Topic: SME Server and Imap problems

[tmbt]

Hi,
my name is Mattia and i've a problem with a SME server 8.1.
The scenario is this :
SME server download 2 different email accounts using POP3 and store them.
6 clients inside the LAN (outlook and thunderbird) use IMAP protocol to connect to these two email account so they can share the same emails, a deleted email is delete everywhere and the most important thing is that all the clients can see the answers of the others.
The mails are organized in folders and subfolders under the inbox main folder. I'm talking about 300 folders more or less and the email are around 30000 (covering previous years too) for a total of 20GB.
Now the problems :
If i create a subfolder on a client sometimes (in a random way) that subfolder doesn't appear on some of the other clients. Sometimes it appears minutes later or hours later. Sometimes if the user move an email from the inbox to a subfolder this email disappear or only some clients can see it. After some times most of the clients will sync eventually but can happen that some emails on some clients never appear. Sometimes is not possible to delete a subfolder using a client but it is possible using another client .. sometimes that folder could be deleted only after some days without an apparent reason.

I just visited this new customer, i'm new to SME server and i'm not sure which are is limits. Should an upgrade to 8.2 or the new 9 version will solve these problems ?
Is this an Imap problem ? Too much folders or emails ?

Please help me to understand how i can help my new customer.

Thanks
Mattia

[janet]

tmbt

Sounds like an IMAP problem to me, & how the email client responds or behaves when using the IMAP protocol.
It could also be affected by the access time where there is "slowness" on the LAN between the client & the IMAP server.
Also do you have lots of messages in the receiving Inboxes, ideally you would keep the Inboxes empty & move messages to other archive folders.

Tell your clients to use the Refresh or Resubscribe function periodically.
Thunderbird is usually well behaved, do you notice the problem there, or moreso do you notice the problem in Outlook ?

[tmbt]

Most of the problems are on Outlook (at least that's what my customer told me) but thunderbird has problems too.
The LAN is gigabit so this should not be the problem.
Do you think that an upgrade of the SME server could solve these problems ?

[Daniel B.]

You should upgrade to SME9 no matter what. I'm not sure it'll help in this situation. My 2ct: you should upgrade from Outlook to anything else (I mean literaly anything else, it'll be better than Outlook). Outlook never worked correctly with IMAP, especially when you have a lot of folders.

[Stefano]

Hi Mattia
I guess you're from Italy
If you want, come to italian language forum too

[tmbt]

Hi Stefano,
ok i'll post a similar thread on the italian forum too.

Thanks
Mattia

[mmccarn]

I use Outlook & Thunderbird on 4 - 5 different computers talking to my IMAP mailbox on a SME 8 server.

I see the same behavior that Mattia is reporting - if I create a new folder on one device, it may or may not appear automatically on all other devices.

If I contract and expand the parent that contains the new folder, then the new folder "appears" - this corresponds to the advice in this answer from superuser.com

This is not a SME-specific issue - All of the same workstations talk to my office mail server (running "Kerio Connect") and show the same behavior in the accounts connected to that server.

I've always assumed that it's a bandwidth balancing act - the client can't continuously scan the mail server for new folders without using up too much network bandwidth and server resources.  A little googling also turns this up as an open bug in thunderbird.

[guest22]

Hi Stefano,
ok i'll post a similar thread on the italian forum too.

Thanks
Mattia

Let's not cross post please. Mattia speaks and understands English and posted to the non language specific forums. There is no benefit in cross posting, not even language.

[tmbt]

I use Outlook & Thunderbird on 4 - 5 different computers talking to my IMAP mailbox on a SME 8 server.

I see the same behavior that Mattia is reporting - if I create a new folder on one device, it may or may not appear automatically on all other devices.

If I contract and expand the parent that contains the new folder, then the new folder "appears" - this corresponds to the advice in this answer from superuser.com

This is not a SME-specific issue - All of the same workstations talk to my office mail server (running "Kerio Connect") and show the same behavior in the accounts connected to that server.

I've always assumed that it's a bandwidth balancing act - the client can't continuously scan the mail server for new folders without using up too much network bandwidth and server resources.  A little googling also turns this up as an open bug in thunderbird.

Sorry for the late answer. When you talk about Kerio Connect do you mean that you use it as IMAP server or Outlook + Kerio  connector . I'm asking because the alternative to SME if i'm not able to solve this problem is to use Kerio as the technician i spoked with told me Kerio doesn't have this kind of problem if used with Outlook connector instead of IMAP.

Thanks
Mattia

[mmccarn]

The non-appearing folder problem is specific to Thunderbird/IMAP.

Outlook / Kerio Offline Connector / Kerio Connect doesn't do this - folders created on one system do appear on another also running Outlook / KOC without user intervention.

(Outlook / KOC  has other issues -- if I have >1200 emails in either 'Inbox' or 'Sent Items', my entire computer slows to a crawl.  Solvable w/ good email hygiene, but annoying...)

[tmbt]

The non-appearing folder problem is specific to Thunderbird/IMAP.

Outlook / Kerio Offline Connector / Kerio Connect doesn't do this - folders created on one system do appear on another also running Outlook / KOC without user intervention.

(Outlook / KOC  has other issues -- if I have >1200 emails in either 'Inbox' or 'Sent Items', my entire computer slows to a crawl.  Solvable w/ good email hygiene, but annoying...)

Yeah, i noticed that behavior too. The only solution i found is to install a solid state disk to replace the normal hard disk. That makes a huge difference in Outlook load time.

Thanks all for the support.
Mattia

[Stefano]

Yeah, i noticed that behavior too. The only solution i found is to install a solid state disk to replace the normal hard disk. That makes a huge difference in Outlook load time.

Thanks all for the support.
Mattia

well, this is just a temporary solution