Hm.... this is a lot of effort to make excuses for a shabby product.
Empherical data would suggest that my Eudora MUA performs MUCH better
over WAN/Dial up that OE ever did/will.
What do you mean 'interact' with qmail? The commands are quite clearly
defined as are the must's and should's of the protocol. Sure, qmail is a
fundementalist MTA in its coding... but you either follow the standard or
you don't. MS products don't, they don't interoperate wll with ANYTHING
(even exchange servers).
If I get 10 phone calls for support, 9 will be Outlook somehow boggeling a
message or not conencting properly. I HIGHLY doubt the 'dirty connection'
issue as TCP and modems et al all have error correction built in and
seeing that rebooting is the 'only' way to correct it, it clearly points
to an end user/software issue (as 100 other people are getting the mail
FINE off the same PRI/RAS/LAN/SERVER.
Paul Farber
Farber Technology
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ph 570-628-5303
Fax 570-628-5545
On Wed, 8 Nov 2000, Dennis Duval wrote:
> > Hi everyone. I use the pop daemon from qmail (qmail-pop3d) and the
> > Outlook Express program is making me crazy. I looked for a solution in the
> > archives, but i didn't find it. My problem is:
> >
> > My clients use Microshit Outlook Express and i'm having a lot of error
> > messages from qmail pop server:
> >
> > Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes
> > for this include server problems, network problems, or a long period of
> > inactivity. Account: 'infomoney', Server: 'mail.infomoney.com.br',
> > Protocol: POP3,
> > Port: 110, Secure(SSL): No, Error Number: 0x800CCC0F
> >
> I don't think you will ever find the solution to this problem on this list.
> Unfortunately, the attitude of many of the people on this list is that if it
> concerns a Microsoft product, even if it concerns the way it interacts with
> qmail, it is a non-problem. And basically they are right. The
> closed-source nature of Microsoft products makes it impossible for anyone
> but Microsoft to correct or even identify the problem.
>
> I do resent the people that say the solution is to use a better mail client.
> That is like saying the cure to sunburn is to not have the sun come up.
> People overwhelmingly choose to use MS products for various reasons, and
> these people are not necessarily losers because of it. Not everyone has the
> capability or desire to be a Unix guru. And not every shop has to deal with
> MS products, and I envy those. But ISPs and many other installations HAVE
> to deal with them if you want to keep customers. Not a choice. Its a fact
> of life, just like the sun coming up.
>
> All this ranting aside, there is a serious problem with the way Outlook and
> Outlook Express interface with qmail, but I don't think it is exclusive to
> qmail. One of the reasons I migrated to qmail about 2 years ago was because
> I was experiencing the same problems that you are seeing with a but the
> product was called SLMail (for NT). Migrating to qmail did not solve the
> problem, but it sure made it easier to go in and find the offending item and
> delete it when using the maildir configuration. SLMail used a mailbox-type
> config where mail items are combined in one big text file. Now when the
> customer or client calls and says Outlook is hanging on item 4 or 10, I can
> easily go into their maildir and delete the offending item instead of
> searching through a big text file. In addition, I set up Sam's sqwebmail
> web-based interface which allows customers to go to the server and delete
> the offending item themselves. This works well for those having recurring
> problems.
>
> I have gathered a little bit of knowledge in dealing with this problem:
>
> 1. Sometimes the problem is just caused by a poor connection.
> Disconnecting and reconnecting may allow you to retrieve it.
> 2. Sometimes there are control characters imbedded in email that makes
> Outlook barf. If you identify this control char and delete it, Outlook will
> retrieve the mail successfully. I think this causes most of the problems,
> but it is not usually apparent where the control character. In some cases
> the control character looks like an 'at' sign with an underscore below it.
> 3. It seems to hang more often on big items or items with attachments.
> This may just be due to the fact that the connection is open longer and has
> more work to do.
> 4. Deleting the offending items always cures the problem if it is a
> corrupted file or one containing a 'bad' control character. The client can
> retrieve the rest of the mail after the offending file is gone, without
> re-dialing. If it is a connection problem, they may still not be able to
> retrieve the rest of the mail after the offending item is gone. In that
> case they should try to reconnect, and troubleshooting should focus on the
> connection itself.
>
> Sadly, that is the best I can do. If you really want a solution, maybe the
> author of Outlook...or perhaps even Bill Gates would be willing help
> (right).
>
> Dennis Duval
>
>
>
