BIS servers visiting my imap server infrequently

[Scott8586]

Hi. I am my own ISP for personal e-mail. I've noticed over the last couple of days, the blackberry bis hosts are only visiting my imap server about once every two-three hours, where the normal period is every twenty minutes. Has anyone else seen this sort of problem in the last couple of days? Thanks. - Scott

[rotophonic]

I've seen the same issue. This morning, the last time that the BIS server hit my IMAP server was at 7AM Pacific. It's now 11:39AM. Not one hit since then.

[Berry One]

Found here:BlackBerry Search Results (http://www.blackberry.com/btsc/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB13816&sliceId=SAL_Public&dialogID=19000520&stateId=1%200%2040734879)



IMAP is a protocol used for accessing email messages on a messaging server. The IMAP IDLE command is a widely implemented extension of the IMAP protocol that facilitates real-time email message delivery.

IMAP IDLE allows real-time email message delivery to a BlackBerry device by maintaining a persistent connection between the BlackBerry Internet Service and the email messaging server. Using this persistent connection, the messaging server will notify the BlackBerry Internet Service when new email messages arrive. When the BlackBerry Internet Service is notified by the messaging server that new email messages have arrived, it will connect to the messaging server and retrieve the new email message(s) and deliver them to the BlackBerry device. The benefit of this feature is real-time delivery of IMAP email messages to the BlackBerry device. The impact to the messaging server is low, as IMAP IDLE makes efficient use of messaging server bandwidth.

For more detailed information regarding the IMAP IDLE command, refer to RFC 2177.

[gresch]

I found that article, and as I said in another thread, BB is on crack if they expect every ISP to make those changes or BIS users won't get email more than once every 6 hours! are they friggin kidding me!?!?!?!?!


(yes, i'm pissed)


I'm on hold with VZW tech support, they're about to pass me through to BB tech support..... i'll be back with more shortly.

[Berry One]

My IMAP account works just fine and I am getting my emails in under 2 minutes consistently.

[gresch]

My IMAP account works just fine and I am getting my emails in under 2 minutes consistently.



what carrier are you on?

[Berry One]

BIS features are usually not carrier-specific. Your problem is with ISP hosting your IMAP email account.

I don't have problem with my ISP and now enjoy really fast email.

[gresch]

BIS features are usually not carrier-specific. Your problem is with ISP hosting your IMAP email account.

I don't have problem with my ISP and now enjoy really fast email.


No, BIS features are very carrier specific as each carrier can be on a different version of BIS, either 1.8, 2.1, 2.2 or 2.3. Bberry made a change on Monday that now changes how they are making IMAP connections to ISP mail servers, and the problem is that bis 2.3 doesn't play well with certain versions of IMAP running on the mail servers at certain ISP's.

I am on the phone with BBerry support right now and they are admitting that it's a problem with BIS 2.3.

If you're not using 2.3, you might not be experiencing a problem.

more later.... still on the phone with bberry

[atod03]

I was on the phone with berry about this issue earlier. Verizon connected me to them to handle the issue directly. After about an hour of being on hold, etc, blackberry was able to fix the problem. Basically, as it's been noted above, blackberry overhauled the system to allow for instantaneous delivery. however, if your server doesn't enable concurrent connections (which is how they can send you emails instantaneously), then the messages get delivered every six hours under the imap idle thing that they now have in place. As a result, there are two ways to cure the problem. You can have your server enable concurrent connections, assuming you have some way of influencing that. Otherwise, the guy over the phone just reset my settings to get rid of the whole idle thing so that my berry goes back to the way it was-- delivering messages with a maximum delay of 15 minutes. Since you can't just call Blackberry to do this directly (unless you pay a steep price), unfortunately, you have to probably go through your carrier and ask them to connect you to bb to sort out the issue. Explain the issue to them in detail and tell them that blackberry needs to fix it, and they should be able to help you out. the person at verizon who helped me didn't know how to solve my problem, but finally after consulting higher level support people, she was instructed to connect me over to bb. Hope this helps. Everything's working fine for me now.

[gresch]

I was on the phone with berry about this issue earlier. Verizon connected me to them to handle the issue directly. After about an hour of being on hold, etc, blackberry was able to fix the problem. Basically, as it's been noted above, blackberry overhauled the system to allow for instantaneous delivery. however, if your server doesn't enable concurrent connections (which is how they can send you emails instantaneously), then the messages get delivered every six hours under the imap idle thing that they now have in place. As a result, there are two ways to cure the problem. You can have your server enable concurrent connections, assuming you have some way of influencing that. Otherwise, the guy over the phone just reset my settings to get rid of the whole idle thing so that my berry goes back to the way it was-- delivering messages with a maximum delay of 15 minutes. Since you can't just call Blackberry to do this directly (unless you pay a steep price), unfortunately, you have to probably go through your carrier and ask them to connect you to bb to sort out the issue. Explain the issue to them in detail and tell them that blackberry needs to fix it, and they should be able to help you out. the person at verizon who helped me didn't know how to solve my problem, but finally after consulting higher level support people, she was instructed to connect me over to bb. Hope this helps. Everything's working fine for me now.

