Re: [gentoo-user] Thunderbird folder structure on Imap servers inconsistent

[Alan McKinnon]

On 26/12/2013 21:14, Alexander Puchmayr wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I'm trying out some mail clients with Imap support, and when using thunderbird
> (v24.2, latest version in stable gentoo tree) I encountered several problems
> regarding imap server consistency:
>
> Folders which I already deleted still appear (marked in itallic grey color in
> TB's folder list)
>
> Some folders appear multiple times (e.g. I have a folders like
>
> Mailinglists
> + Gentoo
>    + users
>
> where all the mail from this forum goes to. This is consistent with the
> filesystem on my Imap server (dovecot). But, additionally, the 'Gentoo'
> subfolder appears in top level again (with all its other subfolders as well),
> and the 'users' folder appears again in top level a third time. Furthermore,
> when I select an unread mail in 'Mailinglists/Gentoo/users', the counter of
> unread mail decreases in the top level copy.
>
> Does anyone have similar experiences?


I also run into those kinds of things with TBird; and there's no
right-click option to "resync" things. However, it always comes right if
I just leave it alone.

So here's my theory:

TBird is designed to operate async in the background. A amil server can
pump mails into imap folders faster than any client can keep up, so I
believe the TBird devs don't even try. Instead, the just let TBird get
on with syncing one thing at a time until it's all done. And then the
universe returns to normal :-)

I can't explain what we see when TBird works, all I can tell you is that
if I leave it alone, it always just works out fine (where "leave it
alone" is on the order of about an hour or so for my gmail account that
goes back 8 years, and that exchange-thingy the IT dept at work still
believe has something to do with email...)

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@×××××.com