the future, five minutes later than it hit the gmail, five minutes faster than my computer says it is. She and I are in different time zones, so there's that, but it shouldn't have anything to do with 5 minutes. It would be more like 3 hours if one of us was set up wrong.

So for an email Thunderbird says I got at 9:24 PST from Susie that popped in to my mailbox at 9:19, according to my computer (I was sitting here and checked when it happened), the time all over the header was Thu, 28 Feb 2019 09:19:19 -0800 (PST) I searched 9:24, and it wasn't there.
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tanstaafl
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Re: time stamp problem on one emailer-5 minutes fast

Post by tanstaafl »

Normally the timestamp in the Date: header and the nearest (lowest, just above it) Received: header are identical because the first Received: header is added by the first SMTP server (hasn't gone through any hops yet). Is that true in your case, with Susie's message? If they're identical I don't think there is anything you can do. If they're five minutes apart, then it's probably a problem with her PC.

Is she using a email client or webmail? If you don't know, look for a User-Agent or X-Mailer header. For example:

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101
Thunderbird/60.5.2

X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.6838 Importance: Normal

Sometimes neither is there and you need to look for a header beginning with X- that mentions something recognizable such as Office365 or Exchange.
miss_kitty
Posts: 224
Joined: August 28th, 2005, 11:12 am

Re: time stamp problem on one emailer-5 minutes fast

Post by miss_kitty »

She just uses gmail. I just asked her, in case my reading of the header was bad. She has a desktop, phone, kindle and ipad she uses to mail on. I got the 11:10 email on time from her phone, she emailed me again, 5 minutes fast from her desktop, then the following desktop email was on time.

This is in my computer and the time change happens when gmail sends it to Thunderbird. I really don't think Susie's hardware or software is a part of this. It's something at my house, either in gmail or Thunderbird.

Oh well. Maybe it will stop on its own.
Windows 10
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