Thunderbird stuck in loop loading same website url
Hello
I've come across a possible problem with Thunderbird (or at least something claiming to be thunderbird) loading my website over and over again. I'm trying to understand the circumstances in which Thunderbird would load a website.
My web logs look something like this
date url useragent ip response code April 18th 2018, 10:18:39.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 301 April 18th 2018, 10:18:40.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 April 18th 2018, 10:18:41.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 April 18th 2018, 10:18:41.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 April 18th 2018, 10:18:42.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 April 18th 2018, 10:18:43.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 April 18th 2018, 10:18:43.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 April 18th 2018, 10:18:44.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 ... approx 200,00 hits later... ... April 19th 2018, 12:19:17.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200
Then as mysteriously as they start they stop.
This is not a once off either, I have had the same pattern from a different IP with the same useragent (Thunderbird/52.7.0), and a couple more from Thunderbird/52.6.0
I have tried reproducing this on thunderbird by sending myself an email with a link to my website, but using Fiddler it doesn't load it at all.
Are there a specific set of circumstances when thunderbird will try and load a web page?
Is it possible Thunderbird is caching the first 301 redirect (I believe http->https redirect), then using this over and over again, even though subsequent requests result in a 200 OK coming back from my server??
Or might there be something specific on that pages html that is tripping up thunderbird? I have noticed some other request to pages on my site that seem fine, and don't sit there requesting it over and over again...
Any suggestions on how I can further debug this issue, or try and worth out how to reproduce this issue?
Thanks Chris
Modified by Chris
All Replies (2)
(edit; worked out how to edit original question, but not delete this response, sorry!)
Log did not format well, this might be better;
date url useragent ip response code April 18th 2018, 10:18:39.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 301 April 18th 2018, 10:18:40.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 April 18th 2018, 10:18:41.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 April 18th 2018, 10:18:41.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 April 18th 2018, 10:18:42.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 April 18th 2018, 10:18:43.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 April 18th 2018, 10:18:43.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 April 18th 2018, 10:18:44.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200 ... ... ... April 19th 2018, 12:19:17.000 /my-page/ "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0" x.x.x.x 200
Modified by Chris
Thunderbird has the capability to be a fully fledged web browser. We do not anvertise it, or recommend it. But there are folk that use it as such. most use this add-on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/thunderbrowse/ it has been unmaintained for a long time, but some devotees keep tweaking it to make it work for them