TBird hangs sending mail to IMAP sent-mail

Discussion of bugs in Mozilla Thunderbird
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maa27_99
Posts: 26
Joined: May 25th, 2004, 2:41 am

TBird hangs sending mail to IMAP sent-mail

Post by maa27_99 »

I've noticed three annoying things about Tbird:

1. it hangs will copying my message to a non-local (IMAP) sent-mail even after sending the message. Often this means I have to cancel the cc: and hence am left with ni record of the email I sent out.

2. if I send an attachment with the email it seems to send this info twice: once to the SMTP server and once to the IMAP. Now that's a waste of my time waiting - even with a 512 broadband

3. If a postpone a message to an IMAP based postponed-messages folder, upon resuming writing and sending it, TBird will not delete & expunge the previously stored message but only mark it deleted.

Ok, 3. is about taste. But 1 and 2 are a major problem. Any suggestions? I am using Imap port 993, SSL and port 25 for the SMTP, using TLS (but using SSL has the same effects)
DougDougDoug
Posts: 1
Joined: February 15th, 2005, 8:31 pm

"Copying message to Sent folder..."

Post by DougDougDoug »

I have this problem too. My IMAP provider is Bigfoot. Thunderbird seems to send the message successfully but then hangs as it tries to copy the message to my IMAP server's Sent folder (which actually is called OutBox on Bigfoot). Usually it works, so I've set it up correctly. But sometimes, not infrequently, it fails; it will hang there for hours.
fwhamm
Posts: 3
Joined: February 20th, 2005, 10:30 am
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Post by fwhamm »

Hi,
I affirm problems concerning IMAP and storing sent mails in the "Sent" folder. Same problems apply for Drafts and Templates. The problem happens every time not only sporadically.

TB sents the mail, but storing the mail fails. The entries in the prefs.js are afaik corrct:

Code: Select all

user_pref("mail.identity.id10.fcc_folder", "imap://frank@tso1/Sent");
user_pref("mail.identity.id10.fcc_folder_picker_mode", "0");

I use Cyrus IMAP Server on linux. The names of the folders are correct and rights are set correctly:

Code: Select all

localhost> lm *frank*
user.frank (\HasChildren)           user.frank.Sent (\HasNoChildren)
user.frank.Drafts (\HasNoChildren)  user.frank.Trash (\HasNoChildren)


Even creating a fresh new profile did'nt resolve the problem. Virscanners / Firewalls were disabled for testing on client and server.

Storing mails with Kmail on Linux works.
Live long and prosper!
maa27_99
Posts: 26
Joined: May 25th, 2004, 2:41 am

Post by maa27_99 »

What to do, then? No one seems to be paying much attention about this.
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gargan
Posts: 23
Joined: February 16th, 2005, 2:31 pm
Location: Vienna, Austria
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Post by gargan »

I am using thunderbird on linux with imap, but I dont have the problem. it saves the message in the sent folder. On server side I use cyrus +vpopmail, on client tbird 1 (bin version with gentoo). I also tried it on windows, and it does not have the problem either...
fwhamm
Posts: 3
Joined: February 20th, 2005, 10:30 am
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Post by fwhamm »

This seems to be a recognized bug of Mozilla / Thunderbird. I surfed on bugzilla and found this: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=206408

But as you can see this bug is a quite old and persisting one - I fear I have to switch back to Pegasus because I can't get TB work with my local IMAP mailserver.
Live long and prosper!
stijndm
Posts: 1
Joined: March 17th, 2005, 6:50 am

Post by stijndm »

Strange that this bug has been reported 2 years ago and no one has ever find a solution for it?

Anyway, we have the same problem, but not only with IMAP. Once the error "cannot copy mail to sent-items" occurs, it doesn't help either to change the location to the local sent items folder.
Sending mails without attachment is no problem.

The strange thing is that on other computers with identically the same configuration and OS (Mac OS X) we don't have this problem.
Also the machines where we do have this problem, were once able to send attachments without problem. So there must be something in the config that has been corrupted due to some reason.

I'm reluctant to switch back to Mail and Entourage, because TB is a fine program, available in several OS. But it is strange that the TB developer community doesn't resolve this kind of major bugs... Especially when they're 2 years old?
Tim Searle
Posts: 19
Joined: February 1st, 2005, 1:52 pm

Post by Tim Searle »

stijndm wrote:Strange that this bug has been reported 2 years ago and no one has ever find a solution for it?

Anyway, we have the same problem, but not only with IMAP. Once the error "cannot copy mail to sent-items" occurs, it doesn't help either to change the location to the local sent items folder.
Sending mails without attachment is no problem.

