I'm not sure what you're talking about. It's either POP or IMAP. It cannot be both.

I have tried all solutions I've been able to find on the web.

What solutions?

If I create a new gmail account can Thunderbird be configured to treat it as a POP account?

Certainly yes.

christ1 said

I'm not sure what you're talking about. It's either POP or IMAP. It cannot be both.

It's an IMAP account on the live.com server. It has a POP interface enabled so that a POP client can download and delete messages. This way I can read my new emails from my phone (or a web browser if I'm using a computer at work) and when I get home and use Thunderbird on my desktop computer all the emails will be downloaded to my computer and removed from the cloud. This was working fine with a different email service (internode.on.net) but I now have to use the mail.live.com email service.

I have tried all solutions I've been able to find on the web.

What solutions?

Stuff like deleting the popstate.dat file, setting the Thunderbird POP settings as I already have them, setting the Outlook server settings as I already have them. Those solutions.

Thanks, David

Got you. There have been (and still are) quite a few complaints about Windows Live in this forum. I neither do use POP nor Windows Live. I'm afraid there is nothing else I can suggest. I'd probably use a different email provider (if possible).

That's where I'm probably heading. I was just operating under the delusion that because the email service came with the ISP I should use it. I will either go with an email-only service with Internode.on.net or a gmail account.

Thanks again, David

The business of downloading a message multiple times usually indicates that it is damaged or incomplete. If Thunderbird can't convince itself that a download is complete it will leave the message there on the server for next time, assuming that some technical glitch prevented it from completing this time. This is consistent with your observation that such messages are not deleted on the server.

Imagine that I write a sentence with no full stop

...then you can't be sure if I meant to stop there or had more to say. Some mail clients don't comply fully with the relevant specifications or do odd non-standard things, leaving Thunderbird unsure if the message is complete.

Do the unsuccessful messages have anything in common? Same sender? Perhaps ambitious rich content?

The usual cure for an undownloadable message, given that you have no influence over its creation or content, is to go to your webmail and delete it.

The main disadvantage of ISP-provided email accounts is that they are tied to that ISP. Change your ISP and you lose the email address, so you have to set up a new address and set about informing all of your correspondents. Two ways to avoid this are to use a third party email provider that you can take with you (google, gmx, aol, hotmail, yahoo etc) or buy your own domain.

A secondary disadvantage of ISP-provided email is that it's not a core part of their business and so may not be well supported. It usually has no SLA and no guarantee on your data being protected in the case of a system failure. The email service may even be subcontracted out to a third party, leaving you to fall down the cracks between when there is a fault, and the ISP and mail provider can't agree who's to blame.

Zenos,

The ISP is Telstra Bigpond. And they've handed off the email to live.com at MS.

There doesn't seem to be any pattern in the size, origin, content type, etc. It is possible that reducing the content (like returning to text-only messages) might solve the problem, but that is not very likely, nor very useful.

Even if the problem lies with Thunderbird not handling idiosyncrasies from live.com, I'll probably just change email providers.

Thanks, David

The issue here is Live is damaged goods. Telstra! enough said really. if it is cheap, nasty and sort of works. They will be offering it and supporting it poorly as usual. (I have been a customer for decades, but that is no recommendation)

If you log into the live web interface, change the setting to allow deletion request for mail clients to actually delete mail instead of move the message to a pop folder under the deleted folder, I am told it works much better.

My guess is Microsoft are selling an over subscribed service. Very similar to what Activ8 have done for the past decade with Government subsidies.

Matt,

I didn't state it earlier - I have set the live.com account to delete messages when the client requests, not to move them to a pop folder.

I think the best thing to do is to dump live.com and go to a gmail account or an internode.on.net account.

That should save everyone a heap of time.

Thanks, David

I have played with most of the free providers, and I actually like GMX. Based in Germany, big on privacy, small on Bull. Just do what they say they will do. Give you a good email service and a calendar that "just works"

+1 to GMX.

Hopefully I can re-open this debate and see if we can move it forward. I have recently moved to Outlook.com; I access it via a number of devices under IMAP and also via my main PC via POP3 in order to store messages locally. I am also getting the multiple downloads issue.

I have looked around this forum and other Help pages on Tbird and have checked the various suggestions - e.g. checked for corrupted popstate.dat file {advice is to delete and rebuild it}, checked the Outlook.com settings as to whether to obey mail clients as to deleting (tried both options), etc, etc, and nothing works 100%

I have monitored this for a time now and am reasonably happy that in fact Thunderbird is probably behaving, in that I have:

(i) downloaded messages, (ii) read them, (iii) deleted them (or filed them, with mail.pop3.deleteFromServerOnMove set to True), (iv) done a POP re-fetch so as to issue the POP message delete instruction to the server, (v) subsequently checked that popstate.dat has the requisite number of entries it should have (i.e. zero if zero messages in the POP Inbox),

and finally and in spite of (v),

(vi) seen that the Outlook server (as seen via the webmail page) is not deleting the messages concerned.

As a comparison to other mail servers, I NEVER get this with Gmail under POP, and have very rarely got it with my own company mail server (conventional POP/IMAP - no Exchange server for us!), sufficient to think that when it has failed it's been a transient comms error or whatever.

