mail event does not fire

[anshul-kai]

We've tried several implementations of getting the mail event to fire with no luck. Trying to leave the box open doesn't help nor does closing it. Can you provide a working example of the mail event firing?

[arily]

it seems that <= '* {num} RECENT' event will not fire the 'mail' event (which I think it should) caused this problem. Could you please check edit Connection.js around L 1021 to sth like this:

    else if (type === 'recent') {
      if (!this._box && RE_OPENBOX.test(this._curReq.type))
        this._createCurrentBox()
      if (this._box) {
        this._box.messages.new = info.num
        if (info.num > 0 && this.state === 'authenticated') {
          this.emit('mail', this._box.messages.new)
        }
      }
    }

will make it fire events as expected?

[arnt]

RECENT doesn't mean what you think. The IMAP server is supposed to send EXISTS and optionally OK [UIDNEXT… when new mail arrives. The EXISTS handling in node-imap looks good to my eyes.

RECENT means that the server is reporting messages to this client that it never has reported to another client, even another client running at the same time, even another TCP connection from the same client program. If you run an app on a smartphone, lose connection due to leaving a WLAN area and reconnect via the mobile network, RECENT will change as a result of reconnecting.

I know someone who thinks that the semantics of RECENT were useful in the previous millenium, but noone who thinks they're useful now.

Can you show a debug log of a connection where you think the mail event should fire?

[arnt]

I'll close this now since it's based on a misunderstanding of what RECENT does in IMAP.

(FWIW, if #15 is merged, the mail event will fire in the expected way for some servers, most notably Dovecot. I'm not sure whether I'll try to get the same effect on other servers.)