[Dovecot] IMAP Clients can not see 3rd tier nested IMAP directories

[jjs87 at cornell.edu]

Thank you Greg for pointing out the TB bug.  The TB bug is indeed the 
problem. (And well Outlook is just a terrible IMAP client..., so I won't 
comment more on that!) We discovered the problem on our own by manually 
adding all folders to the subscription file on the server. If you add 
all the nested folders to the subscription file, then TB will see all 
the folders.

Glad this wasn't a dovecot bug!

-Jason

On 12/7/2010 11:43 AM, Gregory Finch wrote:
> On 2010-12-07 8:17 AM, dovecot wrote:
>> On 07-12-10 17:12, jjs87 at cornell.edu wrote:
>>> On 12/7/2010 11:02 AM, dovecot wrote:
>>>> On 07-12-10 16:37, jjs87 at cornell.edu wrote:
>>>>> I have a very bizarre problem that I hope someone can help me with. I
>>>>> am not sure if this is a Dovecot problem, or IMAP client problem.
>>>>>
>>>>> I recently used Transend's Migrator to move mail from Exchange 2007 to
>>>>> my Dovecot 1.0.7 server. The program seems to have moved the nested
>>>>> IMAP dirs properly as seen below in a directory listing of the maildir
>>>>> dir. The nested dirs have indexes, cur, new dirs as expected.
>>>>>
>>>>> However, when the account is viewed in Windows Thunderbird 3.1.6 or
>>>>> Outlook 2010 the 3rd tier dirs are not seen, nor can they be
>>>>> subscribed to. On a whim, I decided to try Apple Mail 4.3 to view the
>>>>> account and all the IMAP dirs can be seen and accessed as expected.
>>>>>
>>>>> Any idea what is going on?  Is this somehow an IMAP client problem
>>>>> (bug) or an issue with Dovecot and these clients?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Listing of the Maildir dir:
>>>>>
>>>>> [root Maildir]# ls -al
>>>>> total 92
>>>>> drwx------ 17 andrew andrew  4096 Dec  6 17:06 .
>>>>> drwx------  9 andrew andrew  4096 Dec  6 15:58 ..
>>>>> drwx------  5 andrew andrew  4096 Dec  6 16:31 .mailbox
>>>>> drwx------  5 andrew andrew  4096 Dec  6 16:31 .mailbox.mail
>>>>> drwx------  5 andrew andrew  4096 Dec  6 16:48 .mailbox.mail.colleagues
>>>>> drwx------  5 andrew andrew  4096 Dec  6 17:02
>>>>> .mailbox.mail.colleagues.amy
>>>>> drwx------  5 andrew andrew  4096 Dec  6 16:48
>>>>> .mailbox.mail.colleagues.aslan
>>>>> drwx------  2 andrew andrew  4096 Dec  6 16:31 cur
>>>>> -rw-------  1 andrew andrew   144 Dec  6 16:31 dovecot.index
>>>>> -rw-------  1 andrew andrew 10272 Dec  6 16:31 dovecot.index.cache
>>>>> -rw-------  1 andrew andrew   128 Dec  6 16:31 dovecot.index.log
>>>>> drwx------  2 andrew andrew  4096 Dec  6 16:31 new
>>>>> drwx------  5 andrew andrew  4096 Dec  6 16:53 .Sent Items
>>>>> -rw-------  1 andrew andrew    32 Dec  6 17:06 subscriptions
>>>>> drwx------  2 andrew andrew  4096 Dec  6 16:31 tmp
>>>>> drwx------  5 andrew andrew  4096 Dec  6 16:32 .Trash
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> PROBLEM:
>>>>>
>>>>> When viewed in Thunderbird 3.1.6 or Outlook 2010:
>>>>>
>>>>> These nested dirs are seen:
>>>>> ..mailbox
>>>>> ....mail
>>>>>
>>>>> These nested dirs are NOT seen or can be subscribed:
>>>>> ......colleagues
>>>>> ........amy
>>>>> ........aslan
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> OBSERVATIONS:
>>>>>
>>>>> When viewed in Apple Mail 4.3, all dirs are seen correctly.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you, I appreciate any and all replies, comments, questions, and
>>>>> suggestions.
>>>>> Jason
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> seems to work here:
>>>>
>>>> i just create a folder 'test', a subfolder 'test', etc, etc
>>>>
>>>> opensuse:/home/luuk/Maildir # ls -laR | grep test
>>>> drwx------  5 luuk users    4096 2010-12-07 16:59 .test
>>>> drwx------  5 luuk users    4096 2010-12-07 17:00 .test.test
>>>> drwx------  5 luuk users    4096 2010-12-07 16:59 .test.test.test
>>>> drwx------  5 luuk users    4096 2010-12-07 17:00 .test.test.test.test
>>>> ./.test:
>>>> ./.test/cur:
>>>> ./.test/new:
>>>> ./.test/tmp:
>>>> ./.test.test:
>>>> ./.test.test/cur:
>>>> ./.test.test/new:
>>>> ./.test.test/tmp:
>>>> ./.test.test.test:
>>>> ./.test.test.test/cur:
>>>> ./.test.test.test/new:
>>>> ./.test.test.test/tmp:
>>>> ./.test.test.test.test:
>>>> ./.test.test.test.test/cur:
>>>> ./.test.test.test.test/new:
>>>> ./.test.test.test.test/tmp:
>>>> opensuse:/home/luuk/Maildir #
>>> Thanks for the note. I should have mentioned that manually creating
>>> nested folders from within TB or Outlook works just fine.
>>> -Jason
>>>
>> I unsubscribed them, and i cannot subscribe to these '.test.test.test'
>> again.
>> So, it seems to be a bug in Thunderbird
>>
> This sounds like a known Thunderbird bug:
>
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=592633
>
> It won't remember subscriptions to folders nested more than 2 levels
> deep. It appears that the fix may show up "soon".
>
> I'm guessing that the problem shows up in outlook from outlook honouring
> the subscription list set on the server by thunderbird.
>
> -Greg
>