[wfaulk]

I'm not 100% sure that this is a problem caused by BES, but it showed up soon after my email account was tied to a Blackberry, so this is my first guess.

I get my email from an Exchange server, but I connect to it from Thunderbird using IMAP. Everything mostly seems to work fine with this.

About the time that I got my Blackberry and had my email account enabled on the BES, I started to see a strange occurrence in Thunderbird. When I receive an email, it shows up in Thunderbird. Then it disappears. Then it shows up again. It usually disappears two or three times before it settles down.

I have tested this independently of Thunderbird by opening an IMAP session and IDLE-ing in my INBOX. It shows that Thunderbird is just doing what the Exchange IMAP server is telling it to do. Here is a log of the receipt of a single message:

. IDLE
+ IDLE accepted, awaiting DONE command.
* 150 EXISTS
* 4 RECENT
* 151 EXISTS
* 5 RECENT
* 150 EXPUNGE
* 151 EXISTS
* 5 RECENT
* 150 EXPUNGE

What that's saying is that it received a new message number 150 and out of those 150 emails, four haven't really been looked at. Then another "new" message appears (in reality, the same message again) as number 151. Then number 150 gets deleted. This makes the old 151 number 150. Then yet another new message appears, number 151. Then message 150 is deleted again. This happens for every message I get.

Has anyone seen this or a similar problem before?

Thanks,

-William Faulk

[knottyrope]

What happens if you use Outlook?

[wfaulk]

It definitely flickers momentarily. Not as badly as Thunderbird does.

Don't tell me to just use Outlook, though. I don't use Windows as my day-to-day OS.

[knottyrope]

OK is Outlook using MAPI.

MAPI here is disabled, we use RPC over HTTPS
Never seen that issue with it.

[wfaulk]

"Connect to my Exchange mailbox using HTTP" is unchecked, so I assume that means that I'm using MAPI and not RPC/HTTPS.

[hdawg]

RPC over HTTP(S) = MAPI over HTTP(s) ... Messaging Application Programming Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaMessaging Application Programming Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Don't use Outlook ... you didn't want to hear that; use OWA instead.

Or use some other MAPI compliant application.

[wfaulk]

Originally Posted by hdawg

Don't use Outlook ... you didn't want to hear that; use OWA instead.

Heh. Have you ever looked at OWA under anything other than IE? It's basically unusable. (For instance, there is no search feature.) And since I don't use Windows, I can't use IE.

Originally Posted by hdawg

Or use some other MAPI compliant application.

Are you aware of any MAPI-compliant application for any OS besides Windows? A little bit of research indicates that Outlook 2001 for MacOS was the only MAPI client ever made for an OS other than Windows, and it's obsolete. (It only ran on MacOSes 8 and 9, not X.)

[hdawg]

Heh. Have you ever looked at OWA under anything other than IE? It's basically unusable. (For instance, there is no search feature.) And since I don't use Windows, I can't use IE.

Yes, I have; it sucks.

Are you aware of any MAPI-compliant application for any OS besides Windows? A little bit of research indicates that Outlook 2001 for MacOS was the only MAPI client ever made for an OS other than Windows, and it's obsolete. (It only ran on MacOSes 8 and 9, not X.)

No, I am not.

You didn't want me to tell you to use Outlook, so I didn't.

[wfaulk]

Originally Posted by hdawg

You didn't want me to tell you to use Outlook, so I didn't.

Yeah, I understand.

Ultimately, I'd like to resolve the real issue. Why should the email be being delivered three times to begin with? Is BES deleting the email to send it to the BB and then recreating it? That just seems stupid.

[hdawg]

Originally Posted by wfaulk

Yeah, I understand.

Ultimately, I'd like to resolve the real issue. Why should the email be being delivered three times to begin with? Is BES deleting the email to send it to the BB and then recreating it? That just seems stupid.

BES isn't doing this. BES is merely reading the content and passing it along to the HH.

[wfaulk]

Hh?

[hdawg]

HH = HandHeld

[klister]

I see the same issue with tbird connecting to exchange via IMAP.
It is very annoying... sadly this page is the only good info I could find about it.. tbird forums and bugzilla (where a fix would be more likely to be found I think) show nothing... original poster: I suggest (since you have done some nice investigation , e.g. protocol traces etc.) that you file a bugzilla entry for tbird about this... and post the link back here.

Thanks,

klister.

[wfaulk]

Thunderbird is not the problem. It's doing exactly what the server is telling it to do. There's something wrong with the Exchange server that has something to do with BES being installed.

[hdawg]

Why not stop using Thunderbird for a day and use OWA and see if the problem persists?

you've got multiple client protocols interacting; you need to isolate.

[boostima]

I see the same issue, where messages appear in Thunderbird, disappear for a few moments, and then reappear. I've been using Thunderbird over IMAP to an exchange server for a few years, and didn't have any problems.

Then last month I got a BlackBerry, and also last month I started having the issue. Now, it took a week or so of the appear/disappear behavior for me to figure out that it was a continuing problem, so I wasn't paying enough attention to notice if it started at exactly the same time I got the Blackberry.

[klister]

I totally agree there is probably nothing wrong with tbird, but what are your chances of having BES or Exchange changed for this in a short timeframe? Tbird folks would at least look at it with their expertise and probably provide some good insight, maybe even suggest a workaround using a tbird config tweak?

Chances on getting this fixed here are nearing absolute zero, IMHO. Hopefully I'm wrong!

[deric]

Hi William,

Did you ever get a solution to this problem? I just recently got a Blackberry and came across the same problem. In fact your original post could be used almost word for word to describe what I went through (including the IDLE test).

Thanks,
Deric

[wfaulk]

Nope. No resolution at all. I still have the exact same problem.

However, I'm the local IT guy and they're supposedly getting ready to install a BB server here (right now I'm connected to one across the country that I have no visibility into), so I might have a chance to play with it before too long. If I find out anything, positive or negative, I'll update the thread.

[deric]

OK. Thanks and good luck.

Deric