Re: Thunderbird not working with Dovecot

[David Guntner]

mouss grabbed a keyboard and wrote:
> Le 21/11/2012 04:44, David Guntner a écrit :
>>
>> It never did this with the IMAP server that I was using on my old
>> system
>>
>> My mail reader in my smart phone works just fine with it, BTW. :-)
>>
>> I googled a bit and found a note about setting a Thunderbird
>> work-around in the dovecot.conf file and applied that, but it
>> didn't make any difference.
>>
>> Any ideas what's causing this?  More importantly, any ideas how to
>> FIX it? :-)
> 
> I can confirm that I have never had problems with TB + dovecot, and I
> can tell you that many people use this combination. so if you have a
> problem, then it's a local issue.
> 
> Can you try with a TB from another network? this is to make sure you
> don't have a misbehaving FW/proxy/whatever in your path.

The problem is solved, though for a rather silly reason IMO. :-)

Now, to reprise - the problem was with Thunderbird and messages which
were showing bold in the message list (I.E. were flagged as unread).
Clicking on the message caused things to hang.  If I clicked off of the
bold message, it would then switch to non-bold (read), and the Dovecot
log would show another connection being established with an additional
login.  Returning to the newly-read message displayed the message just
fine.  This was happening consistently with my Windows desktop system.

Well, over the course of last weekend, I was traveling and used my
laptop, which also uses Thunderbird.  It worked without a hitch.  No
problems, no hangups, it worked exactly as it should have.

I realized at that point that the *only* difference between the two is
that since the laptop travels, I've always had it configured to connect
on port 993 and encrypt the connection (SSL/TLS).  Whereas the desktop,
being on the home network and not needing so much protection, was
connecting to port 143 and was not using any encryption at all.  The
minute I changed TB to go the encrypted, port 993 route, the problem
magically went away there as well!  I have NO idea why an unencrypted
port 143 connection caused that weird problem (as I said before, the
previous IMAP server I had been using did not cause this issue).  And
frankly, at this point, I don't *care*.   I'm just happy the
flipping thing is working now. :-)

Thanks to all those who had suggestions to help out with this!

   --Dave




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Re: Thunderbird not working with Dovecot

[mouss]

Le 21/11/2012 04:44, David Guntner a écrit :
> Well, at least not completely.  I've got Dovecot up and running,
> but for some reason, Thunderbird won't work with it quite right.
> I'll select an unread message, and the header will change in the
> display, but the body doesn't appear - the status bar just says
> "Downloading message..." and it sits there until I select another
> message and then go back to the one I wanted to read, at which
> point it displays the message.
> 
> Watching the syslog, I can see what's happening when I move to
> another message is that a *new* login connection is being
> established (without closing the old one) with the IMAP server.
> After I've moved around enough times, the server logs a note saying
> that I've exceeded the number of open connections that I can have
> and it just stops talking to me any further until I close
> Thunderbird (at which point the log shows all the connections being
> closed.
> 
> It never did this with the IMAP server that I was using on my old
> system
> 
> My mail reader in my smart phone works just fine with it, BTW. :-)
> 
> I googled a bit and found a note about setting a Thunderbird
> work-around in the dovecot.conf file and applied that, but it
> didn't make any difference.
> 
> Any ideas what's causing this?  More importantly, any ideas how to
> FIX it? :-)
> 

I can confirm that I have never had problems with TB + dovecot, and I
can tell you that many people use this combination. so if you have a
problem, then it's a local issue.

Can you try with a TB from another network? this is to make sure you
don't have a misbehaving FW/proxy/whatever in your path.


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Re: Thunderbird not working with Dovecot

[David Guntner]

Jochen Spieker grabbed a keyboard and wrote:
> 
> For further analysis, you can follow Dovecot's instructions. They even
> have a separate page for TB:
> 
> http://wiki.dovecot.org/Debugging/Thunderbird
> 
> You can also try to upgrade to the backport[1] of Dovecot 2.1. Beware
> that this upgrade involves the migration to conf.d-style configuration
> files. But as I understand, you didn't have to tweak many things in the
> original dovecot.conf anyway.
> 
> If this still doesn't help you might want to either ask the TB devs or
> on the Dovecot mailing list. The latter is probably more promising, but
> I am not sure whether version 1.2 is still supported in some way.

