Server Timeouts

[Denn988]

Some of my mail servers can be slow at times, especially those at one very slow ISP. I was wondering if there was a setting in MailWasher 7 that would allow me to set the Server Timeout to a value of about 2 minutes. It looks like it is set to about 1 minute and 20 some seconds right now (based on the event log time between "Check Mail request" and the ensuing "Failed to Login to Pop3 Server" error that I get fairly often).

I am able to get past this error in Outlook by setting the Server Timeout to about 2 minutes. That seems to give my slow ISP's mail-servers enough time to respond to almost all check mail requests. Unfortunately, there is no corresponding setting in MailWasher for the Server Timeout. I have looked at all the MailWasher Registry settings as well as the config files in the MailWasher program directory and have found nothing that will allow me to change the Server Timeout.

Am I missing something here besides my youth and former intellect? Any help in getting this resolved would be appreciated. Thanks.

[TrustFire]

Mail_Check__(Server_Timeout).png (153.26 KiB) Viewed 8500 times

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[Denn988]

There seems to be a little misunderstanding. My question concerned Server Timeouts (The time that MailWasher will wait for a response from the server before quitting the mail check). Your answer concerns the time between mail checks. That is a totally different subject. Could you please provide info concerning Server Timeouts. Thank You

[TrustFire]

Ah, I see — ATM, there is no such server timeout setting on MailWasher that one normally sees on e-mail clients.

You may want to edit your first post to prefix your topic line with the word Feature Request — hopefully, the server timeout setting should find its way into the upcoming V8 which is being planned as a complete rewrite.

FWIW, it is possible that your error may not necessarily be caused due to the server timeout — in order to diagnose the same, you may want to navigate to MailWasher Inbox >>----> Settings >>----> Accounts >>----> Incoming >>----> (expand) Advanced >>----> (take a screenshot of that windows) >>----> (obfuscate/delete the part of your e-mail ID before the @ & and post it here.)

[Denn988]

Thanks anyway....It was just a thought.

I was using MW4 for well over a decade. I stayed with MW4 because of all the problems with MW 5. It looks like Firetrust got those Memory leak problems with MW5 resolved. Managed C++ does wonders with making it easier to manage those kinds of problems. It also looks like Firetrust setup flags (or some other method) to allow different threads in the program to pass signals to other threads to let them all know task status. That would take care of the racetrack (or is it raceway?) problems MailWasher was having with multi threading.

Say Hi to Rustic for me....and tell him that Batman syas 'Bravo Zulu' on this version. you have done well!

[rusticdog]

Hey!

Been a while, hope all things are going well

If I recall, you can bypass the timeouts, but it's not in the UI.

Under Help >> User Files >> if you open Setting.xml in a text editor >> there are the two values for IMAP and POP TCP. If you set those to 120 >> save the file >> then you need to set it Read Only, otherwise MailWasher seems to overwrite the file back to the original.

[Denn988]

Rustic..

Thanks!!!!!

That was far to deep for me to dig up on my own. I appreciate the help here. I have done as you suggested and will wait to see how well it works. My ISP (ATT) gets loaded down every few hours, so I will wait a day or so to see if 120 seconds is enough to cover it all the time. Once I get this problem taken care of, I will install a copy of MW7 on my wife's computer.

As far as things going well...I am now a five and a half year cancer survivor...That is what I call doing REAL WELL!!!!

Hope all is well with you. I sure wish I could find Ikeb, but I have had no luck in my searches. By the way...This version of Mailwasher is extremely stable. The programmers did a very good job.

Take Care,
Dennis

[rusticdog]

Oh that's excellent, here's to many more years

Ikeb too I've not seen around here in a while unfortunately. He did email me back in 2015 asking about his forum username, but I didn't hear back.

Glad to hear new version is working out for you too.


Cheers!

[Denn988]

Rusticdog,

I made the changes to the Setting.hml file that you suggested and let it cook for a while. I found no difference in the problem. I went through the logs, both in MailWasher and in Outlook (once I figured out how to turn on Outlook Logging). I am attaching those files as PDFs, and have highlighted the relevant portions in the Outlook file (when there is a server delay).
I have not highlighted the MWP file, simply because it is easy to find the ‘Chilkat’ portions of that file. Those Chilkat portions are telling me a couple of thing (if I am reading them right).

