[Dovecot] Multiple Concurrent IMAP Connections For Same User

Stephen Usher Stephen.Usher at earth.ox.ac.uk
Sun Mar 6 16:51:49 EET 2011


On 06/03/2011 03:45, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> If you're not doing local sync with TB and you have GLODA disabled, TB
> is going to show you exactly what's in your Dovecot mailbox.  If the
> message doesn't disappear from your TB view sometime after deleting it
> on your smartphone, then I'd say it's very likely that Dovecot didn't
> receive the delete and/or expunge command from the phone.  Check your
> Dovecot logs and see what the phone is actually sending, or not sending.
>
> Both of you mentioned problems specifically WRT smartphones.  It's
> likely the IMAP implementation in these phones is simply buggy, or your
> network coverage is spotty.  I don't use a smartphone so I can't really
> say.  What smartphone are you each using?

Actually it doesn't matter what the second client is (it can be another 
copy of TB3), the important thing is that TB3 doesn't notice the change 
underneath it. (The programmers seem to assume that it will have 
exclusive access to the mailbox from what I can see.) The real mailbox 
does change correctly, TB3's idea of what the mailbox holds does not and 
it fails to check its consistency with respect to the server.

Obviously there's a difference in behaviour for some reason when TB3 
interacts with Cyrus IMAP as it seems not to have a problem with that 
IMAP server. It's almost as if TB3 expects to be informed when there has 
been a deletion. (TB3 will notice other status changes such as a message 
being read etc.)

The phantom messages within TB3 will also persist between program 
restarts, which suggests that it's not verifying its cached message list 
at that point either.

By the way, asking end-users to all change their client settings is not 
a practical solution. We need to determine why the behaviour between 
Dovecot and TB3 is different from Cyrus and TB3 and then either ask the 
TB developers to fix their code or put a work-around in Dovecot. (I may 
even have to be both.)

Steve
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