I will look into both of those.  Thanks!

--Dave





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Re: Thunderbird not working with Dovecot

[Jochen Spieker]

David Guntner:
> Jochen Spieker grabbed a keyboard and wrote:
>> 
>> https://support.mayfirst.org/wiki/speedup_thunderbird_imap
> 
> Well, unless I'm looking at the wrong setting, I've got it configured
> for 1.  "Maximum number of connections to cache" in Advanced settings
> for the server is currently set to 1.  If there's a different setting
> controlling that, please let me know and I'll check it.

No, that should be it.

>> What did you use before Dovecot? A different IMAP server? Which one?
> 
> I'm a Mandriva refugee, newly arrived to Debian. :-)  I was using a
> package that Mandriva didn't even include in the last couple of
> releases, which was called something like "2006k".

Ah, that was probably uw-imap which appears to be pretty much dead:

http://www.washington.edu/imap/

> Ok, I've just set "auth_debug = yes" - hopefully that will provide some
> clues.

Unfortunately, it doesn't.

   imap_client_workarounds = tb-extra-mailbox-sep
>>> 
>>> What they're describing doesn't seem related to the particular problem
>>> that *I'm* having, but I figured it couldn't hurt to put it in place.
>> 
>> ACK.
> 
> Is that your way of saying that I should turn that back off? :-)

No, I meant to say that I agree that it is unrelated but probably
doesn't hurt.

For further analysis, you can follow Dovecot's instructions. They even
have a separate page for TB:

http://wiki.dovecot.org/Debugging/Thunderbird

You can also try to upgrade to the backport[1] of Dovecot 2.1. Beware
that this upgrade involves the migration to conf.d-style configuration
files. But as I understand, you didn't have to tweak many things in the
original dovecot.conf anyway.

If this still doesn't help you might want to either ask the TB devs or
on the Dovecot mailing list. The latter is probably more promising, but
I am not sure whether version 1.2 is still supported in some way.

J.

[1]: http://wiki.debian.org/Backports

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Re: Thunderbird not working with Dovecot

[David Guntner]

Following up to myself here, since I just discovered something which
might be a clue

As previously noted, my smart phone's mail program has absolutely no
problems accessing the IMAP sever (Dovecot).  I can read new mail, old
mail, whatever - no hanging, no extra login connections showing up in
the log, nothing.

I read a few messages on my phone while I was out, and didn't delete
them because I wanted to get back to them later.  When I got home and
fired up Thunderbird, it showed those messages as being already read
(which makes sense since the flag for having been read would be set on
the server side).  Now, since those messages had not *actually* been
read by *Thunderbird*, it wouldn't have had them in its cache.  So
accessing them required that TB download the message body when the
message got clicked on in the list.

There was no hang up - it accessed the message just fine, and selecting
another message did not result in an extra connection happening on the
Dovecot side.

In short, this is only happening to TB when the message is flagged as
new (shows up bold in the subject list).  If it's flagged as already
read, there's no hang up of any kind, even though it's going to have to
actually download the message when selected.  This never happened until
I switched to Debian and installed Dovecot as my IMAP/POP3 server.  I've
made no changes to TB of any kind, other than to take out the setting
that said that my personal mail space was in ~/Mail on the server (the
old IMAP server didn't specify that whereas Dovecot does, so if I didn't
have "Mail/" set in Thunderbird, it would show me *everything* in my
home directory when going for a folder list, which is a bit more than I
wanted in my mail program :-) ).  Other than that, everything is the same.

So why is it only hanging up when going after a message currently
flagged as unread?  This just keeps getting more and more bizarre.


