This is a known problem with Charter's e-mail servers.

Their e-mail server communicates with Thunderbird correctly at first, but further communicates from the server are not done properly.

We have had many people here asking about the same thing, for a long time. Some of these people say that Charter claims that there is nothing wrong with their system.

I don't know if they internally admit that there is a problem or not. Maybe they don't care that their e-mail server doesn't communicate properly.

All you can do is complain to Charter.

I have discovered some new information. I don’t know if it is valuable or not, but if anyone is interested I have a log.

Thunderbird is setup to check for new messages every 10 minutes. If you leave Thunderbird alone eventually new messages will appear. I discovered, by looking at the log, a pattern. When new messages are received in Thunderbird you see “clearing IMAP_CONNECTION_IS_OPEN”. This is what occurs at the start of the trace.

This does not occur every 10 minutes and I don’t know why it occurs when it does. I do not touch Thunderbird except to read the new emails. I checked 30 minutes ago and there was a new message on the Charter server. I performed a Get Messages and it did not come in. It still has not come in to Thunderbird.

Since I only know enough to be dangerous the clearing message makes me think Thunderbird is reestablishing the connection for some reason. If that is true then is that not what happens when you take Thunderbird offline and back online.

I don’t know if this is required or not but I am having a hard time believing this is a Charter problem, although if Thunderbird says it is maybe so. I base this on the fact that my iPhone and tablet seem to work correctly. I also suspect that both of them reestablish the connection every time.

The message that did not come in earlier just came in. It took 53 minutes from the time I performed the Get Messages.

Something else happened new. I was going to look at the log. Fortunately I had created a pdf file of the log. When I opened the log it was blank. The command window is still open from the script that started Thunderbird with the log options.

I noticed this last night but thought I had done something wrong. When it occurred last night and today I had performed an earlier Get Message. Today I was thinking that maybe that had something to do with log being cleared, but I had checked the log and information was still in it.

I just let it sit waiting for the new message to arrive. When it did I wanted to see what happened but as I said the log is cleared. Any idea as to what would clear the log? The properties in the file say it is 0 bytes and was created 6 hours ago, which is about the time I started all this.

I have the log from the previous post in a pdf file.

Here is the info that someone else here has kindly given me about Charter. He understands it, and explains it well. Well, at least computer geeks like us understand it.

The problem with Charter is their server software is non compliant with the IMAP standard in that it does not wrap folder names that contain two words in quotes when communication with mail clients. It has been fundamentally broken since at least April of 2016. They appear to have no interest at all in fixing the problem.

The folk "think" restarting gets their mail, but the reality is that mail in folders before the error gets downloaded. Mail after does not. S o they never get Sent or Deleted as Charter call those Sent Items and Deleted Items respectively. As most of these people are used to POP they "think" it works because they know no better.

Bill, your know the problem is with Charter. Starting a new topic is not going to change the facts. At this point you probably know more about the Charter issue than Bruce.

If you can get someone from Charter to actually engage with us, that would be great. Tell them to update us on their progress on this bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1258429 but asking the same question over and over in this support forum is not going to get a different response.

Charters mail server software is broken. I can not fix that. Charter and their business partner can.

You have raised this issue in this topic https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1125658 This topic https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1127804 where you never even replied. and this topic https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1120798

I also think I recall seeing your name in other Charter communication topics where the issues have been discussed and the results of your logs used to open bugs. AS well as my email communication with you on the topic.

When Charter offers an IMAP service that is RFC compliant, then Thunderbird will work. Until then the broken behavior will continue. What other apps or programs do is not relevant to this discussion. Nor is the various IMAP commands used. Until Thunderbird can get stuff without the connection ending because the folder structure can not be finalized, nothing else is going to work The only item of relevance are the RFC, and the logs that show Charter is not RFC complaint in their implementation of IMAP. There is no point looking further.

Note that despite repeated requests you insist on creating PDF files of your logs which make doing anything with them difficult. It might suit you. But it is not helpful.

I think you are mistaken.

I have two folders on the Charter Server. One of them is “Sent Mail” and the other is “Sent Messages”.

I looked in the log and between that and what I see on the server this is what I have determined.

