Since SquirrelMail Looks Like It Will Never Be Supported Again...

[Frank Leonhardt]

On 02/09/2013 08:41, doug wrote:
> On Sat, 31 Aug 2013, Reko Turja wrote:
>
>> -----Original Message----- From: Frank Leonhardt
>>
>>> FWIW I'm using Dovecote 1 or 2 for the IMAP. In particular, Dovecot 
>>> 1 with Squirrelmail has been really hammered, but has never broken. 
>>> I sometimes get time-outs copying thousands of emails in one hit, 
>>> but that's fair enough and nothing has ever been lost. Could the 
>>> server be the problem in your case? I found the standard imapd did 
>>> weird things for a lot of clients, and making the switch after many 
>>> years of trying to blame the client software was a really good 
>>> decision.
>>
>> Running Cyrus here for ages, it might be a bit of pain to set up, but 
>> it's been a really bulletproof and "zero maintenance" solution. The 
>> problems cannot be replicated on any other client, only Squirrel has 
>> those problems with mail not showing up.
>>
>> -Reko
>
> We run postfix/cyrus mail servers. My experience with messages not 
> showing up happens with Outlook (versions 2003, 2007, and 2013), 
> squirrelmail, and mac mail. In all cases reported, the user can find 
> messages either by sorting by date or by searching on some matching 
> criteria. We put this in our FAQ. I have not noticed this issue with a 
> server using sendmail/dovecot.

That's pretty much my experience too. You start off by blaming the 
client software until it shows up shows up on more than one platform. I 
used to believe that imapd, part of the base system, must be 
"definitive" and beyond reproach. Ha!

I don't know so much about the others, but Dovecot is full of 
work-arounds for various IMAP clients to cope with bugs or variations 
from the IMAP specification. You can spend forever arguing about which 
interpretation of a spec is correct but I just want it to work. (Except 
that Microsoft is glaringly wrong).

Dovecot is really easy to install, and migrate form the base system (I 
don't know about from Cyrus), and I wish I'd been steered towards it 
earlier (which is why I'm evangelising it here). Incidentally, I have no 
reason to believe Dovecot 2 is any less robust than Dovecot 1 - it's 
just that I've really hammered Dovecot 1 for several years longer than 
the newer version.

Regards, Frank.