David Guntner grabbed a keyboard and wrote:
> Jochen Spieker grabbed a keyboard and wrote:
>> Ok, so your assumption is that some connections to Dovecot hang for an
>> unknown reason and that's why Thunderbird creates new ones? In order to
>> debug that, I would increase logfile verbosity für Dovecot (probably
>> including authentication logging) and test with TB using one, two and
>> even more connections.
>>
>> If this a general issue with Dovecot, TB should hang very early.
> 
> Ok, more mail has come in and with "auth_debug = yes" set in the
> dovecot.conf file, the following was logged as I moved through the
> mailbox.  Each place where you see a "new auth connection" entry was
> where I had selected an unread message, it didn't display, and I clicked
> on another message to get off the one that wasn't displaying.  Clicking
> back on the previously unread message displayed the message just fine.
> I replaced my login ID in the log with "xx", just to be clear. :-)
> 
>> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): client in: 
>> AUTH#0111#011PLAIN#011service=imap#011secured#011lip=192.168.0.102#011rip=192.168.0.101#011lport=143#011rport=51624
>> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): client out: CONT#0111#011
>> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): client in: CONT
>> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth-worker(default): 
>> pam(xx,192.168.0.101): lookup service=dovecot
>> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth-worker(default): 
>> pam(xx,192.168.0.101): #1/1 style=1 msg=Password:
>> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): client out: 
>> OK#0111#011user=xx
>> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): master in: 
>> REQUEST#0111#0114216#0111
>> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): passwd(xx,192.168.0.101): 
>> lookup
>> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): master out: 
>> USER#0111#011xx#011system_groups_user=xx#011uid=1000#011gid=100#011home=/home/xx
>> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=, 
>> method=PLAIN, rip=192.168.0.101, lip=192.168.0.102, secured
>> Nov 21 08:31:22 janet dovecot: auth(default): new auth connection: pid=4222
>> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): client in: 
>> AUTH#0111#011PLAIN#011service=imap#011secured#011lip=192.168.0.102#011rip=192.168.0.101#011lport=143#011rport=51638
>> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): client out: CONT#0111#011
>> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): client in: CONT
>> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth-worker(default): 
>> pam(xx,192.168.0.101): lookup service=dovecot
>> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth-worker(default): 
>> pam(xx,192.168.0.101): #1/1 style=1 msg=Password:
>> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): client out: 
>> OK#0111#011user=xx
>> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): master in: 
>> REQUEST#0112#0114222#0111
>> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): passwd(xx,192.168.0.101): 
>> lookup
>> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): master out: 
>> USER#0112#011xx#011system_groups_

Re: Thunderbird not working with Dovecot

[David Guntner]

Jochen Spieker grabbed a keyboard and wrote:
> Ok, so your assumption is that some connections to Dovecot hang for an
> unknown reason and that's why Thunderbird creates new ones? In order to
> debug that, I would increase logfile verbosity für Dovecot (probably
> including authentication logging) and test with TB using one, two and
> even more connections.
> 
> If this a general issue with Dovecot, TB should hang very early.

Ok, more mail has come in and with "auth_debug = yes" set in the
dovecot.conf file, the following was logged as I moved through the
mailbox.  Each place where you see a "new auth connection" entry was
where I had selected an unread message, it didn't display, and I clicked
on another message to get off the one that wasn't displaying.  Clicking
back on the previously unread message displayed the message just fine.
I replaced my login ID in the log with "xx", just to be clear. :-)

> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): client in: 
> AUTH#0111#011PLAIN#011service=imap#011secured#011lip=192.168.0.102#011rip=192.168.0.101#011lport=143#011rport=51624
> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): client out: CONT#0111#011
> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): client in: CONT
> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth-worker(default): 
> pam(xx,192.168.0.101): lookup service=dovecot
> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth-worker(default): 
> pam(xx,192.168.0.101): #1/1 style=1 msg=Password:
> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): client out: 
> OK#0111#011user=xx
> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): master in: 
> REQUEST#0111#0114216#0111
> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): passwd(xx,192.168.0.101): 
> lookup
> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: auth(default): master out: 
> USER#0111#011xx#011system_groups_user=xx#011uid=1000#011gid=100#011home=/home/xx
> Nov 21 08:31:21 janet dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=, 
> method=PLAIN, rip=192.168.0.101, lip=192.168.0.102, secured
> Nov 21 08:31:22 janet dovecot: auth(default): new auth connection: pid=4222
> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): client in: 
> AUTH#0111#011PLAIN#011service=imap#011secured#011lip=192.168.0.102#011rip=192.168.0.101#011lport=143#011rport=51638
> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): client out: CONT#0111#011
> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): client in: CONT
> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth-worker(default): 
> pam(xx,192.168.0.101): lookup service=dovecot
> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth-worker(default): 
> pam(xx,192.168.0.101): #1/1 style=1 msg=Password:
> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): client out: 
> OK#0111#011user=xx
> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): master in: 
> REQUEST#0112#0114222#0111
> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): passwd(xx,192.168.0.101): 
> lookup
> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: auth(default): master out: 
> USER#0112#011xx#011system_groups_user=xx#011uid=1000#011gid=100#011home=/home/xx
> Nov 21 08:31:41 janet dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=, 
> method=PLAIN, rip=192.168.0.101, lip=192.168.0.102, secured
> Nov 21 08:31:42 janet dovecot: auth(default): new auth connection: pid=4230
> Nov 21 08:33:18 janet dovecot: auth(default): client in: 
> AUTH#0111#011PLAIN#011service=imap#011secured#011lip=192.168.0.102#011rip=192.168.0.101#011lport=143#011rport=51641
> Nov 21 08:33:18 janet dovecot: auth(default): client out: CONT#0111#011
> Nov 21 08:33:18 janet dovecot: auth(default): client in: CONT
> Nov 21 08:33:18 janet dovecot: auth-worker(default): 
> pam(xx,192.168.0.101): lookup service=dovecot
> Nov 21 08:33:18 janet dovecot: auth-worker(default): 
> pam(xx,192.168.0.101): #1/1 style=1 msg=Password:
> Nov 21 08:33:18 janet dovecot: auth(default): client out: 
> OK#0111#011user=xx
> Nov 21 08:33:18 janet dovecot: auth(default): master in: 
> REQUEST#0113#0114230#0111
> Nov 21 08:33:18 janet dovecot: auth(default): passwd(xx,192.168.0.101): 
> lookup
> Nov 21 08:33:18 janet dovecot: auth(default): master out: 
> USER#0113#011xx#011system_groups_user=xx#011uid=1000#011gid=100#011home=/home/xx
> Nov 21 08:33:18 janet dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=, 
> method=PLAIN, rip=192.168.0.101, lip=192.168.0.102, secured
> Nov 21 08:33:19 janet dovecot: auth(default): new auth connection: pid=4252

 --Dave




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Re: Thunderbird not working with Dovecot

[David Guntner]

Jochen Spieker grabbed a keyboard and wrote:
> David Guntner:
>> Thunderbird isn't
>> supposed to be opening a new connection with each message it tries to
>> read; it should just read them with the one connection it has.
> 
> Well, it usually uses more than one connection. I'd still try reducing
> the maximum number of connections it uses:
> 
> https://support.mayfirst.org/wiki/speedup_thunderbird_imap

Well, unless I'm looking at the wrong setting, I've got it configured
for 1.  "Maximum number of connections to cache" in Advanced settings
for the server is currently set to 1.  If there's a different setting
controlling that, please let me know and I'll check it.

>> And prior to Dovecot coming into play, it did just that.
> 
> What did you use before Dovecot? A different IMAP server? Which one?

I'm a Mandriva refugee, newly arrived to Debian. :-)  I was using a
package that Mandriva didn't even include in the last couple of
releases, which was called something like "2006k".  It was on my system
with no new versions, so upgrades just left it there.  I never needed to
get off of it because it did what I wanted - mbox support and SSL.  The
other packages that they were offering all seemed to be Maildir format
stuff, and all my existing mailboxes are mbox.

