Freron MailMate

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  Mike K October 18th, 2016 @ 09:02 PM

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  Mike K October 19th, 2016 @ 08:52 PM

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  Mike K October 19th, 2016 @ 08:58 PM

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  Mike K October 19th, 2016 @ 09:04 PM

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  benny October 20th, 2016 @ 04:42 PM

  Thanks for all the details. I'm a bit pressed for time this week, but I
  will get back to you when I've had time to review the issue. It's not a
  known issue.

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  Mike K November 1st, 2016 @ 12:36 AM

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  benny November 2nd, 2016 @ 02:06 PM

  @Mike: The lower part of your window indicates that MailMate might think the message view is open. Try enabling/disabling the message view in the View ▸ Layout menu and see if the behavior persists. Also note the setting in the Viewer preferences pane which controls how long a message is displayed before it's marked as read.

  The appearance/disappearance of the reply-arrow might just be because the unread dot takes precedence over the reply-arrow.

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  Mike K December 9th, 2016 @ 12:33 AM

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  Mike K December 9th, 2016 @ 12:35 AM

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  Mike K December 12th, 2016 @ 09:14 PM

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  Mike K December 12th, 2016 @ 09:15 PM

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  Mike K December 13th, 2016 @ 04:38 AM

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  Mike K January 18th, 2017 @ 08:38 PM

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  benny January 18th, 2017 @ 10:36 PM

  I can easily get ~50 emails in a day — most of them requesting fixes, changes, and/or minor/major features. I, maybe naively, try to reply to most of them and this involves a lot of work. Every day, some issues are handled and many others are not, but it's never because I don't care and certainly not because I think MailMate is perfect in any way. I know more about its shortcomings than anyone else.

  You state that I beg, complain, and fail to understand fundamental points. I'm sorry you feel that way and I'm especially sorry that you feel that I tell users that bugs in MailMate are their problems and not mine. It is certainly not my intention to ever say/write that to anyone. There might be disagreement on what is a bug and what is not a bug, but that's a different issue. I'm also sorry that you are so frustrated that a public shaming of MailMate and me as a person appears to be the only option left. I take all of this as a sign that I need to be even more careful in my communication than I feel I already am.

  Yes, MailMate is more expensive than other email clients, but it has a 30 day (active use) trial period to make sure that users have plenty of time to evaluate it. It's also very easy to get a refund if you need it. Just let me know.

  You wondered about the “obscure and hand-twisting three-finger shift-command key combination that doesn't even make any sense”. Here's the explanation: The ⌥⌘U shortcut is the same as in Apple Mail. I chose this to make it easier for users to migrate. MailMate has an advanced system to allow users to setup simple shortcuts with no qualifiers. Note that it makes other users frustrated when I change what they consider “standard” keys. I can never “win” when it comes to choosing default shortcuts.

  I'll try to reproduce the issue again tomorrow (based on your videos). The last time I tried I was not successful which is why I failed to reply. Reading your description of the problem again then I think that a factor in the erratic behavior is that what you see as MailMate, e.g., suddenly marking something as replied is more likely to be a visual bug (non-updated list view). The message was likely already marked replied, but for some reason that is not shown. When selecting it or triggering a redraw in some other way then it's visually updated.

  When I've viewed the videos then I'll delete them. They are part of the reason you cannot upload more of them (they take up 1/3 of the allowed space for attachments in the ticket system used).

  A bit off topic: Don't take this as complaining, but just as friendly advice since you don't know me personally. You obviously think I'm stupid and maybe I am. I usually state that if I was smarter then I probably wouldn't be stupid enough to spend my time on an email client. Stupid or not, it's a fact that I'm extremely demotivated when I receive reports like the above. If your goal is to get an issue fixed then it's counterproductive.

  Oh, I now see you have continued in ticket #402. I guess I'll not be spending any more time working on MailMate tonight.

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  benny January 19th, 2017 @ 08:38 AM

  Good morning.

  I've now reviewed the videos again. (I have also deleted them to free up space in the ticket system, but I have a local copy in case we should need them for some reason.)

  Based on the videos, my current theory is that this problem has something to do with the IMAP server involved. To learn more I'm going to have to you ask to do something for me. First, make sure the Activity Monitor (⌥⌘0) is open (this enables logging). When you see a message flip back to the unread state then use “Help ▸ Send Server Logs” to send me the logs.

  What I'm looking for: I'd like to see what happens when MailMate asks the server to mark the email as read. I suspect that either the server misbehaves or MailMate somehow misinterprets a reply from the server. I'll also be able to see if the issue is unrelated to the IMAP server (in which case I'll probably have to add some debug output to learn more).

  (Note that I've also updated ticket #402 which I don't think you'll be automatically notified about.)

