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Thunderbird Stops Auto-downloading Mail - "account ... is being processed. Please wait until processing is complete" pop3ServerBusy

  • 13 replies
  • 7 have this problem
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  • Last reply by bsfinkel

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I am running TB 102.1.2 64-bit on Windows 10 Professional 21H2. On occasion, TB will stop auto-downloading mail. When this happens, I have to click on "Get Messages" to re-start the POP3 download process. My refresh interval is every ten minutes. Last night at 9:42 I sent a piece of mail, and then no mail was downloaded. I have attached a screen-shot of the TB error console that shows the end of my 9:42PM SMTP mail send and the lines that follow. I do not know how to save the error console to a file, and I do not know if there is more relevant information in the error console. I have not kept track of the occurrences of this problem, so I cannot tell when the problem first surfaced.

I will now click "Get Messages", as I need to see my mail. Is there any other documentation I can capture when this problem next occurs? Thanks.

I clicked "Get Messages", and I saw an error pop-up window:

    Error with account ...
    The account ... is being processed.  Please wait until processing is complete to get messages.

I believe that this is the first time I have seen this pop-up message. I opened ProcessExcplorer, and I have a screen-shot of Thunderbird. I have tried to add the image to this posting, but I do not see it.

I am running TB 102.1.2 64-bit on Windows 10 Professional 21H2. On occasion, TB will stop auto-downloading mail. When this happens, I have to click on "Get Messages" to re-start the POP3 download process. My refresh interval is every ten minutes. Last night at 9:42 I sent a piece of mail, and then no mail was downloaded. I have attached a screen-shot of the TB error console that shows the end of my 9:42PM SMTP mail send and the lines that follow. I do not know how to save the error console to a file, and I do not know if there is more relevant information in the error console. I have not kept track of the occurrences of this problem, so I cannot tell when the problem first surfaced. I will now click "Get Messages", as I need to see my mail. Is there any other documentation I can capture when this problem next occurs? Thanks. I clicked "Get Messages", and I saw an error pop-up window: Error with account ... The account ... is being processed. Please wait until processing is complete to get messages. I believe that this is the first time I have seen this pop-up message. I opened ProcessExcplorer, and I have a screen-shot of Thunderbird. I have tried to add the image to this posting, but I do not see it.
Attached screenshots

Modified by Wayne Mery

All Replies (13)

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Yesterday (8/17) I had to Exit and restart TB for it to download mail. I took a minidump. Today (08/18) the last mail message was downloaded at 11:56 (the time is now 13:49). The last message in the Error Console is

    mailnews.pop3.443  Got an error name=pop3ServerBusy  (9) Pop3Client.jsm:1264:18

While I was typing this, TB downloaded 46 mail messages. I did not click "Get Messages".

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At 6:35AM today (8/20) was the last mail I received; it is now 20:28. The last line in the error console is again.

    mailnews.pop3.443  Got an error name=pop3ServerBusy  (9) Pop3Client.jsm:1264:18

As happened last time, my opening of the error console must have caused a "refresh" of Thunderbird, as mail started to download while I was typing this reply. I did not click on "Get Messages". It appears that TB does not automatically recover from a pop3ServerBusy error. Attached is the end of the current Error Console. I do not see timestamps on the Error Console records.

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It is a bug for which a fix is underway is my understanding. Unless my reading of your question is misplaced.

See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1779306

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Matt, thanks. Do I have to add anything to that bug report, or just follow it online?

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Just follow along. Nothing to add unless have additional information, and I don't think you have.

The bug is fixed in the daily build of V105, the next this of interest will be an approval for V102 ESR uplift. That is when it will be lifted to the next 102 release. Generally bugs are allowed to what they call "ride the train" of daily and beta for a time before uplift to release. It gives the fix time to demonstrate it works, and perhaps just as importantly does not break anything else.

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Interesting. I am indeed hoping to see bug 1779306 in 102.2.1.

I was looking at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1763491

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I had another occurrence last night/this morning. The last piece of mail downloaded has a 9:12PM timestamp. I have a different error message in the error console: "Polling for changes failed: ..." . See the attached screenshot. I am now running Thunderbird 102.2.0 (64-bit). Opening the error console did NOT result in mail being downloaded. I clicked :Get Messages" and I got a pop-up window: "Error with account .<> The account <> is being processed. Please wait until processing is complete to get messages." I assume that I will have to Exit and re-start Thunderbird.

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A few minutes later I did another "Get Messages" and the Error Console has a new message:

    mailnews.pop3.443  Got an error name=pop3ServerBusy  (5) Pop3Client.jsm:1272:18
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I had another "blockage" this morning; the last mail was 7:45, and it is now 9:50. I have attached the error console, which has an entry "> mailnews.pop3.468 Pop3Client.jsm .... ConnectionRefusedError Network 2352398861".

Is this another case where Thunderbird does not retry?

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The offical bug report, if i read it correctly, says that this is fixed in 102.2.1 , which I installed 09/03 20:09. But I had another occurrence 09/07 15:36. I did not capture a screenshot of the error console, but it had "Pop3ServerBusy".

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I had another occurrence this morning at 8:40. Attached is the Error Console screenshot, and I see two "Pop3ServerBusy" entries at the bottom. I do not see any timestamps, so I have no idea when these two occurred.

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After (finally; over a week of false starts) migrating all of my email functions from one Windows 10 computer to another, this bug appeared, but MANUAL GET MESSAGE DOES NOT WORK EITHER. It is now 0918 the morning of 9/28/2022, the message "Host contacted. sending login information" and a totally blue progress stripe are constantly on the bottom of the window, and manually asking to Get Message results in the error message.

The latest message on the screen is from 1750 YESTERDAY, while my iPhone's IMAP mail app says the latest is 0920 this morning, and it has received 171 messages since yesterday. I had a less severe version of this problem on the older computer before migration; I would hit Get Messages, wait 5-10 minutes, and get the message "no messages downloaded," but NOT the error message described; repeat two or three times, and finally get (some) the delayed messages. But they were delayed ONLY up to two hours, not 16 hours. And the new computer is FASTER than the old one!

I'm next going to try restarting Thunderbird. The new messages were STILL NOT DOWNLOADED! I will have to look into reverting back to the old computer!

Modified by Allan and Gayle Richardson

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What is the status of bug 1779306? Is it in 102.3.0? I had an occurrence while running 102.3.0. I just upgraded to 102.3.1.