Thunderbird problem

[mikebw at colossus.bilow.com]

The Thunderbird client, as far as I know, synchronizes a folder with the server via POP3 by trying UIDL first, if unsupported XTND XLST, and if unsupported TOP. If none of those extensions to POP3 work, keeping mail on the server is not supported.

As a practical matter, nearly all widely used POP3 servers support UIDL. When things go wrong, the first thing to check is whether the UIDL database has gone corrupt on either the client or the server. I'm not sure if there is any hope of getting Comcast to verify the server side, but reindexing the mailbox on the client side is worth a try.

-- Mike


Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> wrote:
>On 07/12/2013 01:21 PM, Donald Leslie wrote:
>> I left it checked so I can read the email when I am not on my laptop.
>It
>> had worked fine that way until a few days ago.
>> The problem is only with Comcast. The gmail account does re-read
>already
>> read email.
>I don't think this is an email client problem (ie Thunderbird). It 
>appears to be an issue with Comcast. WRT: gmail. Since gmail uses iMap 
>it is an entirely different protocol. With iMAP when you read an email,
>
>then the server is notified but in POP it occurs when the email is 
>downloaded. So, with gmail, in gmail, you may see 3 unread messages,
>and 
>the same 3 should be unread on the server (allowing for timing 
>differences),. If you read an email on the server, that should show up 
>eventually in the client. In POP the email on the server should reflect
>
>the download, and should be market read on the server, but I have seen 
>many cases where it was not.
>
>I have not read the POP spec in a number of years so my info may be
>rusty.