check_all_imap_folders_for_new doesn't work in thunderbird

[Robert Persson]

Binary package hint: thunderbird

I need thunderbird to tell me how many new mails I have in each of my gmail imap folders, but even though I have mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new, this doesn't happen. It is only when I browse a particular folder that it finally tells me how many mails there are in it.

[bright (shaoml)]

I have the same problem too. It's really annoying. I have to keep this bug in mind otherwise I'll miss some messages. Hope it can be fixed soon.

[Robert Persson (ireneshusband)]

At some point I got this working properly, but I cannot for the life of me remember how I did it. I cannot find any setting that fits the bill. Needless to say, if a configuration option is that obscure, this is in itself a bug.

[bright (shaoml)]

Thanks for the info, Robert. At least, there's still a hope that thunderbird will work correctly if I can find that configuration option :).

[Sarah Kowalik (hobbsee-deactivatedaccount)]

Works fine for me, with mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new (boolean) set to true.

Is this specific to gmail imap?

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!

[psypher (psypher246)]

Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: thunderbird 3.0.5+build2+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.04.1
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_ZA.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-23.37-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5
Tags: lucid
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-23-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare

[psypher (psypher246)]

apport information

[psypher (psypher246)]

This problem has been in thunderbird for as long as I can remember, it's extremely annoying. I have to use thunderbird for daily work email as Evolution is a horrible app and does not integrate with exchange very well, despite their claimed plugins. Thunderbird connects to an exchange 2007 imap server as well as gmail and both have this problem, folders often do not update. I extensively use server side filters and have to know when new mail arrives in these folders.

Using the mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new (boolean) set to true does not work, also trying the other option of creating a user.js file in the mozilla profile and adding:
user_pref("mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new", true);
to the file does nothing either.

Manually going into each subscribed folder and setting it manually to download check for new mails also does not work.

What other info do you require?

thanks

[Paul J Stevens (paul-nfg)]

I had this very same problem since upgrading to 3.0.5 on lucid.

Using the 'Activity Manager' in the tools menu, combined with running TB in debug-mode, I traced this to
being subscribed to a non-existant mailbox, probably caused by a bug in the imap server I develop myself.

So apparently, when TB hits a tagged NO response during the STATUS commands it uses to check
folders, it will give up on checking the remaining mailboxes. You might consider this a TB bug, but only
if you expect clients to degrade gracefully during of server errors. Which imo is not an unusual expectation.

You can run TB in debug mode as follows:

#!/bin/sh

MYDATE=`date "+%Y%m%d_%H%M%S"`
NSPR_LOG_MODULES=IMAP:5
NSPR_LOG_FILE=/tmp/thunderbird_${MYDATE}.log
export NSPR_LOG_MODULES NSPR_LOG_FILE

echo $NSPR_LOG_FILE

/usr/bin/thunderbird &
exit $?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to review all reported bugs in a timely manner. This bug was reported some time ago and there have been many changes in Ubuntu and Thunderbird since that time.

Do you still see a problem related to the one that was reported using currently supported versions of Ubuntu and Thunderbird?

Please let us know if you do otherwise this bug report can be left to expire in approximately 60 days time.

Thank you for helping make Ubuntu better.

Paul White
[Ubuntu Bug Squad]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for thunderbird (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]