[Dovecot] Dovecot and Outlook - IMAP Timeout error

[Timo Sirainen]

On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 08:37 -0500, Phillip T. George wrote:
> Hey guys,
> 
> I'm having a problem with Dovecot and Outlook.  I'm testing with Outlook 
> XP (2002), but the problem occurs with Outlook 2003 as well.  I'm using 
> Dovecot 1.0.rc28.
> 
> The specific error generated (for IMAP) is:
> "A connection to the server could not be established.  <servername> is 
> now in offline mode."
> In the details:
> "There may be a server or network problems or your timeout interval may 
> be too short.
>                 Protocol: IMAP
>                 Server: <servername>
>                 Port: 143"

I think this means that it couldn't get a TCP connection to the server
at all.

> As you can see from the logs, Thunderbird didn't have a problem, which 
> eliminates the possibility of a bad net connection (I'd assume...but I 
> could be wrong).  The problem occurred at 3AM.  Some people during the 
> day can get it every hour or so.  I was able to get it to occur twice 
> (the first time is not shown in these logs).

I couldn't figure out from the log what were Thunderbird and what were
Outlook connections. Or were they all TB? In any case the important
thing would be to know what is in Dovecot's logs when Outlook gives the
error. If there's nothing, then Dovecot never even saw the connection.
If Dovecot logged a "Disconnected" error (but no login) then there was
some problem with logging in, auth_debug=yes might be helpful there.

> 1. Is there any way to fix this Outlook problem?  I have all of the 
> outlook workarounds enabled (along with some for Netscape):
>   imap_client_workarounds = delay-newmail outlook-idle netscape-eoh
>   pop3_client_workarounds = outlook-no-nuls oe-ns-eoh

The error comes before user is even logged in, so these don't matter.

> 2. Should Outlook really be connecting and disconnecting that often?

Yea, it's stupid and keeps reconnecting all the time for some reason.

> 3. Could the problem be occurring because of POP3 and IMAP being used by 
> the same account, and the quick downloading of email via POP3 is 
> eliminating the email for IMAP, thereby causing inactivity in IMAP?  Is 
> there a workaround or a known Outlook settings to fix this?

No idea about this.
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