Re: [fetchmail-devel] Re: Incorrect header line and lost mails

[Frederic M. <fre...@wo...>]

Sunil Shetye wrote:
> Quoting from Matthias Andree's mail on Tue, Mar 07, 2006:
>   
>> what should we do WRT fastuidl?  We seem to need sanity checks to disable
>> the fastuidl search for servers such as Fr?d?ric's.
>>     
>
> One option is to change the default to a lower value from the current
> value of 10. The lowest practical value is 2, which will use linear
> search in alternate polls.
>
> A default of 4 should be alright. It will use linear search in the
> first poll, followed by binary search in the next three polls,
> followed by linear search in the next poll, and so on.
>
> Other solutions are also possible. For example, keeping a map of UID
> and message number in memory (with corrections for mails deleted after
> logout). Then, when there is a mismatch in the message number expected
> and the message number received from the remote server for any one
> mail, a linear search should be forced in the next(*) poll. This would
> be equivalent to setting fastuidl to 2 if this mismatch happens in
> every poll.
>
> Note that Frederic has claimed that messages with low UID never get
> downloaded. This is only partially correct. In his case, messages with
> low UID never get downloaded whenever a binary search is performed.
> However, a linear search is performed once in every ten polls
> (starting with the first poll) and these messages which were missed
> out earlier will get downloaded in this poll with linear search.
>
>   
Thank you for the clarification ! I was wondering why none of my user 
had complained about any lost e-mail. We receive a lot of spam but I 
would have been surprised if all the lost e-mails were only spam :-)

A suitable solution would be to have an entry in the FAQ with the 
settings required for a smooth operation with Mercury. If I understand 
it right, the only bad effect is a long delay (up to 10 times the poll 
delay) in the delivery of some e-mails. It isn't that bad.

BTW, I reported this sorting feature and the long lines wrapping problem 
to the Mercury mailing list but I don't expect any answer. It is closed 
source and with only one developer. David Harris seems to be busy fixing 
other more urgent problems in his mail client Pegasus Mail.

Frederic