Thunderbird is "sending login" to "select" an IMAP folder
I have been using Thunderbird (or its predecesors) since before AOL bought Netscape. Or Verizon bought AOL and Yahoo, and combined them all. When I use my lifetime netscape.net account, I see "sending login" in the bottom left corner of the window, every time I "select" a different IMAP folder. There are times when I will get a popup message that I am unable to login, or prompt me to retry my password, after changing folders 4 or 5 times. Typically when changing back and forth between "Bulk Mail" and "Trash" folders, checking for mis-identified spam or filters that may be too aggressive.
I have a vanity domain mail server at home, where I have been archiving mail since 1998. I have hundreds of folders and subfolders, active and archived. When connecting to this account with Thunderbird, I see a differnent message in the corner when selecting folders, "opening <foldername>".
The only differences between these account configurations that I can see, is imap.aol.com (netscape.net) requires SSL. My home server on my private LAN uses unencrypted/clear connections.
I can not imagine why an IMAP "SELECT" command would be any different on an SSL connection than it is on an clear connection. When Netscape/AOL/Yahoo/Verizon sends the popup to retry my password, the correct password always fails, which leads to an unable to login message. I have to close Thunderbird before I can re-open and access my netscape.net account again.
Out of curiosity, I have tried other mail clients to connect to netscape.net (imap.aol.com), and have never experience the same problem with Outlook, Evolution, or Claws. I hope this is enough information to find and squash what I perceive to be a bug in Thunderbird.
Solution eye eponami
Scanner. Anti virus is the most common but there are also scam and spam scanners. All regularly break mail.
Yahoo is fundamentally broken. Yahoo are bumbling and stumbling along without much in the way of direction or reason in what they do. I read this morning that reducing the number of connections in account settings> server settings > advanced button can help as Yahoo apparently like to drop a fifth connection which Thunderbird uses as a default. They don't actually publish anything, so everything yahoo is Chinese whispers. Perhaps the intent is drive everyone to their advertising mecca on the web. I really don't know. All I do know is they make email unnecessarily hard with very US centric decision making that impacts around the world.
Tanga eyano oyo ndenge esengeli 👍 0All Replies (3)
Try disabling your email scanner. They are the usual cause of intermittent connection failures.
Is your connection using oAuth authentication? Normal for yahoo and OAL for some time now. Very uncommon on home servers.
Interesting idea, helpful in the manner that it made me think deeper...
For the sake of terminology, which email scanner are you referring to? The only email scanners I use are human eyes. Junk settings are disabled. I have no plugins or extensions installed. The message filters (I created most of years ago) run only on my Inbox. (All my accounts have similar filters.) My problem seems to have started after the AOL/Yahoo merger. My perception is that AOL/Yahoo is seeing too many logins for my account and dropping the connection.
Are you implying that my repeatable problem is intermittent or related only to oAuth servers? I am willing to investigate this further. By comparing to Gmail, who is also using oAuth for my Thunderbird client connections, I have my doubts. IMHO, Gmail has always done a better job of managing bandwidth and connections than Yahoo.
I have specifically enabled/authorized the Thunderbird for windows desktop app to access my Gmail and Netscape email accounts. I don't recall authorizing Thunderbird for MSM/Hotmail or my phone/cable provider's mailboxes, so I assume they are not using oAuth. I still login with a password, not a key or token.
IMAP is a persistent protocol, and should not lose/drop a connection without a "logout" command for 30 minutes of no activity. This means I should not be authenticating every time I "select" a different folder.
On closer examination of the status bar, I can see connecting, sending login information, opening folder, on all the accounts that have SSL enabled. Not just those with oAuth. ALL my accounts are IMAP. Only the Netscape account (AOL) challenges me to reAuth (pun) when changing between folders (too rapidly). This should be a simple IMAP "SELECT" command, not a reconnect/authenticate/search/select process.
As much as I would love to blame Yahoo for this, I can see the same status bar messages on my other accounts, making me believe Thunderbird is wasting IMAP commands to move between mailbox folders.
Solution eye oponami
Scanner. Anti virus is the most common but there are also scam and spam scanners. All regularly break mail.
Yahoo is fundamentally broken. Yahoo are bumbling and stumbling along without much in the way of direction or reason in what they do. I read this morning that reducing the number of connections in account settings> server settings > advanced button can help as Yahoo apparently like to drop a fifth connection which Thunderbird uses as a default. They don't actually publish anything, so everything yahoo is Chinese whispers. Perhaps the intent is drive everyone to their advertising mecca on the web. I really don't know. All I do know is they make email unnecessarily hard with very US centric decision making that impacts around the world.