[Dovecot] Thunderbird 0.8 - Inbox grayed out and does not update
Hi all,
I cannot get Thunderbird 0.8 to work with my dovecot IMAP server. It works fine with my work IMAP account - I'm not sure what they are using.
What happens is that folders that I create in Thunderbird or Evolution can only contain subfolders or messages, not a combination of both.
Folders which contain subfolders and not messages show up in Thunderbird grayed out. I can expand them and view the subfolders and the messages within those.
The Inbox however, also shows up grayed out. When I look inside I can see the messages that were there when I created the IMAP account in Thunderbird, however, no new messages arrive, even after restarting Thunderbird.
If I connect with Evolution 1.4 I can read the inbox without a problem.
Has anyone seen this?
warm regards, Joshua
Sitapati das wrote:
Hi all,
I cannot get Thunderbird 0.8 to work with my dovecot IMAP server. It works fine with my work IMAP account - I'm not sure what they are using.
I guess for everyone's benefit I must ask : Which version of Dovecot are you using?
What happens is that folders that I create in Thunderbird or Evolution can only contain subfolders or messages, not a combination of both.
Folders which contain subfolders and not messages show up in Thunderbird grayed out. I can expand them and view the subfolders and the messages within those.
You're using mbox storage, aren't you? This whole "only subfolders or messages, not both" is a limitation of mbox.
The Inbox however, also shows up grayed out. When I look inside I can see the messages that were there when I created the IMAP account in Thunderbird, however, no new messages arrive, even after restarting Thunderbird.
If I connect with Evolution 1.4 I can read the inbox without a problem.
And here's where it gets odd. My first thought was permissions... but that's not it if Evo works happily... assuming it's going through the IMAP server, and not running on the local machine, accessing the mail store directly.
Has anyone seen this?
I am using TB8 with Dovecot 0.99.11, and it's working fine for about 20 users. However, I'm using Maildir for the mail storage.
warm regards, Joshua
-- Curtis Maloney cmaloney@cardgate.net
Thanks very much for the reply Curtis. I did some investigation guided by your points. I read mail-storage.txt and edited the dovecot.conf to include this line:
default_mail_env = mbox:~/mail/:INBOX=/var/mail/%u
This seems to have fixed it. Evolution continues the same, but Thunderbird now receives the new messages.
I'm using dovecot-0.99.10.5-0.FC2
Sitapati das wrote:
Thanks very much for the reply Curtis. I did some investigation guided by your points. I read mail-storage.txt and edited the dovecot.conf to include this line:
default_mail_env = mbox:~/mail/:INBOX=/var/mail/%u
Hope you converted your old mail over, too :)
This seems to have fixed it. Evolution continues the same, but Thunderbird now receives the new messages.
I'm using dovecot-0.99.10.5-0.FC2
Wow.. that's a bit old. There are quite a number of improvements since then. I believe, from reading other posts, that there are newer packages available for Fedora Core... try searching the list archives. Definitely worth updating, imho.
-- Curtis Maloney cmaloney@cardgate.net
Curtis Maloney wrote:
Sitapati das wrote:
Hi all,
I cannot get Thunderbird 0.8 to work with my dovecot IMAP server. It works fine with my work IMAP account - I'm not sure what they are using.
I guess for everyone's benefit I must ask : Which version of Dovecot are you using?
What happens is that folders that I create in Thunderbird or Evolution can only contain subfolders or messages, not a combination of both.
Folders which contain subfolders and not messages show up in Thunderbird grayed out. I can expand them and view the subfolders and the messages within those.
You're using mbox storage, aren't you? This whole "only subfolders or messages, not both" is a limitation of mbox.
Though when I was playing with 1.0test46, I attempted to create a folder in an mbox where only messages can be; it silently fails. But I if go into the Maildir side (I was testing mixed mbox/Maildir stores with 1.0test46), I can create folders within folder and stuff messags in there 'til I'm blue in the face.
So I don't think it hurts to have that checkbox checked which signifies that the server supports folders which can contain both types of data even though with mbox, they're mutually exclusive. However, a "mutually-exclusive" setup more or less keeps you from usefully using a Maildir-centric setup. ;)
So I'm with you; it's a client settings issue.
--Ian.
On 27.9.2004, at 08:29, Ian R. Justman wrote:
Though when I was playing with 1.0test46, I attempted to create a folder in an mbox where only messages can be; it silently fails.
Dovecot gives an "Mailbox doesn't allow inferior mailboxes" error though, client should have shown that..
So I don't think it hurts to have that checkbox checked which signifies that the server supports folders which can contain both types of data even though with mbox, they're mutually exclusive.
However, a "mutually-exclusive" setup more or less keeps you from usefully using a Maildir-centric setup. ;)So I'm with you; it's a client settings issue.
I don't really understand why that checkbox even exists. It's simple to check automatically, and having one global checkbox for that gets it wrong if you're using mixed mbox/maildir setup.
participants (4)
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Curtis Maloney
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Ian R. Justman
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Sitapati das
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Timo Sirainen