Only 1 of 3 Messages in Webmail at ISP Downloads

[baumgrenze]

I'm not certain if this is a browser/mail issue or an ISP issue.

I'm a long time SM user.

I have 3 messages in the Webmail inbox at my ISP. I habitually check what is there before clicking "Get Messages" in the Mail & Newsgroups mail interface. Until this afternoon it has behaved as I intend. The messages are in my local inbox and no longer show in Webmail.

This afternoon I tried this and only 1 of 3 messages in Webmail downloads. If I try again I simply get another copy of the same message in my local inbox to delete.

I tried deleting a bunch of 'out of date' library notices, etc, locally. I compacted folders. I checked my system disk for space and it is at 14% but not dangerously full.

I shut down SM. I went to the SM page and downloaded and installed SM 2.49.4. Once it was installed I let it compact folders one more time. The above behavior persists.

Do I need to shut down and reboot?

Is there a setting in Mail & Newsgroups that has accidentally gotten changed?

Do I need to contact support at my ISP?

thanks,
baumgrenze

[baumgrenze]

I called my ISP. Sonic is often amazing. I reached a tech who could tell me where to check my local settings. They all seem to be in order.

I tried these things while we were troubleshooting.

I deleted the one message in the Webmail interface that keeps showing up in my local mail when I Get Messages. It disappeared from the Webmail inbox. It did not show up in the Webmail 'recycle bin' where there 146 messages going back two days to 2:16 PM on Wednesday.

When I invoke Get Messages yet another copy shows up in my local inbox.

The Sonic tech suggested that it may be time to migrate from SM to Firefox and Thunderbird. The time did come when I had to give up on Netscape and move to SeaMonkey.

I do have quite an archive of saved messages. I looked in ZTreeWin and drilled down and logged the branch with my Mozilla Profiles and it shows 17,024,610,304 bytes of information. I've not tried to sort out what all that represents, but it is a pretty big record.

I'm open to suggestions.

thanks
baumgrezne

[frg]

Do you leave the messages on the server? If not might just be that the delete failed for some reason.

> The Sonic tech suggested that it may be time to migrate from SM to Firefox and Thunderbird.

You can try with a test installation of TB 52 and see if it behaves identically. If yes something at the isp level probably changed.

If you need to switch better pick Chromium and TB 60 but try to use the unofficial 2.53 first. Fx is just a mess and 2.53 has a lot of bug fixes which might help here.

FRG

[baumgrenze]

Thank you for replying.

I see I forgot my usual opening sentence. I brows with SM 2.49.4 (User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0 SeaMonkey/2.49.4 Build identifier: 20180713174829) which I installed yesterday.

I do not leave messages on the ISP server. My best understanding is that they are 'marked for delete' once they have been transferred to my local mail client.

You suggest a 'test installation' of Thunderbird 52. How would I set it up to test only, i.e., not 'mark for delete' any messages it downloads?

I sometimes us Google Chrome when I'm frustrated with SM. I believe I have the most recent version.

I don't follow the meaning of your last sentence. It seems to assume I know way more about Mozilla alternatives than I do.

When you suggest Chromium do you mean Google Chrome or something different?

Why do you suggest TB 52 and then TB 60?

To what does the 'unofficial 2.53' refer?

Is Fx short for FireFox?

[baumgrenze]

Hi frg and anyone else reading this thread,

I failed to mention that I can use my Mail & Newsgroups to compose and send mail successfully.

I'm trying to make sense of the bottom-most line of all our posts.

frg's reads:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0 SeaMonkey/2.53
mine reads:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0 SeaMonkey/2.49.4

Does the browser read the OS information and report it in the 'alternative' notation of NT 6.x etc?

[DanRaisch]

It's report the information included in your browsers User Agent String. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent

[Frank Lion]

Is Fx short for FireFox?

Does it really matter?

This sounds very much like a standard webmail problem and that can be confirmed by using this - https://portableapps.com/news/2018-05-2 ... 0-released

Everyone should have at least 2 of any internet connected program anyway. Not least because it dashes the myth of the infallibility of ISPs and websites pretty quick and allows you to get back to more productive things.

[baumgrenze]

Thanks for replying Frank Lion.

I'm sorry, I don't follow you clearly.

1) To my aging brain, 'portable apps' sound like something for mail on a smartphone. Am I wrong?

2) Are you suggesting setting up an alternative second local mail interface and configuring it so that it leaves messages on the ISP's server.

3) This concept is something I just grasped as I was writing the last sentence. I've avoided mail on the iPhone5 my son handed down to me because my experience with 'downloaded mail' meant it could not be downloaded again. Perhaps I've had this 'all wrong?'

[Frank Lion]

I'm sorry, I don't follow you clearly.

1) To my aging brain, 'portable apps' sound like something for mail on a smartphone. Am I wrong?

Bizarre. Wouldn't it be better to read the actual information on a supplied webpage, including its links, instead of guessing what some random word means? -

https://portableapps.com/about

Good luck.

[frg]

Simpified the portable app will make no changes to various config files on the PC. If you deinstall it no trace will be left of it.

I agree with Frank that this is likely an ISP issue. Wouldn't be the first time one ISP didn't do a thing which magically broke something. Yahoo seems to be the master here but others are as bad.

FRG

[baumgrenze]

Thank you both for bearing with me.

I down loaded and installed the program. I could not configure it for POP mail. With the help of a Sonic tech we set it up as IMAP and once I approved a 'security exception' for the certificate I got it 'configured' so that it looked like a mail interface. Unfortunately the "Get Mail" button was greyed out. The tech said try shutting down the program and restarting it.

I'm not clear how to do that? Entering 'thunderbird' as a search term in the Win7 Start menu does not find a *.exe file. I saved snips/screen dumps as I installed and I did find this file. Is it the 'Install Wizard' or is it the executable for the mail client?

D:\My Documents\DownloadsTempMD\ThunderbirdPortable_60.5.2_English.paf.exe

[DanRaisch]

That's the installer, not the Thunderbird executable.

[baumgrenze]

Thank you, Dan,

Does the portable version leave a portable Thunderbird executable on my machine when I install it?

If so, what is it called?

[baumgrenze]

I found it by using ZTreeWin.

My bad eyesight caused me to overlook that the Wizard installed it in My Documents Downloads. On my machine that is a different disk than my OS/Program disk.

When I run ThunderbirdPortable.exe I get this error message:

"An error occurred with the POP3 mail server. Mail server imap.sonic.net responded:"

but no further details are reported.

I cannot find an Edit>Preferences in the mail client window that opens, so I can't check/edit them.

Does anyone have any further suggestions?

[DanRaisch]

The problem is there in the error message. It refers to "the POP3 mail server" but then identifies the server as "imap.sonic.net". POP3 and IMAP4 are two alternative email formats and using settings for POP while identifying the server as IMAP will prevent access.

If you want to access your mail as a POP3 account that server name should be mail.sonic.net. Correct that by removing the account as it is now set up (Tools->Account Settings->Account Actions button) and then use menu path File->New->Existing Mail Account to create the account properly for POP access.

If Thunderbird can't find the correct settings for Sonic itself, you might have to use an extension ( https://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/index-en.html#addmanual ) to add the account manually with settings appropriate for a POP account. https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/article ... 3-Settings