Topic: Outlook/IMAP Server Disconnect

[Rod Tinberg]

I just installed the SME-server and set all of our local users (about 20) to use the IMAP server.  All of our people use either Outlook or Outlook Express.  Three of the users, all using Outlook, repeatedly get the following message:

"Your IMAP server has closed the connection.  This may occur if you have left the connection idle for too long."

I've checked the FAQ's and searched the forums for related topics, but have found nothing.  Can anyone help?

TIA,

Rod

[Patrick Hickey]

Anyone using Outlook and the UW IMAPd sees this as far as I know. I only yesterday built a server with the latest e-smith build and frankly don't yet know which IMAP server it runs.

Note: I HAVE NOT TRIED THIS with the e-smith server build since I have long ago tossed using Outlook. But for what it's worth, when you see this message...

"Your IMAP server has closed the connection. This may occur if you
  have left the connection idle for too long"

This appears to be a bug in Outlook.  I particularily enjoy how an
infinite number of these dialogs can stack up, where you get to
dismiss them one at a time.  Plus it is a modal dialog.

The bug is triggered when the imap server times out, or when
the imap server closes the connection because another client
has connected.  The latter problem can apparently be solved by
using a mailfile format that supports multiple connections.
I have not tried this.

My scenario is that I check email both from work and home using
the same imap server.  When I log in from home, it boots off the
work client, causing the dialog to be displayed at work.  Things
are worse if Outlook is configured to check for new mail periodically,
because then the work Outlook and home Outlook take turns booting
each other off.  Many dialogs ensue.

I've been able to eliminate the dialog by making a change to the
'clkint' and 'kodint' functions in the imapd.c source file.  Comment
out or remove the following lines:

clkint:
  if (!quell_events)
    PSOUT ("* BYE Autologout; idle for too long\015\012");
...
  PFLUSH ();                    /* make sure output blatted */

kodint:
  if (!quell_events) PSOUT ("* BYE Lost mailbox lock\015\012");
  PFLUSH ();                    /* make sure output blatted */

Apparently if you don't tell Outlook the connection is going away,
then it doesn't display the dialog.  I assume this change is
relatively safe since the 'hupint' and 'trmint' functions do not
send a disconnect message.  But then, I don't know all the
implications of removing this code.

This fix of course assumes that you've got control of your IMAP
server machine.  Also, I would not recommend this workaround if
you've got many clients accessing the same IMAP server, where the
clients are likely to bump into each other a lot.  This would probably
result in Outlook failing in weird ways as the IMAP connection gets
killed while in use.  The solution in this case would be to use a
mailfile format that supports multiple connections.  But for my low
usage situation the workaround seems to be okay.

Good luck.

regards,

patrick

[Rod Tinberg]

Thanks for the reply, Patrick.  I will give your suggestion a try.  The weird thing is that most of the Outlook clients work just fine.  It's only three of them that are giving this error, and it doesn't appear to follow the Outlook version no.