[Users] Gmail still driving me crazy

[John Jason Jordan]

On Sat, 20 May 2017 10:30:11 +0100
Paul <claws at thewildbeast.co.uk> dijo:

>On Fri, 19 May 2017 18:12:45 -0700
>John Jason Jordan <johnxj at gmx.com> wrote: 
>
>> Why does the above log say IMAP4 when the account is set up with
>> POP3?
>
>You have upgraded Claws Mail and then afterwards downgraded it. This
>would not normally be a problem but you've gone from a newer version
>of Claws Mail which uses different protocol numbers internally and
>then back to an older version.
>
>In order to fix your problem, quit Claws Mail, open
>~/.claws-mail/accountrc in a text editor, locate the line 'protocol'
>line for your account block, and change it from 1 to 0 for a pop
>account:
>
>protocol=0
>
>Restart Claws Mail and your pop account will be functioning properly
>again.

First, Jeremy Nicol asked how long ago was Gmail working correctly and
I have to say that it has been about a year. But I have to add that it
has always been maddeningly erratic. For example, I have not been able
to retrieve messages for several days. The log I posted at the start of
this thread has been going on all that time. But, without touching any
of the settings or restarting Claws Mail, suddenly this morning it
correctly retrieved messages. And the log shows correctly:

* Account 'Gmail': Connecting to POP3 server: pop.gmail.com:995...
[07:54:37] POP3< +OK Gpop ready for requests from
  2602:61:78f9:8f00:15d0:8351:d13:17e8 nt20mb266172103obb [07:54:37]
  POP3> USER johnjasonj [07:54:37] POP3< +OK send PASS
[07:54:37] POP3> PASS ********
[07:54:37] POP3< +OK Welcome.
[07:54:37] POP3> STAT
[07:54:37] POP3< +OK 5 127058
[07:54:37] POP3> UIDL
[07:54:37] POP3< +OK
[07:54:37] POP3> LIST
[07:54:38] POP3< +OK 5 messages (127058 bytes)
[07:54:38] POP3> RETR 1
[07:54:38] POP3< +OK message follows
[07:54:38] POP3> DELE 1
... <etc for remaining messages>
[07:54:39] POP3> QUIT
[07:54:39] POP3< +OK Farewell.
[07:55:04] IMAP4> 1731 NOOP 
[07:55:04] IMAP4< 1731 OK Success 
... <continuing NOOP and OK Success lines>

And now to Paul's message above, I just looked at the
~/.claws-mail/accountrc file and I see that it is set to protocol=0 for
the Gmail account, and ditto for the backup accountrc file.

Note also from the above log snip of this morning's successful
message retrieval that, after the Farewell, the log went back to the
NOOP / OK Success routine. As I send this at 8:58 am am it is still
adding NOOP and OK Success lines to the log. 

It's the randomness that drives me up the wall. If something works
reliably, that's great. If something never works, then fine, let's fix
it. But if it works sometimes randomly then I sit here shaking my
head as I slowly descend into insanity. :(