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When I try to retrieve emails, I see the following messages in the Thunderbird status bar:

Checking Inbox for new messages

Downloading 1 of 68

Nothing to download

The problem is confined to one mail account on one computer - I can see and download the messages on other PCs, my phone, etc. If I use telnet on the problem PC, I can retrieve the messages that Thunderbird is not downloading.

Also, for other accounts on the same mail server accessed by the same instance of Thunderbird I can download all messages.

I'm using Thunderbird 38.2.0 on Windows 8.1, connecting with POP3.

I've re-installed Thunderbird. I have also tried deleting the popstate.dat file for this account, to no effect.

Community
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Rod Graham
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    POP3? Really? Why not using IMAP? Which is better suited for multiple devices accessing 1 account. – Tyson Sep 24 '15 at 16:03
  • I'm aware of the benefits of IMAP. – Rod Graham Sep 24 '15 at 18:22
  • Then give us the background why you're using POP3. Are there any other programs trying to access the account at the same time? – David Dec 31 '15 at 01:22
  • Sorry David for the delay in replying to you (I wasn't getting notifications from Stack Exchange). – Rod Graham Mar 28 '16 at 13:04
  • I inherited the running of this setup and am too busy to change it. The way it's set up is that all emails we send bcc the account they are sent from, so there is always a local copy of every email on every machine (assuming each machine logs in to the mail server at least weekly. I believe the previous admin took this approach to save money on server space, and to avoid problems with unreliable connections and servers. – Rod Graham Mar 28 '16 at 13:11
  • And I'm pretty sure the problem wasn't the one machine being locked out by another accessing the server. Because we have about ten clients doing this, we do see the lock out fairly regularly, but it only ever lasts a few seconds, and in any case it is reported as an "unable to connect to server error" (or words to that effect) – Rod Graham Mar 28 '16 at 13:14

1 Answers1

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The problem I describe above has now gone away. This is because

a) I have moved my email server to a different computer

or

b) I reset my router

but I can't be sure which of these two was the cure (or indeed, if something else was responsible).

I'm posting this here for other people who might have the same problem, since I couldn't find any useful, relevant information anywhere else on the web.

Rod Graham
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  • `I have moved my email server to a different computer` does not make much sense without more background information--if you where using Gmail pop server, you couldn't exactly move pop.gmail.com to a different computer. However resetting your router does make a little sense as you could have had some sort of stuck session in its NAT table. – David Dec 31 '15 at 01:56