IMAP problems

[monarch500]

Thunderbird repeatedly tells me I have too many IMAP connections, even tho' I have reduced the number from the default 5 to 1. Any other solutions?

[tanstaafl]

Do you have more than one account with the same email provider?
Is there more than one PC/laptop using the accounts?

The problem is that you might be going through a router/NAT box that makes everything at your house that connects to that server look like its using the same IP address.

More details about your configuration such as who the email provider is, how many accounts you have, and how you connect to the Internet (cable, DSL. satellite and do you use wifi or ethernet to connect to the box) might help. Its just your email address, username and password you normally want to keep private/secret.

Is this a intermittent problem or repeatable at will? If its intermittent that typically means its a temporary server side problem. I've seen that occur occasionally with Gmail IMAP for example. Usually goes away in a couple of minutes and I might not see the problem again for a month.

.

[monarch500]

Thanks for your response. Answers to you questions:
1. I have only one device - a PC
2. I have only one email account - the provider is 'waitrose' (John Lewis - mail.waitrose.com)
3. My connection is ADSL, wired directly to my router via ethernet
4. The problem occurs every time I send an email

[tanstaafl]

https://www.johnlewisbroadband.com/supp ... setup.html is discouraging. Even https://www.johnlewisbroadband.com/supp ... setup.html talks about you're supposed to get an error because it doesn't support SSL.

They seem like a ISP that has really neglected their mail setup. Their services are supposedly provided by Plusnet, which has the same issues in their doc. https://www.plus.net/help/archive/email ... ird-setup/

"John Lewis Broadband is a trading name of John Lewis plc, but the services are provided by Plusnet and the contract for these services is between you and Plusnet plc."

Their smtp setup for example says:

"The Server Name should be relay.plus.net and the Port should be 25
Make sure Connection Security is set to None
Change Authentication method to No authentication (this will grey out the User Name box, so you can't edit it)
Click OK once you've finished entering these details."

That is ridiculous.

You said the problem occurs every time you send a message. SMTP is used to send messages. IMAP is used to fetch/read messages. I can see you getting that error message every time you start Thunderbird, or periodically due to checking for new mail, but it shouldn't be triggered by sending a message. Are you using relay.johnlewisbroadband.com as the SMTP server and imap.johnlewisbroadband.com as the IMAP server?

I found a thread at https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Thu ... -p/1748131 that states you should use port 993 if you want to use a secure connection (SSL/TLS) with your IMAP account. I found other threads that stated they use a Courier IMAP server. Courier IMAP servers typically default to 4 connections per IP address.

https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/IMA ... -p/1454977 (2017) claims that IDLE support was disabled in their server and that its unlikely they will notify users if its re-enabled. That's controlled by "allow immediate server notifications when new messages arrive" in the accounts server settings.

[monarch500]

Thanks for your detailed reply.

Firstly, the problem seems to have gone away - I sent two emails moments ago with no difficulties.
Secondly, the SMTP and IMAP servers both are listed as "mail.waitrose.com".

Your first reply seems applicable here - it could be an intermittent (hence temporary server side) problem.
If it persists I shall contact Waitrose Customer Support.