The strange thing is that on other computers with identically the same configuration and OS (Mac OS X) we don't have this problem.
Also the machines where we do have this problem, were once able to send attachments without problem. So there must be something in the config that has been corrupted due to some reason.

I'm reluctant to switch back to Mail and Entourage, because TB is a fine program, available in several OS. But it is strange that the TB developer community doesn't resolve this kind of major bugs... Especially when they're 2 years old?
I have the same IMAP problem. It's intermittent and (to me) unpredictable. I thought for a while that VPN security avoided it, but not so. It's serious enough that I'm returning to OE for IMAP sends that matter, though I'm not keen to do so.

I'm a newbie to this, and don't quite know tha ettiquette, but it would be nice to know if someone's aware of the problem and has it on the the fix-it list
Tim Searle
Posts: 19
Joined: February 1st, 2005, 1:52 pm

Post by Tim Searle »

I have got reproducible behaviour, at least for a while. With TB1.0.2 (20050317), WinXP, compose window open, connect VPN. Send mail and find TB hangs/spins with message "sending log in information.." 100%. Cancel after a minute or so. "Message not saved", but actually both sent and saved.
Try agian without restarting TB, now spins on "copying message to sent folder", cancel, get "message not sent". Actually message was sent but not copied to sent folder. This behaviour reproduces repeatedly til TB restarted, when all well, message sent and copied with no messages. AArgh!
djb321
Posts: 2
Joined: January 25th, 2005, 12:40 pm

Post by djb321 »

Yup, I get this too. In fact, TB's IMAP implementation generally seems extremely buggy. Multiple copies of certain mails, won't open some messages at all, insists on loading each sub-folder from scratch each time you go into it rather than just downloading the new messages, and can't keep track of read/unread message flags at all.

Unfortunately IMAP implementation on quite a few mail clients seems to be totally flaky. Opera M2's IMAP implementation is, if anything, even worse. At least TB's is just about usable. Still hasn't stopped me from getting a copy of Outlook 2003 instead though. Much as I'd like to support the Mozilla project (Firefox is great), Thunderbird really isn't usable on IMAP in its current state.
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kobukan
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Joined: September 17th, 2004, 1:02 pm
Location: Reading, UK
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Post by kobukan »

Outlook 2003 IMAP is even worse. One major problem is you cant append to the IMAP sent folder unless you create a rule. Even then it shows as a new mail each time you send an email.
eviltwin
Posts: 2
Joined: March 22nd, 2005, 11:11 am

Post by eviltwin »

Just wanted to add my name as another person getting a little cheesed off with this bug.
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jaroclay
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Joined: May 14th, 2004, 6:33 pm
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Post by jaroclay »

eviltwin wrote:Just wanted to add my name as another person getting a little cheesed off with this bug.


Me, too. And I am using Mozilla 1.8b2 (oops, I mean SeaMonkey). Sorry for posting in a Thunderbird forum, but I wanted to let you know that this isn't a Thunderbird only issue.
Never judge a day by the weather | The best things in life aren't things | Tell the truth - There is less to remember | No rain - No rainbows | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
thowden
Posts: 4
Joined: October 18th, 2004, 10:06 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Sent mail bug

Post by thowden »

Hi all,

Adding another voice to the same bug.

But I am trying to look at the actual IMAP side rather than Thunderbird as I have been using different versions of tbird (notebook 1.0 and desktop 0.7) up until yesterday when I upgraded both to 1.0.2 in case this bug was fixed. Until early this week I was using my own server with linux and UW-IMAP to a hosted server with courier imap.

UW-IMAP servers folders work. (yes period.) Never an issue with any version of tbird and some php interfaces that I have also used over extended periods of time.

Admittedly it could be tbird but this issue of 'Failed to copy to Sent folder' has only happened to me since migrating our email. I am still looking at it but if anyone has some more info along the lines of which server they type they use etc, it may help us work it out.

I'd also note that when saving a draft I get failed to copy to Sent folder despite ensuring that the tbird settings are as the defaults of Sent and Drafts (and templates for that matter - which also report failed to write to Sent folder if trying SaveAs Template).

Finally, I am using 8 or more different IMAP accounts mainly to test & trial, and I wonder if tbird has an issue with having lots of accounts ?
eviltwin
Posts: 2
Joined: March 22nd, 2005, 11:11 am

Post by eviltwin »

To add some possibly helpful info:

tbird fails to save to sent regularly on my Media Temple server and fails to save to sent rarely on my Dreamhost server. Don't know what the differences are between the two though.

Apple's Mail.app on my Mac is absolutely fine with both though.
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