Why has thunderbird/comcast imap started to time out? CAUSE: antivirus
On our Windows computer Thunderbird has always had an issue where it would pop up a message saying "Could not connect to mail server imap.comcast.net, the connection was refused". A few hours or days would go by and Thunderbird and Comcast would talk to each other again. I finally had some time to try and debug this and (of course) I couldn't get the error to reproduce but instead I kept getting an imap timeout error. I captured the error message but it doesn't tell me why it's timing out or what to do about it.
P.S. Yes, I increased the timeout value from 100 to 300 and now it simply takes longer
Details: Windows 10 Home 22H2 Thunderbird 128.3.1esr
Error log: ImapClient.sys.mjs:887:18 19:23:29.582 mailnews.imap.4: NotifyBodysToDownload Array [] ImapClient.sys.mjs:1866:18 19:23:29.582 mailnews.imap.4: GetRunningUrl ImapClient.sys.mjs:1872:18 19:23:29.582 mailnews.imap.4: Done with status=0 ImapClient.sys.mjs:1851:18 19:23:29.583 mailnews.imap.4: C: 51 IDLE ImapClient.sys.mjs:962:20 19:23:29.583 mailnews.imap.4: Idling in imap://<email>@imap.comcast.net/Drafts ImapClient.sys.mjs:829:18 19:23:29.736 mailnews.imap.4: S: + idling
ImapClient.sys.mjs:887:18 19:23:29.820 mailnews.imap.5: Connecting to imap.comcast.net:993 ImapClient.sys.mjs:111:20 19:23:29.933 mailnews.imap.5: Connected ImapClient.sys.mjs:862:18 19:23:30.152 mailnews.imap.5: S: * OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 SASL-IR LOGIN-REFERRALS ID ENABLE IDLE LITERAL+ AUTH=PLAIN AUTH=LOGIN AUTH=OAUTHBEARER AUTH=XOAUTH2] Dovecot ready.
ImapClient.sys.mjs:887:18 19:23:30.152 mailnews.imap.5: Possible auth methods: PLAIN,LOGIN ImapClient.sys.mjs:1067:18 19:23:30.152 mailnews.imap.5: C: 12 AUTHENTICATE PLAIN ImapClient.sys.mjs:962:20 19:23:30.237 mailnews.imap.5: S: +
ImapClient.sys.mjs:887:18 19:23:30.238 mailnews.imap.5: C: Logging suppressed (it probably contained auth information) ImapClient.sys.mjs:956:20 19:23:30.671 mailnews.imap.5: S: 12 OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 SASL-IR LOGIN-REFERRALS ID ENABLE IDLE SORT SORT=DISPLAY THREAD=REFERENCES THREAD=REFS THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT MULTIAPPEND URL-PARTIAL CATENATE UNSELECT CHILDREN NAMESPACE UIDPLUS LIST-EXTENDED I18NLEVEL=1 CONDSTORE QRESYNC ESEARCH ESORT SEARCHRES WITHIN CONTEXT=SEARCH LIST-STATUS BINARY MOVE SNIPPET=FUZZY PREVIEW=FUZZY PREVIEW STATUS=SIZE SAVEDATE XDOVECOT LITERAL+ NOTIFY SPECIAL-USE QUOTA] Logged in
ImapClient.sys.mjs:887:18 19:23:30.671 mailnews.imap.5: C: 13 ID ("name" "Thunderbird" "version" "128.3.1") ImapClient.sys.mjs:962:20 19:23:30.820 mailnews.imap.5: S: * ID ("name" "Dovecot")
13 OK ID completed (0.001 + 0.000 secs).
ImapClient.sys.mjs:887:18 19:23:30.822 mailnews.imap.5: updateFolderStatus imap://<email>@imap.comcast.net/Sent ImapClient.sys.mjs:719:18 19:23:30.822 mailnews.imap.5: C: 14 STATUS "Sent" (UIDNEXT MESSAGES UNSEEN) ImapClient.sys.mjs:962:20 19:23:30.968 mailnews.imap.5: S: * STATUS Sent (MESSAGES 0 UIDNEXT 210410 UNSEEN 0)
14 OK Status completed (0.001 + 0.000 secs).
ImapClient.sys.mjs:887:18 19:23:30.969 mailnews.imap.5: Done with status=0 ImapClient.sys.mjs:1851:18 19:23:43.262 mailnews.imap.2: S: * OK Still here
2 ImapClient.sys.mjs:887:18 19:24:34.718 mailnews.imap.1: NetworkTimeoutError: a Network error occurred ImapClient.sys.mjs:914:18 19:24:35.805 mailnews.imap.0: NetworkTimeoutError: a Network error occurred ImapClient.sys.mjs:914:18 19:24:35.805 mailnews.imap.0: Done with status=2152398862 ImapClient.sys.mjs:1851:18 19:24:35.806 mailnews.imap.0: Connection closed. ImapClient.sys.mjs:944:18 19:24:37.349 mailnews.imap.1: Done with status=2152398862 ImapClient.sys.mjs:1851:18 19:24:37.349 mailnews.imap.1: Connection closed. ImapClient.sys.mjs:944:18 19:24:45.486 Unknown property ‘-moz-border-radius’. Declaration dropped. codemirror.css:244:22
Modified by Wayne Mery
All Replies (5)
There is nothing in that log to indicate anything but a successful IMAP login followed by a timeout when the system is asked for mail.
My guess is you have a defective antivirus product.
If it was a router issue you would not authenticate. If it was an encryption TLS type issue, again you would not authenticate. The server is indication is has a "next mail" and provided the reference.
SO I am guessing the antivirus is intercepting the message and going off to la la land. So try disabling the mail scanner and see if that helps.
Yeah, I figured it might have been the anti-virus. We're currently fighting, er, working with, the anti-virus to get it removed and then we'll go to Defender which (fingers crossed) won't have the same issues.
We're using Norton and as soon as the renewal period is up we'll remove it and see if it fixes this problem (and the disappearing Inbox I have in a different post)
I use Norton 360 and have no problems, but.... I have not switched on VPN I have set up Firewall to allow Thunderbird program and Thunderbird updater. I have set up Anti-Virus to exclude Thunderbird profile from scans as I do not want it messing around trying to 'fix' things nor scanning any file that gets opened.
As info says NetworkTimeout - check this is selected. In 'Email Anti-Virus scan' > 'Configure' What to do when scanning email messages: Select 'Protect against timeouts'
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