>> When I try to read
>> an unread message, it just hangs there.  The header area (from, to,
>> subject) changes to reflect the new message, but the body area just
>> stays blank and the status line shows "downloading messsage" but
>> nothing happens beyond that, unless I click on another message.  The
>> instant I click on the other message (whether in a previously-read
>> status or not) causes a new connection to open up (I'm guessing because
>> the existing one is now hung) and that shows up in the log.
> 
> Ok, so your assumption is that some connections to Dovecot hang for an
> unknown reason and that's why Thunderbird creates new ones? In order to
> debug that, I would increase logfile verbosity für Dovecot (probably
> including authentication logging) and test with TB using one, two and
> even more connections.

Ok, I've just set "auth_debug = yes" - hopefully that will provide some
clues.  As soon as I get some more mail (this is *only* happening with
new mail where it needs to download the body), I'll test it out & see
what I get.  Will report more information here when I've got it.

> No problem. It is just that I didn't know that setting off the top of my
> head.
> 
>>>   imap_client_workarounds = tb-extra-mailbox-sep
>>
>> What they're describing doesn't seem related to the particular problem
>> that *I'm* having, but I figured it couldn't hurt to put it in place.
> 
> ACK.

Is that your way of saying that I should turn that back off? :-)

 --Dave





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Re: Thunderbird not working with Dovecot

[David Guntner]

John L. Cunningham grabbed a keyboard and wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 07:44:29PM -0800, David Guntner wrote:
>> Well, at least not completely.  I've got Dovecot up and running, but for
>> some reason, Thunderbird won't work with it quite right.  I'll select an
>> unread message, and the header will change in the display, but the body
>> doesn't appear - the status bar just says "Downloading message..." and
>> it sits there until I select another message and then go back to the one
>> I wanted to read, at which point it displays the message.
> 
> Are there a large number of messages in the folder containing the email
> you're trying to read? A new T-bird install can get bogged down because
> it's furiously downloading the message bodies in the background. After
> it finishes, it acts as you would expect.

Nope, that ain't it.  Not a new TB install.  A new Dovecot install.
Same old TB I've been using to access that mailbox for years, and all
the old messages are cached - and on this current situation, there's
never been more than 20-30 new messages to go get at any give time I
start it up.  Mine also only grabs the headers until such time as I
click on a message, and *then* it downloads the body.  And for a 5k-10k
message, there's no reason for it to hang.

>> Watching the syslog, I can see what's happening when I move to another
>> message is that a *new* login connection is being established (without
>> closing the old one) with the IMAP server.  After I've moved around
>> enough times, the server logs a note saying that I've exceeded the
>> number of open connections that I can have and it just stops talking to
>> me any further until I close Thunderbird (at which point the log shows
>> all the connections being closed.
> 
> As others have suggested, try reducing the maximum number of open
> connections that T-bird can cache. I set it to 3, and I've stopped
> getting that error.

"Maximum number of connections to cache" in Advanced settings for the
server is currently set to 1.  If there's another setting you're talking
about, please point me at it. :-)

And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, prior to Dovecot going
in, this thing was able to handle all my mail needs with no such
slowness on without opening new connection after new connection when I
click on another message because the one I'm on won't get past the
"downloading message..." status even though it's only 5k and going right
back to it after clicking another message gets the full display of that
message. :-)

--Dave




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Re: Thunderbird not working with Dovecot

[Jochen Spieker]

David Guntner:
> Jochen Spieker grabbed a keyboard and wrote:
>> 
>> Dovecot limits both the total number of parallel connections and the
>> number of connections per user (or per client IP address, don't
>> remember). Either increase that or reduce the number of connections
>> Thunderbird uses.
> 
> I think you misunderstood what I was describing.

Ok.

> Thunderbird isn't
> supposed to be opening a new connection with each message it tries to
> read; it should just read them with the one connection it has.

