Re: POP3 woes

[Jack <ostroffjh users sourceforge net>]

On 2017.02.09 23:58, Peter Bloomfield wrote:
> Dear List,
>
> I've been having some issues with my POP3 server, inbound.att.net,  
> which I believe is really a Yahoo host. The problem is that Balsa  
> continually downloads some message without either deleting it from  
> the host, if that is configured, or recording that it was downloaded,  
> if host-deletion is not configured.
>
> This began, with no material change to Balsa's POP3 code, a while  
> ago, most likely when BellSouth or AT&T handed off their POP3 duties  
> to Yahoo. It's arisen more frequently recently: any time Balsa finds  
> more than one message to download, it downloads the first  
> (successfully--I see it in inbox, or wherever it gets filtered to),  
> but then hangs, doesn't delete it from the server, and doesn't  
> download any other messages.
>
> It's annoying! The only fix I've found is to quit Balsa, use the  
> webmail interface to delete the blocking message, and restart Balsa  
> to retrieve the next message. When a backlog has built up, I have to  
> repeat this until there's only one message left, and then Balsa  
> retrieves it, deletes it from the host, and everything is  
> clear--until the next time!
>
> Does anyone else see anything like this? Does anyone have any insight  
> about whether this is a server bug or a client (i.e. Balsa) bug?
>
> All thoughts appreciated!
>
> Peter
Hi Peter,

While it looks like you identified the culprit, I can certainly  
commiserate.  I have several accounts actually run by Yahoo, and I have  
no end of transient problems with them.  POP3 fetching randomly fails  
with various server errors or claims that user/password is not valid.   
Severl retries later things usually work, or sometimes just giving up  
and trying again five minutes later.  This includes a free yahoo.com  
account, sbclogal.net (AT&T before AT&T bailed out of CT), and  
frontier.com (replaces AT&T in CT).  The frontier account is the only  
one I can actually get any help with, not that the help has ever been  
of much help.

Jack