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  Mike K February 17th, 2017 @ 11:23 PM

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  benny February 18th, 2017 @ 08:25 AM

  Since it's a Gmail account then I would probably have many more reports if this was a general issue. I would also have more reports if it was a Gmail bug. The server logs you sent me also confirms that MailMate is changing the state and not the server:

  This is the essential part:

  23:38:27 C: H14 UID STORE 457 +FLAGS.SILENT (\Seen)  
  23:38:27 S: * 342 FETCH (UID 457 MODSEQ (80411) FLAGS (\Seen))  
  23:38:27 S: H14 OK Success  
  ...
  23:38:27 C: S17 IDLE  
  23:38:28 S: + idling  
  ...
  23:38:36 C: DONE  
  23:38:36 S: S17 OK IDLE terminated (Success)  
  23:38:36 C: H19 UID STORE 457 -FLAGS.SILENT (\Seen)  
  23:38:36 S: * 342 FETCH (UID 457 MODSEQ (80466) FLAGS ())  
  23:38:36 S: H19 OK Success
  

  Translation: MailMate sets the \Seen flag and then goes back to the IDLE state. This means that the successful change on the server also appears to be correctly registered by MailMate. Then about 8 seconds later MailMate removes the flag again. Unfortunately, this does not tell us why it happens, but I think we have ruled out a server issue.

  With respect to logging, you can enable the following hidden preference to avoid having the Activity Viewer open:

  defaults write com.freron.MailMate LoggingEnabled -bool YES
  

  (This naturally means that MailMate spends time/resources on making the logs.)

  But we might not need more logs.

  Do you ever explicitly mark an email as unread? If not, then one way to debug this would be for me to simply make MailMate crash when it happens (using a debug variable)? That would pinpoint exactly when and where it happens.

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  Mike K February 18th, 2017 @ 09:16 AM

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  benny February 18th, 2017 @ 10:09 PM

  I did not find anything suspicious in Mailboxes.plist. I also looked through the logs again to see if I could find other signs of emails going back to the unread state, but I couldn't find anything.

  Keep the activity viewer open and when it happens again then use “Help ▸ Send Server Logs”. Also make sure to enable “Source Mailbox” in the message list to make sure I know which mailbox I should focus on.

  Making MailMate crash does not help if the logs do not show that MailMate changes the read state again.

  I guess another possibility is that it's some kind of temporary “visual” issue. In that case the message should flip back to the read state when MailMate is relaunched. But I think this is unlikely given the delay before the flip-back.

  Thanks in advance.

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  Mike K February 19th, 2017 @ 04:59 AM

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  Mike K February 19th, 2017 @ 05:17 AM

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  benny February 19th, 2017 @ 10:59 AM

  Thanks for the data. I have little time today, but I'll analyse in detail later tonight or tomorrow. Don't worry too much about the replied icon. I think that is strictly a visual issue (the view somehow not being told about the changed state of the message). I'm primarily concerned about messages suddenly getting the Unread-dot (but the two issues might be partly related).

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  Mike K February 20th, 2017 @ 12:52 AM

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  benny February 20th, 2017 @ 11:01 AM

  Thanks for the last video. It's the flipping back to unread I'd like to focus on. This is also the case where I'm primarily interested in “Help ▸ Send Server Logs”. I'm still looking for the “smoking gun” in this case.

  We'll try the “crash” method even though I'm still not 100% sure this is more than a visual issue. I suggested further above that you could try relaunching MailMate when it's displaying the “wrong state”. If it is correct after a relaunch then it would probably be a sign that this is mainly a GUI issue (and then the “crash” method won't help us).

  Enable this:

  defaults write com.freron.MailMate MmDebugMarkingUnread -bool YES
  

  Hold down ⌥ when clicking “Check Now” to the latest test release. If you mark a message as unread then you'll be shown a window which allows you to either crash or continue. Use the “crash” button if this happens at an unexpected time.

  Thanks in advance.

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  Mike K February 28th, 2017 @ 02:11 AM

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  Mike K February 28th, 2017 @ 02:22 AM

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  benny February 28th, 2017 @ 10:14 AM

  No need for screen recordings. I believe it is as you describe.

  Just to make sure the debug variable behaves as expected: Try explicitly marking a message as unread. That should trigger it.

  Given that the debug variable does work then I think we can conclude that the problem is not that MailMate somehow flips back the message (triggered by buggy rule handling or something like that). The problem is of a more visual-only nature. If this is true then the state should be correct server-side.

  When you see a message flipping back to unread then you could try opening a second window (File ▸ New Viewer Window) and see if it has the same state for the same message.

  You could add a tag to the Tags preferences pane which e.g. maps the name “Seen” to the IMAP keyword \Seen. This tag might then show a different state than what is shown in the messages list.

  Both of the above would be interesting with respect to trying to better understand what's going on here.

  One more thing: Try launching MailMate from a Terminal window and see if anything suspicious is going on. I'm mainly interested in so-called exceptions being reported. MailMate is launched like this:

  /Applications/MailMate.app/Contents/MacOS/MailMate
  

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  benny March 1st, 2017 @ 07:27 AM

  I replied to your email and as I noted I couldn't (yet) reproduce the issue using your preferences file. I'd like you to follow the instructions I provided in my previous ticket reply. I'll repeat here for convenience:

  1. Setup a tag mapped to \Seen and see if this behaves in the same way.
     
  2. Try opening multiple windows ((File ▸ New Viewer Window) and see if the state is the same in all windows.
     
  3. Launch MailMate from a Terminal window to see if there are any “exceptions” in the output when messages flip back.

  Thanks in advance.

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  Mike K March 29th, 2017 @ 08:04 PM

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