Re[2]: Problem sharing a mailbox
Hi Well, I have tried everything and came out with the conclusion TB is the culprit. I have tested the mailbox sharing with my own mail server and get the same erratic behaviour, i.e. multiple downloads of all the messages in the mailbox. I can't reproduce the problem with another mail client. This is clearly a bug to my eyes! What can I do? Thanks in advance, DC -- David Cantatoremailto:david;cantatore.org Friday, October 18, 2002, 5:59:47 PM, you wrote: Peter Palmreuther Hi David, Peter Palmreuther On Fri, 18 Oct 2002 17:04:17 +0200 Peter Palmreuther David Cantatore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A few questions. Is everyone of them using TB? And if so, do all copies of TB show the same behaviour? In the latter case you could try to ask the ISP about changes in the server. They all use TB and the ISP maintains the problem isn't on their side (which I believe). Peter Palmreuther Why do you belive that? Peter Palmreuther The reason why I'm asking is: the 'leave messages on server and do not Peter Palmreuther download them a second time' is such a simple function there can't be Peter Palmreuther mayn things wrong. I'll try to explain it in short words: Peter Palmreuther 1.) TB! connects to the Mail server and asks for a list of so called Peter Palmreuther 'UID's. The POP3-command for this purpose is 'UIDL' (Unique ID Peter Palmreuther List). Peter Palmreuther 2.) Assuming TB! hasn't downloaded any message before it now fetches all Peter Palmreuther messages and writes the UIDs of messages fetched to a local file. Peter Palmreuther 3.) Next time TB! connects it fetches the UIDs again, compares them with Peter Palmreuther the local list and fetches only the messages not in the local Peter Palmreuther UID-list. Peter Palmreuther The UID is calculated and generated by the mail server, TB! has in no Peter Palmreuther way any influence on this UID generation process. Therefore if such a Peter Palmreuther scenario, as you describe, _suddenly_ happens _AND_ the The Bat! version Peter Palmreuther has _not_ changed there are two possibilities: Peter Palmreuther 1.) TB! suddenly is not capable to handle the UID file correctly. Have a Peter Palmreuther look at the account dir for a file called: 'ACCOUNT.M_R'. This file Peter Palmreuther contains the UIDs. Is it empty? Seems TB! is the culprit. Not? What's Peter Palmreuther it's last modification time? Long ago? Maybe TB! is the culprit. It was Peter Palmreuther just modified lately? Chances are high the server does something Peter Palmreuther unusual. Peter Palmreuther 2.) The server has changed, maybe a minor upgrade of POP3 daemon and now Peter Palmreuther calculates the UIDs on a basis that does not provide the same Peter Palmreuther result on every run. Maybe the UID generator uses file modification Peter Palmreuther time of mbox file / maildir and that time might change as the mail Peter Palmreuther box is touched every time you fetch your mail. Peter Palmreuther This can proven _only_ by doing some low level stuff, namely: doing Peter Palmreuther multiple telnet sessions and sending POP3 commands manually to Peter Palmreuther compare the results the server gives on one picky message. Peter Palmreuther I for myselft wouldn't trust the ISP this fast only because he tells the Peter Palmreuther problem ain't on their side ... Hey, THIS is the fastest way for him to Peter Palmreuther get rid of that problem: telling it's you and let the work be done by Peter Palmreuther you or live with the problem. Peter Palmreuther If _nothing_ changed on TB! side why should it 'out of a sudden' start Peter Palmreuther behaving incorrectly? On _four independent_ machines, everywhere with Peter Palmreuther the same symptoms. You'd have to misconfigure _all four system_ the Peter Palmreuther _same way_ ... quite hard to believe :-) Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re[3]: Problem sharing a mailbox
Please forgive me, we have found out where the problem lies: not in TB! The problem comes from the fact the ISP uses 3 e-mail servers for load balancing, so 4 ppl accessing the same account simultaneously causes havoc in the UIDL generation process. I now have to check if the same thing happens if I set my client up with an internal mail server. Cheers, DC -- David Cantatoremailto:david;cantatore.org Thursday, October 31, 2002, 2:30:12 PM, you wrote: David Cantatore Hi David Cantatore Well, I have tried everything and came out with the conclusion TB is David Cantatore the culprit. I have tested the mailbox sharing with my own mail server David Cantatore and get the same erratic behaviour, i.e. multiple downloads of all the David Cantatore messages in the mailbox. I can't reproduce the problem with another David Cantatore mail client. David Cantatore This is clearly a bug to my eyes! What can I do? David Cantatore Thanks in advance, David Cantatore DC Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re: Problem sharing a mailbox