Well, it usually uses more than one connection. I'd still try reducing
the maximum number of connections it uses:

https://support.mayfirst.org/wiki/speedup_thunderbird_imap

> And prior to Dovecot coming into play, it did just that.

What did you use before Dovecot? A different IMAP server? Which one?

> When I try to read
> an unread message, it just hangs there.  The header area (from, to,
> subject) changes to reflect the new message, but the body area just
> stays blank and the status line shows "downloading messsage" but
> nothing happens beyond that, unless I click on another message.  The
> instant I click on the other message (whether in a previously-read
> status or not) causes a new connection to open up (I'm guessing because
> the existing one is now hung) and that shows up in the log.

Ok, so your assumption is that some connections to Dovecot hang for an
unknown reason and that's why Thunderbird creates new ones? In order to
debug that, I would increase logfile verbosity für Dovecot (probably
including authentication logging) and test with TB using one, two and
even more connections.

If this a general issue with Dovecot, TB should hang very early.

>> General hint: please try to be more informative. "I tried something but
>> it didn't work" does not carry a lot of useful unformation.
> 
> Sorry, was trying to head off a "did you use that workaround setting for
> TB that's in the dovecot.conf file?" type of question. :-)

No problem. It is just that I didn't know that setting off the top of my
head.

>>   imap_client_workarounds = tb-extra-mailbox-sep
> 
> What they're describing doesn't seem related to the particular problem
> that *I'm* having, but I figured it couldn't hurt to put it in place.

ACK.

J.
-- 
All participation is a myth.
[Agree]   [Disagree]
 


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Re: Thunderbird not working with Dovecot

[John L. Cunningham]

On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 07:44:29PM -0800, David Guntner wrote:
> Well, at least not completely.  I've got Dovecot up and running, but for
> some reason, Thunderbird won't work with it quite right.  I'll select an
> unread message, and the header will change in the display, but the body
> doesn't appear - the status bar just says "Downloading message..." and
> it sits there until I select another message and then go back to the one
> I wanted to read, at which point it displays the message.

Are there a large number of messages in the folder containing the email
you're trying to read? A new T-bird install can get bogged down because
it's furiously downloading the message bodies in the background. After
it finishes, it acts as you would expect.

> 
> Watching the syslog, I can see what's happening when I move to another
> message is that a *new* login connection is being established (without
> closing the old one) with the IMAP server.  After I've moved around
> enough times, the server logs a note saying that I've exceeded the
> number of open connections that I can have and it just stops talking to
> me any further until I close Thunderbird (at which point the log shows
> all the connections being closed.

As others have suggested, try reducing the maximum number of open
connections that T-bird can cache. I set it to 3, and I've stopped
getting that error.

-- 
John


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Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20121121143856.ga3...@infotech.vrg.org

Re: Thunderbird not working with Dovecot

[David Guntner]

Jochen Spieker grabbed a keyboard and wrote:
> David Guntner:
>>
>> Watching the syslog, I can see what's happening when I move to another
>> message is that a *new* login connection is being established (without
>> closing the old one) with the IMAP server.  After I've moved around
>> enough times, the server logs a note saying that I've exceeded the
>> number of open connections that I can have and it just stops talking to
>> me any further until I close Thunderbird (at which point the log shows
>> all the connections being closed.
> 
> Dovecot limits both the total number of parallel connections and the
> number of connections per user (or per client IP address, don't
> remember). Either increase that or reduce the number of connections
> Thunderbird uses.

I think you misunderstood what I was describing.  Thunderbird isn't
supposed to be opening a new connection with each message it tries to
read; it should just read them with the one connection it has.  And
prior to Dovecot coming into play, it did just that.  When I try to read
an unread message, it just hangs there.  The header area (from, to,
subject) changes to reflect the new message, but the body area just
stays blank and the status line shows "downloading messsage" but
nothing happens beyond that, unless I click on another message.  The
instant I click on the other message (whether in a previously-read
status or not) causes a new connection to open up (I'm guessing because
the existing one is now hung) and that shows up in the log.  Prior to
Dovecot going online as my IMAP server, TB never did this - it just read
each message using the one connection it already had.

