Dovecot/K9/Thunderbird IMAP interaction issues: replicated messages, constant reloading (TB) & missing new messages (K-9)

[Alex JOST]

Am 15.07.2014 03:12, schrieb David Gessel:
> * In thunderbird, I get constant downloading of messages.  Every time I
> switch to the inbox from another folder, the messages start
> redownloading.  This sometimes, but not always, seems to create
> duplicate messages, but I'm now fairly sure they are only created in the
> client and not on the server.  Searching through various forums, it
> appears  this has been a problem for Thunderbird for some time, but it
> wasn't for me on Courier.  As posts about similar errors seem to have
> petered out over the last year without any clear guidance on how to fix
> it that I could find, I expect there's a simple fix I just haven't found
> yet, either in TB configuration or in Dovecot.  Any hints? I tried
> Thunderfix to remove the .msf files and will be redownloading my mail
> over the thin pipe out to Iraq for the next 6 months (DOH!). One
> artifact is that when I restart thunderbird, my inbox is reported as
> having about 130 messages in it, then thunderbird starts redownloading
> headers and eventually gets back up to the 1297 currently listed both in
> the TB pane and by ls | wc -l in /cur.  Is it possible there is a time
> out that needs to be extended?  In TB, I've set (among other less
> apparently relevant options)
> mailnews.tcptimeout;1000
> mail.db.idle_limit;30000000

How old is your Thunderbird profile. Have you tried creating a new one 
and see if the problem persists?

Thunderfix should not be needed by the way. Just right click on the 
folder => Properties => Repair


> server # dovecot -n
> # 2.2.13: /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
> # OS: FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE amd64
> auth_default_realm = mydomain.com
> auth_mechanisms = plain login
> auth_realms = mydomain.com mydomain2.org
> disable_plaintext_auth = no
> first_valid_gid = 5000
> first_valid_uid = 5000
> hostname = mydomain.com
> imap_client_workarounds = tb-extra-mailbox-sep tb-lsub-flags
> imap_idle_notify_interval = 29 mins
> last_valid_gid = 5000
> last_valid_uid = 5000
> lda_mailbox_autocreate = yes
> listen = *
> mail_gid = 5000
> mail_location = maildir:~/:CONTROL=/var/no-quota/%u
> mail_plugins = quota mail_log notify
> mail_temp_dir = /var/tmp
> mail_uid = 5000
> maildir_broken_filename_sizes = yes
> managesieve_notify_capability = mailto
> managesieve_sieve_capability = fileinto reject envelope
> encoded-character vacation subaddress comparator-i;ascii-numeric
> relational regex imap4flags copy include variables body enotify
> environment mailbox date ihave duplicate spamtest spamtestplus editheader
> mbox_lazy_writes = no
> namespace inbox {
>    inbox = yes
>    location =
>    mailbox Drafts {
>      special_use = \Drafts
>    }
>    mailbox Junk {
>      special_use = \Junk
>    }
>    mailbox Sent {
>      special_use = \Sent
>    }
>    mailbox "Sent Messages" {
>      special_use = \Sent
>    }
>    mailbox Trash {
>      special_use = \Trash
>    }
>    prefix =
> }
> passdb {
>    args = /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf.ext
>    driver = sql
> }
> plugin {
>    expire = Trash
>    mail_log_events = delete undelete expunge copy mailbox_delete
> mailbox_rename
>    mail_log_fields = uid box msgid size
>    quota = maildir:User quota
>    quota_exceeded_message = Storage quota for this account has been
> exceeded, please try again later.
>    quota_rule = *:storage=50G
>    quota_rule2 = Trash:storage=+30%%
>    quota_rule3 = Sent:storage=+30%%
>    quota_warning = storage=90%% quota-warning 90 %u
>    quota_warning2 = storage=75%% quota-warning 75 %u
>    sieve = ~/.dovecot.sieve
>    sieve_before = /usr/local/etc/dovecot/sieve/
>    sieve_dir = ~/sieve
>    sieve_extensions = +spamtest +spamtestplus +relational
> +comparator-i;ascii-numeric +editheader
> }
> postmaster_address = gessel at mydomain.com
> protocols = imap lmtp sieve sieve
> sendmail_path = /usr/local/sbin/sendmail
> service auth {
>    unix_listener /var/spool/postfix/private/auth {
>      group = postfix
>      mode = 0666
>      user = postfix
>    }
>    unix_listener auth-userdb {
>      group = vmail
>      mode = 0600
>      user = vmail
>    }
> }
> service managesieve-login {
>    inet_listener sieve {
>      port = 4190
>    }
>    service_count = 1
>    vsz_limit = 128 M
> }
> service quota-warning {
>    executable = script /usr/local/bin/quota-warning.sh
>    unix_listener quota-warning {
>      user = vmail
>    }
>    user = vmail
> }
> ssl = required
> ssl_cert = </usr/local/etc/ca/server-cert.pem
> ssl_cipher_list =
> ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:!SSLv2
> ssl_key = </usr/local/etc/ca/server-unencrypted-key.pem
> ssl_prefer_server_ciphers = yes
> userdb {
>    driver = prefetch
> }
> userdb {
>    args = /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf.ext
>    driver = sql
> }
> protocol lda {
>    mail_plugins = quota mail_log notify sieve
> }
> protocol imap {
>    mail_max_userip_connections = 20
>    mail_plugins = quota mail_log notify imap_quota imap_zlib
> }
> protocol lmtp {
>    mail_plugins = quota mail_log notify sieve
> }
>

I don't know if it makes a difference for you as you are not using 
"LAYOUT=fs" but try to disable those imap_client_workarounds.

-- 
Alex JOST