But with Outlook.com, it happens A LOT.

[I have noticed, incidentally, that it seems to happen more if I immediately try to force a message fetch/delete (F5) than if I just leave it untilo the next (15 minute) POP fetch interval I have set up], anyway...

So, possibilities seem to me to be:

(a) Outlook.com has some other protocol element it is not advertising, such as (and I have wondered,as I do use IMAP in parallel quite a lot), "if there is an IMAP connection live to the server and the mail is still marked as "Unread", then ignore the POP Delete message"

(b) the POP delete message is not getting through to Outlook's server - comms failure, or session ended, or de-authenticated, or some such

(c) the POP delete message is not being issued by Tbird

(d) now, there is also a maximum of 5 POP fetch calls per 15 minutes permitted by Outlook (why I can't think - every other POP server doesn't worry about "overload" when in fact an IMAP connection is far more data intensive!), but perhaps a POP delete message is being issued by Tbird but being bounced by Outlook.com due to this.

So, to help me see if (c) is ever the case, does anyone know if there is a debug mode I can switch on to monitor the POP protocol message traffic back to Outlook.com

Thanks

https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging

That will log your traffic, but the issue is at Microsoft.

Their pop service is defective and they do appear to care. Some folk have had an improved experience if the Outlook setting to move mail deleted by pop to the pop folder is not set. But this is at best a workaround.

Their attitude may improve when Windows Live mail finally disappears, and the majority use of Delta sync stops. But my guess is support requests will be met with use activsync. Microsoft really do not like standards based protocols. There is no vendor locking built into them.

One thing I did notice is the start of this rot appeared to coincide with the release of windows 10. I think their mail service is simply over subscribed and showing huge cracks. Now I use their service of facebook notifications. I simply voted with my feet. My mail that I care about is not on their server to loose. I am finding GMX a much nicer experience.

Thanks, will give that a go. Definitely finding if you keep off the F5 key things are better!

Have also grabbed my name on GMX, just in case ;)

If the mail is not important, I noticed when I actually sat with their web page open and Thunderbird running that "most" of the deletions were taking around 20 minutes with some around 30. So if you not only stay off the F5, but actually extend the time frame to check say every 30 minutes you might have less issues.

Been pretty quiet on the dupes front recently.

I noticed at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/01/outlook_spam_filtering_snafu/ that "Microsoft is in the process of migrating its Outlook.com backend over to its Office 365 service".

Nah. Back again, lots today. But having observed the behaviour I know for sure it's Microsoft.

Today, several times, I downloaded mail, deleted or moved a mail from the Inbox, F5-re-fetched to clear the server and got a definite "There are no new messages" - and then a little later I got the deleted messages re-downloaded!! So clearly there's a problem in Microsoft's server's routing & handshaking - they are delivering mail to an individual mailbox, but they don't seem to know that they've done it so when they then have a centrally-queued message without the same in the mailbox, so they re-deliver it. Dur.

Gave up and ditched Outlook. Went back to having my own mail server hosted by a mainline provider (Evohosting in this case). The sheer delight in things working as they should is unabounded!

Made a list of problems M$/Outlook, in case anyone wants the full story:

- slow to respond - fetches (or selecting a folder on IMAP) particularly on my phone sometimes took forever - using POP you get multiple re-downloads - usually only one extra after a delete but has been up to 3 re-downloads - only 5 POP fetches in 15 minutes - ridiculous as they prefer Excahnge Active Sync or IMAP and their overheads are waaay higher - double SENT copies since they don't appear to trust your client to create the sent copy and make one themselves even if you use an IMAP or POP client which then files its own. Turning off thei Sent copy simply doesn't work - no way to turn Spam filtering off without a frig - in my case I found rules to move to inbox whether "with" or "without" an attachment - doesn't handle multiple devices at all well - especially if one is POP - they try to push you to Exchange Active Sync - OK, it's a bit more reliable but it doesn't play with some clients - particualrly of course Tbird (maybe there's an add-on, but why?!) - limits the number of BCC addresses per e-mail (antispam, OK, but again, why?? any spammer's going to use his own server) - servers not UK based (if you're in the UK and want a nice responsive server - you know, when you're talking to someone on the phone and want to send a file over for them to view, you want it to land instantly) - support non-existent - that's OK with the unpaid version but I suspect the paid version would be little better - lack of confidentiality - in fact they no doubt actively scan your emails (OK, all the free providers do it, especially Gmail - except for a proper ISP) - I came across a security hole in the login page using the autologon feature - i.e. I couldn't turn it off (easily) - Google says I am not alone here - M$ has to be a target for attacks - I know several people who have had their hotmail accounts hacked.

Apart from that, the service is fine ;)

Cliff said

- limits the number of BCC addresses per e-mail (antispam, OK, but again, why?? any spammer's going to use his own server)

My understanding is the limit is Zero.

I've finally done what many have suggested ... Dropped Outlook. Actually, my ISP dropped Outlook and switched back to their own servers. So I didn't have to do that independently.