>> My mail reader in my smart phone works just fine with it, BTW. :-)
> 
> It probably uses fewer connections.
> 
>> I googled a bit and found a note about setting a Thunderbird work-around
>> in the dovecot.conf file and applied that, but it didn't make any
>> difference.
> 
> General hint: please try to be more informative. "I tried something but
> it didn't work" does not carry a lot of useful unformation.

Sorry, was trying to head off a "did you use that workaround setting for
TB that's in the dovecot.conf file?" type of question. :-)  The bit in
question is this part of that file:

>   #   tb-extra-mailbox-sep:
>   # With mbox storage a mailbox can contain either mails or submailboxes,
>   # but not both. Thunderbird separates these two by forcing server to
>   # accept '/' suffix in mailbox names in subscriptions list.
>   # The list is space-separated.
>   imap_client_workarounds = tb-extra-mailbox-sep

What they're describing doesn't seem related to the particular problem
that *I'm* having, but I figured it couldn't hurt to put it in place.

   --Dave




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Re: Thunderbird not working with Dovecot

[David Guntner]

One other thing to add here - Upon initial connection, TB has no
problems getting the list of messages.  That pops up right away.  It's
only when selecting an unread message that it hangs as described below.
 It flags the message as "read" but never gets off "downloading
message" until I click another message and then click the one I was
just trying to access, at which point it displays fine.  Clicking
another message (already read) does cause it to open a new connection to
the IMAP server though.  I've been using TB forever (note: this is on a
different computer, not local to the Debian box) and it never behaved
this way prior to the switch to Debian and Dovecot.

So if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them... :-)

David Guntner grabbed a keyboard and wrote:
> Well, at least not completely.  I've got Dovecot up and running, but for
> some reason, Thunderbird won't work with it quite right.  I'll select an
> unread message, and the header will change in the display, but the body
> doesn't appear - the status bar just says "Downloading message..." and
> it sits there until I select another message and then go back to the one
> I wanted to read, at which point it displays the message.
> 
> Watching the syslog, I can see what's happening when I move to another
> message is that a *new* login connection is being established (without
> closing the old one) with the IMAP server.  After I've moved around
> enough times, the server logs a note saying that I've exceeded the
> number of open connections that I can have and it just stops talking to
> me any further until I close Thunderbird (at which point the log shows
> all the connections being closed.
> 
> It never did this with the IMAP server that I was using on my old system
> 
> My mail reader in my smart phone works just fine with it, BTW. :-)
> 
> I googled a bit and found a note about setting a Thunderbird work-around
> in the dovecot.conf file and applied that, but it didn't make any
> difference.
> 
> Any ideas what's causing this?  More importantly, any ideas how to FIX
> it? :-)
> 
>  --Dave
> 




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Re: Thunderbird not working with Dovecot

[Jochen Spieker]

David Guntner:
> 
> Watching the syslog, I can see what's happening when I move to another
> message is that a *new* login connection is being established (without
> closing the old one) with the IMAP server.  After I've moved around
> enough times, the server logs a note saying that I've exceeded the
> number of open connections that I can have and it just stops talking to
> me any further until I close Thunderbird (at which point the log shows
> all the connections being closed.

Dovecot limits both the total number of parallel connections and the
number of connections per user (or per client IP address, don't
remember). Either increase that or reduce the number of connections
Thunderbird uses.

> My mail reader in my smart phone works just fine with it, BTW. :-)

It probably uses fewer connections.

> I googled a bit and found a note about setting a Thunderbird work-around
> in the dovecot.conf file and applied that, but it didn't make any
> difference.

General hint: please try to be more informative. "I tried something but
it didn't work" does not carry a lot of useful unformation.

J.
-- 
If I could travel through time I would go back to yesterday and
apologise.
[Agree]   [Disagree]
 


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