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@MSGID: 1@dont-email.me> 465ca251
@REPLY:
e30d08df
@REPLYADDR Graham J <nobody@nowhere.co.uk>
@REPLYTO 2:5075/128 Graham J
@CHRS: CP866 2
@RFC: 1 0
@RFC-Message-ID: 1@dont-email.me>
@RFC-References:
<g52s7i1g7ukur8ma5npdb0d8qn2o76vfq0@4ax.com> <XnsB01BB6243FEHT1@cF04o3ON7k2lx05.lLC.9r5>
@TZUTC: 0100
@PID: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64;
rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/91.0 SeaMonkey/2.53.16
@TID: FIDOGATE-5.12-ge4e8b94
Boris wrote:
[snip]
>
> Any ideas what`s going on/how to fix?
This was a known problem with old email clients and slow (dial-up)
internet connections.
The process should download all the messages, then go through the list
again and check each message in turn against the local "keep messages on
server until" rule. If that test shows the copy on the server can be
deleted, it does so, otherwise it leaves it alone; and marks the local
copy as "received OK".
Clearly a silly algorithm: it should have downloaded and checked, and
deleted if necesary, each message in turn. That way any failure in the
process would have left only the failing message on the server, not all
the messages.
If any part of the first pass through the messages fails (even if it
appears to have completed OK to you, the user) then the next attempt
does not match the messages on the server with those held locally, and
the process downloads all the messages again. I have seen this happen
where the mail server has failed and is restored from a backup.
If the mail server does not support IMAP (there are some that still
don`t) the only resolution is to use webmail or the cPanel tool (or
equivalent) provided by the mail hosting company to delete all the
email. Then wait for a few new emails and try again.
By contrast IMAP does a better job of matching downloaded emails against
those on the server. It might fail on a corrupt email and force you to
use another tool to delete just that message. It only deletes emails
off the server if you explicitly tell it to do so, by deleting your
local copy - either one-by-one or in bulk using a rule or whatever.
Even then, those emails are not actually deleted from the server - they
are simply marked accordingly.
Client implementations vary but it is then usually necessary to
explicitly run some sort of "purge" operation to tell the server to
really delete those marked messages. Some mail servers automate this
for you by removing the oldest messages once the storage quota is
exceeded, or some similar arbitrary rule. Otherwise further incoming
emails are rejected and the sender sees a "mailbox full" message. So
naive users don`t see any new messages and probably don`t recognise
there is a problem unless somebody rings them up with "why haven`t you
responded to my email?".
--
Graham J
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