Thunderbird doesn't follow IMAP4 standards?

NewUser101 · Post by **NewUser101** » February 2nd, 2006, 7:29 am

Thunderbird 1.5 (20051201)
Windows XP Professional SP2

In Thunderbird when uploading a local message to my IMAP account the message dates are only displayed correctly in the Thunderbird mail client. If I use my WebMail account, Outlook, Outlook Express, or Eudora the dates of my uploaded message shows the date that it was uploaded.

This is what I was told by the maker of the email server I use:

After investigation we found that Mozilla relies on the internal mail header 'date' line for displaying the received date. Of course this is incorrect in terms of the IMAP4 standard which uses a different method of storing the mails date. This means that when Mozilla uploads a mail, it doesn't set the IMAP4 date. Therefore, the date displays correctly in Mozilla, but any other client or WebMail will have the default upload time date.

Is this correct and if it is will it be fixed?

NewUser101 · Post by **NewUser101** » February 7th, 2006, 6:41 am

Is anyone else seeing this problem?

quadra · Post by **quadra** » February 8th, 2006, 7:42 am

Same issue experienced. Your analysis is interesting. Searched bug base but nothing found.
See my post http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... te#2074112

Post by **tanstaafl** » February 8th, 2006, 2:33 pm

I copied and pasted some headers for a message to show I can't reproduce the problem in quadra's thread.

Post by **tanstaafl** » February 9th, 2006, 1:36 am

I compared imap logs for thunderbird and outlook express and outlook express passes the INTERNALDATE parameter while Thunderbird doesn't.

IMAP: 00:03:28 [tx] ybh3 UID FETCH 11:* (BODY.PEEK[HEADER.FIELDS (References X-Ref X-Priority X-MSMail-Priority X-MSOESRec Newsgroups)] ENVELOPE RFC822.SIZE UID FLAGS INTERNALDATE)

The ALL, FAST and FULL macros include INTERNALDATE but Thunderbird doesn't appear to use them. A corresponding command in Thunderbird would seem to be (if the .msf file doesn't exist):

1980[2157420]: 2157018:mail.messagingengine.com:S-INBOX.Test:SendData: 7 UID fetch 9:10 (UID RFC822.SIZE FLAGS BODY.PEEK[HEADER.FIELDS (From To Cc Subject Date Message-ID Priority X-Priority References Newsgroups In-Reply-To Content-Type Received)])

However, I don't think this is causing the problem you describe since Outlook Express looks at the Date: header for the Sent Column and when you read the message (see the other thread).

Guest · Post by **Guest** » February 10th, 2006, 9:01 am

The mail server I use stores each of my messages in a seperate text file. When I copy a message from a local folder in Outlook, Outlook Express, or Eudora to an IMAP folder on the server the "date modified" of the text file is the date I recieved the e-mail. When I copy a message from a local folder in Thunderbird to an IMAP folder on the server the "date modified" of the text file becomes the date I copy the file.