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On one of my accounts - POP3 on mail.btinternet.com - periodically I get error regarding 'UIDL or XTND XLST' and mails don't download until I restart TBird.

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  • Last reply by sfhowes

tooc1
tooc1
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I am reporting a problem that occurs from time on one only of the accounts that I use in Thunderbird. The problem disappears for a variable amount of time when I close Thunderbird and then re-launch it.

The full error message is the following:

The POP3 mail server (mail.btinternet.com) does not support UIDL or XTND XLST, which are required to implement the ``Leave on Server, ``Maximum Message Size or ``Fetch Headers Only options. To download your mail, turn off these options in the Server Settings for your mail server in the Account Settings window.

When I notice that I have fewer mails than usual I restart Thunderbird and then they immediately start arriving.

This would seem to be a TBird problem because I never have this problem with webmail, even while my mail is failing to be collected by TBird. By the way, the problem is 'silent' - by which I mean that the only time I see the error message is when I specifically try to collect my btinternet mail. My system is set to automatically download every 10 minutes but in this 'error' state I don't know if it is trying to do this or not. Other accounts continue to work normally.

I am reporting a problem that occurs from time on one only of the accounts that I use in Thunderbird. The problem disappears for a variable amount of time when I close Thunderbird and then re-launch it. The full error message is the following: The POP3 mail server (mail.btinternet.com) does not support UIDL or XTND XLST, which are required to implement the ``Leave on Server'', ``Maximum Message Size'' or ``Fetch Headers Only'' options. To download your mail, turn off these options in the Server Settings for your mail server in the Account Settings window. When I notice that I have fewer mails than usual I restart Thunderbird and then they immediately start arriving. This would seem to be a TBird problem because I never have this problem with webmail, even while my mail is failing to be collected by TBird. By the way, the problem is 'silent' - by which I mean that the only time I see the error message is when I specifically try to collect my btinternet mail. My system is set to automatically download every 10 minutes but in this 'error' state I don't know if it is trying to do this or not. Other accounts continue to work normally.

All Replies (3)

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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This is a well-known issue with mail services that use Yahoo mail servers (BT, Rogers, AT&T, Verizon etc.). See this discussion. Webmail uses a different system than POP, IMAP and SMTP, so the error only affects programs like TB.

You might have fewer problems with an IMAP setup, although many would recommend not using Yahoo-type mail providers.

tooc1
tooc1 Question owner
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How come this is not regarded as a TBird problem?

If I restart TBird it works again! So why can't TBird itself be programmed to do whatever it is that I achieve when I restart it?

Programmers continually work around problems of this sort, so what is it that makes it so unachievable here?

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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You would have to ask a developer about this. Perhaps you wish to add your comments to a bug report:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1577548