Hi David, On Fri, 18 Oct 2002 17:04:17 +0200 David Cantatore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A few questions. Is everyone of them using TB? And if so, do all copies of TB show the same behaviour? In the latter case you could try to ask the ISP about changes in the server. They all use TB and the ISP maintains the problem isn't on their side (which I believe). Why do you belive that? The reason why I'm asking is: the 'leave messages on server and do not download them a second time' is such a simple function there can't be mayn things wrong. I'll try to explain it in short words: 1.) TB! connects to the Mail server and asks for a list of so called 'UID's. The POP3-command for this purpose is 'UIDL' (Unique ID List). 2.) Assuming TB! hasn't downloaded any message before it now fetches all messages and writes the UIDs of messages fetched to a local file. 3.) Next time TB! connects it fetches the UIDs again, compares them with the local list and fetches only the messages not in the local UID-list. The UID is calculated and generated by the mail server, TB! has in no way any influence on this UID generation process. Therefore if such a scenario, as you describe, _suddenly_ happens _AND_ the The Bat! version has _not_ changed there are two possibilities: 1.) TB! suddenly is not capable to handle the UID file correctly. Have a look at the account dir for a file called: 'ACCOUNT.M_R'. This file contains the UIDs. Is it empty? Seems TB! is the culprit. Not? What's it's last modification time? Long ago? Maybe TB! is the culprit. It was just modified lately? Chances are high the server does something unusual. 2.) The server has changed, maybe a minor upgrade of POP3 daemon and now calculates the UIDs on a basis that does not provide the same result on every run. Maybe the UID generator uses file modification time of mbox file / maildir and that time might change as the mail box is touched every time you fetch your mail. This can proven _only_ by doing some low level stuff, namely: doing multiple telnet sessions and sending POP3 commands manually to compare the results the server gives on one picky message. I for myselft wouldn't trust the ISP this fast only because he tells the problem ain't on their side ... Hey, THIS is the fastest way for him to get rid of that problem: telling it's you and let the work be done by you or live with the problem. If _nothing_ changed on TB! side why should it 'out of a sudden' start behaving incorrectly? On _four independent_ machines, everywhere with the same symptoms. You'd have to misconfigure _all four system_ the _same way_ ... quite hard to believe :-) -- Pit Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Re: Problem sharing a mailbox
Hallo David, On Thu, 17 Oct 2002 01:26:02 +0200GMT (17-10-02, 1:25 +0200GMT, where I live), you wrote: DC Here's the situation: I have a group of 4 people (a small company) who DC share a common address with the same username. I can't create aliases DC on the server, and the solution of forwarding all the mails from the DC main account to their personal ones isn't a possibility. TB! is DC configured to leave the messages on the server for 2 weeks so they all DC get the same e-mails, regardless of what each person does in its own DC inbox. A few questions. Is everyone of them using TB? And if so, do all copies of TB show the same behaviour? In the latter case you could try to ask the ISP about changes in the server. Does TB every time download all messages, or did it only once and afterwards only when you killed the dupes. That might point to a change on the server side. A solution for the current situation would be to let the four of them download their mail with the last of them to delete it immediately on the server. Unless their flow is real high, this action shouldn't cause more than one or two messages not to be distributed to the four of them (but only to the last). Since you've been working this way for months, the idea behind it is sound. However with a real high flow the storage on the server or the buffer that TB uses might overrun and cause something like this. Possible solutions: 1) Kill messages after a week 2) If your four are on a LAN and use TB, you could configure one copy of TB as server to collect and send the mail. Look at the TB help file for: The Bat! Networking Course to get more info on this subject. Now TB can delete mail on the server. 3) Install a real server on your LAN, this enables everyone to mail among themselves and with my server (I'm using Mailtraq) it's easy to distribute the mail to all four of them. Or if you'd like to spread the workload, to send every message only to one of them. And I expect the same functionality in other servers like Mercury or MDaemon. In my message I presumed four copies of TB, I'm not sure whether that's correct, but you didn't give lots of info. ;-) To do more possible error hunting: 1) Four copies of the same version of TB? 2) Do all copies experience the same problem? 3) Do other mua's have the same problem? 4) How often did the problem occur (without killing dupes, that only repeats the whole problem): once, once a month, once a half year, once per 65536 messages. 5) Was their a setup/version change before TB started to behave erroneously? (This includes other software, OS, hardware, ISP, internet connection) 6) Did something else change with the computers or the people that use them? (One of them taking the kids to office could prove disastrous. g) -- Groetjes, Roelof Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
Problem sharing a mailbox
Hi all, Here's the situation: I have a group of 4 people (a small company) who share a common address with the same username. I can't create aliases on the server, and the solution of forwarding all the mails from the main account to their personal ones isn't a possibility. TB! is configured to leave the messages on the server for 2 weeks so they all get the same e-mails, regardless of what each person does in its own inbox. It'd been working well for a couple of months, but now the problem is TB sees the old messages on the server as new and downloads them, even though they're already in TB's inbox on each workstation. If they use the kill dupes function, the messages are downloaded again! What should I configure to stop this behaviour? Given the volume of e-mails these ppl get, it's become a major problem. Thanks in advance for your help! DC Current version is 1.61 | Using TBUDL information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
