why does seamonkey download all of my old messages

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LMHmedchem
Posts: 78
Joined: August 31st, 2009, 2:29 pm

why does seamonkey download all of my old messages

Post by LMHmedchem »

Hello,

From time to time, when I open a seamonkey account that is attached to a comcast email account I suddenly get 2500 new email messages. These messages are actually messages going back years and are still on the comcast server. The downloaded messages often included more recent messages that are still in my inbox, so I have duplicate messages of everything recent.

I am a bit confused as to why this happens. It often takes an hour or more to download all of the messages, so it can be a bit of a problem. I could delete my messages on the server every once and a while, but there doesn't seem to be any way to do that from inside seamonkey and I never access my email directly through comcast. I'm not ever sure how to do that anymore. What I generally do is to reset seamonkey to not leave messages on the server for a few days and then change it back. I have no idea if that actually clears old messages from comcast or not. I presume that comcast purges old messages from time to time on their own, but that is just a guess.

I have used the same setup for more than 15 years, first with mozilla and att, and later with seamonkey and comcast. I have had very few problems, so this one is a bit of a mystery.

Is there any way to prevent this from happening in the future? I need to leave the messages on the server because I access the account from seamonkey one more than one OS.

I am using seamonkey 2.4 if that matters.

LMHmedchem
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DanRaisch
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Joined: September 23rd, 2004, 8:57 pm
Location: Somewhere on the right coast

Re: why does seamonkey download all of my old messages

Post by DanRaisch »

How is the account set up in SeaMonkey, as POP or IMAP?
Anonymosity
Posts: 8779
Joined: May 7th, 2007, 12:07 pm

Re: why does seamonkey download all of my old messages

Post by Anonymosity »

If those years of messages are on the server, can you not take them off?
LMHmedchem
Posts: 78
Joined: August 31st, 2009, 2:29 pm

Re: why does seamonkey download all of my old messages

Post by LMHmedchem »

DanRaisch wrote:How is the account set up in SeaMonkey, as POP or IMAP?
I think that all of my accounts are set up as POP. It has been many years since I set these accounts up and I don't remember. I'm not sure how I would tell, there is nothing in the account settings that says one way or another. To download messages I connect SSL/TSL port 995 if that helps.
Anonymosity wrote:If those years of messages are on the server, can you not take them off?
I'm sure I could but I haven't logged into comcast for years and I probably don't have current login credentials. I have always assumed that they automatically delete older content once size limits are reached. At any rate, I have never had any notification from them that my inbox is too full or anything like that. I just don't like webmail and so I always use a client. The only times I have ever accessed email at comcast.net was when I was away somewhere without a computer and used a public computer to check messages.

It would be nice if seamonkey had a view/delete messages on the server feature, but I suspect that the ISP would have to provide some server side functionality for that.

Does anyone know if un-checking the "leave messages on server" checkbox causes old messages to be deleted the next time you log in? If that works, it is an easy enough work-around. The other day when this happened, I made that change to un-check the box and the next time I opened seamonkey to that account, it took a very long time to get my messages. Maybe comcast was just slow, but it is also possible that it took a long time because it was deleting all of those old messages.

LMHmedchem
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DanRaisch
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Joined: September 23rd, 2004, 8:57 pm
Location: Somewhere on the right coast

Re: why does seamonkey download all of my old messages

Post by DanRaisch »

OK, if the "Leave messages on server" option is listed it must be a POP type account.
No, unchecking that option will not delete messages on the server that were previously downloaded to SeaMonkey. It will onlyl impact new incoming emssages.
No, a log when logging into the account would not be likely to indicate that older messages are being deleted on the server. The server activity would probably be too quick to show as a lag in SeaMonkey.

If you can access the account with SeaMonkey's email interface you can access it with the browser interface as well. The password to access the account through Comcast's web mail page would be the same password you need to provide in SeaMonkey. If you don't remember the password it's likely you told SeaMonkey to remember it for you and to enter it automatically when getting email. You can find out what that password is in SeaMonkey by using (in the email interface) menu path Tools->Password Manager->Manage Stored Passwords->click on the entry for that Comcast account and then on the "Show Passwords" button. Once you have that info, log in through the browser and delete the older messages from the server.

When a working POP account suddenly downloads older messages it may mean that the file POPSTATE.DAT (found in the profile folder) has become corrupted. Renaming that file or deleting it will cause all messages in the server inbox to be downloaded to SeaMonkey, again. Before deleting or renaming the file, copy all messages in the SeaMonkey inbox to a child folder under Local Folders. Delete the messages in SeaMonkey's Inbox folder, then click on "Get Mail" to download whatever messages you've left in the server inbox folder. You can delete any older messages that were already in SeaMonkey (and are now in the child folder of Local Folders).
amrad
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Joined: May 29th, 2004, 9:01 pm
Location: UK

Re: why does seamonkey download all of my old messages

Post by amrad »

LMHmedchem wrote:I think that all of my accounts are set up as POP. It has been many years since I set these accounts up and I don't remember. I'm not sure how I would tell, there is nothing in the account settings that says one way or another.
In SeaMonkey Mail, if you go to Edit | Mail & Newsgroup Account settings | Server Settings | Server Settings

Near the top is: Server Type:

There it will specify POP or IMAP according to how it was setup.

Regards,

Dave.
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