First, the server delay is set for 30000 ms (30 seconds), this is even though I have the delay set into the Setting.hml file to 240 as follows:
<SETTINGS><FirstAlertTCPtimeout>10</FirstAlertTCPtimeout><IMAPtcpTimeout>240</IMAPtcpTimeout><MaxCacheDays>31</MaxCacheDays><MaxFirstAlertThreads>5</MaxFirstAlertThreads><MaxRBLthreads>5</MaxRBLthreads><POP3tcpTimeout>240</POP3tcpTimeout><QueFetchGap_mS>1000</QueFetchGap_mS><SMTPtcpTimeout>240</SMTPtcpTimeout></SETTINGS>

(I changed all of the server timeouts to 240 after noting that there was no change to the Chilkat output by just changing the POP3tcpTimout to 240 and leaving all others at 30. The Chilkat log still shows a timeout of 30 seconds, even though I have it set for 240 seconds.)
The second thing that I noticed was that the Chilkat log shows that it is would error out and try again well before the 30 second timeout period (Note that I am attempting to connect to two separate accounts at inbound.att.net – That is why there are double entries.)

The Outlook log file shows that Outlook is waiting for a longer period to gain a connection, and is succeeding.

I hope that these will help you all determine the problem and provide an update that repairs it.

NOTE: I have a sneaky suspicion that the delay in the Setting file may need to be set in ms, simply because the Chilkat log shows the delay as 30000 ms. Because of that suspicion, I have changed the POP3tcptimeout to 50000 just to see if that makes any difference. If it does, I will be sure to pass that on to you. (Chilkat may default to a minimum of 30000ms and ignore anything sent to it that is less than that.)

Thanks for your help here. And thanks for the beer!!!

Denn988



ADDED

Just had the first error in MPW since changing that delay to 50000, It is the same as when set to 240, so it is not that simple

Also...the first highlighted portion of the Outlook log is on Page 12.

[TrustFire]

Please refer to the last paragraph of my second post.

[Denn988]

Trustfire,

The log files that I included in my last post shows (1) my POP server address (inbound.att.net), (2) the port number (995), and (3) the fact that I am using a secure connection (SSL) and secure authentication. The logs also show that MWP is establishing a good connection to that POP server much more often than not. Only occasionally does the connection fail. When it does fail, it is due to a POP server delay that is longer than MWP can currently handle. Changing the server delay in the Settings.xml file does not appear to have any effect.

The Outlook log file shows that Outlook is able to handle that occasional POP server delay while MWP appears to be choking on that occasional POP server delay. There should be enough info between the Outlook log file and the MWP log file to allow a software engineer who is familiar with all the source code in MWP the ability to make the corrections in that source code that will be required to take care of this problem.

Sending the screen shot that you requested is probably not going to add anymore information to help the software engineer. However, if rustic asks for more info, I will be glad to do the extra digging to provide it.

Take care,

Dennis

[TrustFire]

Sending the screen shot that you requested is probably not going to add anymore information to help the software engineer. However, if rustic asks for more info, I will be glad to do the extra digging to provide it.

Sure, sure — good-luck with that.

[rusticdog]

Yeah OK, MailWasher must be ignoring the value in the file and have the 30 second timeout hard coded.

What you could try is open a Command Prompt and type ping inbound.att.net >> hit Enter >> then in the IP address that gets returned use that as your server address in MailWasher instead.

You could also try using IMAP in MailWasher instead, just in case that too improves response time. Under Settings >> Accounts >> Incoming >> you can change that at the top and use imap.mail.att.net as the server address.
https://www.att.com/esupport/article.ht ... /KM1010523

[Denn988]

Rustic,

I already tried IMAP a few weeks ago. The drawbacks were greater than the benefits, as full syncing is so much slower EVERY time as opposed to the occasional server delay problem that I have using POP. I will give the IP address suggestion a try though. It seems somewhat counter-intuitive. That is simply because it would seem to only bypass the DNS server at ATT. However, I have been working with computers long enough (since 1976) to know that anything is possible. Look at the mess Intel made with the kernel memory leak. Since I installed the MS update for it (KB4056891), my Desktop computer is useless after coming out of an 8-hour sleep period. I have to logout and login again in order to be able to do anything. My laptop is fine, but my laptop has an AMD CPU vs the 7th Gen Intel Core CPU in my desktop.

I will use the IP address with one ATT account and leave the server name as-is with the other ATT account. That will provide me with a direct comparison.

Thanks for your help. You have always been good to me.

By the way. This problem goes back to MWP 4.1.9 (at least) I have been using it since 2004, and the problem only recently started. I have been able to work out solutions to all other problems with 4.1.9 (even getting it to play well with Windows 10), but this server delay has had me stymied. That is why I decided to get the new license for MWP7. I do like MWP7 a lot better, as you have added lots of new features in the viewer that I am very happy with, so I do NOT consider this bug to be anything more than an annoyance. Still, it would be nice to get it solved!

[rusticdog]

Yeah once I get some programmer time I'll see about getting them to at least have MailWasher respect the values in Setting.xml for the timeouts. It was intended to be for that purpose, but somewhere along the way we must have made a change to ignore what's in the file.