“Sent Mail” is used when you send a message directly from the Charter Server. This folder does not appear in Thunderbird. The log shows a folder “SentMail”, which also does not appear in Thunderbird. The log shows no problem with “SentMail” and does not show “Sent Mail”. “Sent Messages” I think is used by either my tablet or iPhone. It does appear in Thunderbird. It does show a syntax error in the log. The problem is that it appeared in two places. One was at the beginning of the log and I received messages after that error. Thunderbird checks for new messages every 10 minutes. Even though there were new messages none appeared.

For whatever reason 80 minutes after receiving the first messages Thunderbird decided to clear the connection, selected the Inbox, and received messages. It did not see the folder “Sent Mail” and did not get a syntax error.

Then 40 minutes later it cleared the connection again, selected the Inbox, and received new messages, still no syntax error or “Sent Messages” folder.

Then 10 minutes later it cleared the connection again, selected the inbox, and there were no new messages.

Then 60 minutes later it cleared the connection again, selected the Inbox, and received new messages.

Then 65 minutes later Thunderbird went off line (don’t know if I took it off line or not, but I don’t think I did), it came back online, cleared the connection, and it sent an email. It put the new email in Sent, got a syntax error because it saw “Sent Mail”, and closed the connection.

I looked and saw that there was a new email on the Charter Server that was not in Thunderbird. Four minutes after the connection was closed I did a “Get Messages”. Thunderbird did not clear the connection, did not bring in the new email, and that is the end of the log. I predict that if I had left it alone it would have eventually cleared the connection and brought in the new email. I have noticed that no matter how long I wait, if I perform a “Get Messages” Thunderbird does not receive any new emails.

I also think that performing the “Get Messages” caused the log to clear. This happened the day before and I was not sure why it cleared, but I remember doing a “Get Messages”. Fortunately remembering what happened the day before I saved the log before it cleared.

Having said all of this I want to point out that Windows 10 mail functions correctly, my iPhone functions correctly, and my tablet functions correctly. Thunderbird functions correctly if it clears the connection.

So my question is why Thunderbird does not logout after receiving emails and clear the connection to check for new emails. I suspect that is what is happening on the other email clients.

folders that do not match Thunderbird world view of folder names have to be subscribed. that is what the subscribe option on the right click menu is for. Select the account in the folder pane and select subscribe.

I know this is going to sound condescending, but the names the IMAP server use for folders has no relationship to what appears in the web pages, nor really what appear in any mail application. This really is fortunate and no accident, because most users like folder names in the language they speak. Germans for instance do not call it "Sent" then there are things like Chinese and Arabic where mapping English to the local script is a requirement. Then we have things like Hebrew and Arabic which are written right to left and left justified. One of the realities is consumer software is almost always localized. Server software rarely is. SO mapping of things is a must.

Right click the account in the folder pane, select settings.  In copies and folders you get to tell Thunderbird which folder to use or what.  That is so you can align  odd names that do not work themselves out automatically.  like telling Thunderbird to use the server folder of SentMail.

I have been told this is a Charter problem and Charter needs to fix there implementation of IMAP. The response I get is that they are not handling folder names correctly. I will agree, since I can see the error in the log.

I have been told that other applications are not relevant and I guess I can understand why, but the bottom line is they work.

Here is where I have a problem with the response.

I have logs that do not have the syntax error. I don’t know why, but hopefully someone has an answer. At any rate the problem occurred without the error.

I realized that if you wait long enough new messages appear. I was curious why? Thunderbird is checking for new messages every 10 minutes. The log shows that, but every so often, as much as 60 minutes, the connection gets cleared. That is when Thunderbird will import new messages. So my question is why does Thunderbird clear the connection and why doesn’t it do it every time?

I also think that if you perform a “Get Message” Thunderbird never receives new messages, regardless how long you wait. I would like to show that in a log, but for some reason the log gets cleared and I feel that it is because I performed a “Get Message”, although I could be wrong.

So the bottom line is, if Thunderbird feels that Charter has a problem, and they may very well have one, I don’t have a problem talking with them, but I need to be able to tell them what Thunderbird thinks the problem is.

Put yourself in their position. Someone tells them their email is not working with Thunderbird. Their response is we do not support Thunderbird or any other email client. If I could say to them this is what you are doing wrong, then maybe I could get someone’s attention, but I do not have that information.

If Thunderbird wants to say the problem is caused by the folder error, then I would have to ask why does it fail when the error does not exist in the log?