Thanks, that's the same scenario that I'm in now and I'm trying to get BB to disable IMAP idle for my account.... stay tuned.

[JGBerry]

i have a college IMAP account and i get delivery every 15 mins. Gmail is instant

[gresch]

i have a college IMAP account and i get delivery every 15 mins. Gmail is instant


The problem is that bberry bis doesn't play nice with email servers that do not allow concurrent connections. gmail must allow it.

The BIS 2.3 upgrade is the problem and is conflicting with email servers that do not have concurrent connections enabled. So if your carrier doesn't use BIS 2.3, you won't see the problem. Verizon does, so I'm seeing the problem.

[gresch]

I was on the phone with berry about this issue earlier. Verizon connected me to them to handle the issue directly. After about an hour of being on hold, etc, blackberry was able to fix the problem. Basically, as it's been noted above, blackberry overhauled the system to allow for instantaneous delivery. however, if your server doesn't enable concurrent connections (which is how they can send you emails instantaneously), then the messages get delivered every six hours under the imap idle thing that they now have in place. As a result, there are two ways to cure the problem. You can have your server enable concurrent connections, assuming you have some way of influencing that. Otherwise, the guy over the phone just reset my settings to get rid of the whole idle thing so that my berry goes back to the way it was-- delivering messages with a maximum delay of 15 minutes. Since you can't just call Blackberry to do this directly (unless you pay a steep price), unfortunately, you have to probably go through your carrier and ask them to connect you to bb to sort out the issue. Explain the issue to them in detail and tell them that blackberry needs to fix it, and they should be able to help you out. the person at verizon who helped me didn't know how to solve my problem, but finally after consulting higher level support people, she was instructed to connect me over to bb. Hope this helps. Everything's working fine for me now.

he made the change and i'm still haveing a problem. I'm done for tonight, hopefully they fix it soon.

[Scott8586]

Thanks for the headsup about concurrent connections. I switched my system over to supporting concurrent connections and apparently it's working as RIM intended.
There is also the side benefit of the different mail clients not fighting for access.

na.blackberry.com keeps one connection open, listening via IMAP IDLE for new activity on my account. When there's new activity, a second connection is made that picks up the e-mail and delivers it to my blackberry. The delay is much shorter, probably about 1-2min.

(technical info: I'm using sendmail and UW imap. Under UW imap, the underlying storage determines whether concurrent access is allowed. The default for a unix based account is mbox which does not allow concurrent access, but mbx format does. I've switched sendmail over to delivering mail via tmail, and I converted my inbox from mbox format to mbx format using the program mailutil).

[vliou]

RIM is back to 15 minute polling.

I just killed my BES a few days ago after I accidental found out it was real-time.

15 minute polling is way too long and I hope RIM goes back to IMAP-IDLE. If there are mail servers out there in the world not idle compliant, they should go bankrupt.

I am very bitter right now! (n)

[whsbuss]

(technical info: I'm using sendmail and UW imap. Under UW imap, the underlying storage determines whether concurrent access is allowed. The default for a unix based account is mbox which does not allow concurrent access, but mbx format does. I've switched sendmail over to delivering mail via tmail, and I converted my inbox from mbox format to mbx format using the program mailutil).

We use UW-IMAP4 as well (2003.337 older version). Trying to get the latest version installed. We also use sendmail & procmail for mail delivery into mbox for each user. Is there any documentation regarding UW concurrent connections besides the tmail delivery and mailbox conversion? I doubt we can alter mail delivery from sendmail to tmail.

[fonewiz]

I am the admin of several mail servers responsible for over 10,000 email users. I am sure there are quite a few BlackBerry users in the bunch who are suffering from this problem including myself.

I run two different mail servers and now I am scrambling to figure out how to make these changes on each and frankly wondering if the changes are safe and smart for our mail servers.

I am concerned that a persistent connection to possibly hundreds or thousands of blackberry users accounts to the blackberry server would cause tons of load on my mail servers that they clearly don't need.

It may not work this way, I need to do more research..

Either way, what a load of crap for them to make this change and take out so many users BlackBerry service without doing a better job of making it known up front.

I for one love the idea of having faster access to my email accounts on my Blackberry but not at the cost of a SERIOUS performance hit to our mail server.

[whsbuss]

I am the admin of several mail servers responsible for over 10,000 email users. I am sure there are quite a few BlackBerry users in the bunch who are suffering from this problem including myself.

I run two different mail servers and now I am scrambling to figure out how to make these changes on each and frankly wondering if the changes are safe and smart for our mail servers.

I am concerned that a persistent connection to possibly hundreds or thousands of blackberry users accounts to the blackberry server would cause tons of load on my mail servers that they clearly don't need.

It may not work this way, I need to do more research..

Either way, what a load of crap for them to make this change and take out so many users BlackBerry service without doing a better job of making it known up front.

I for one love the idea of having faster access to my email accounts on my Blackberry but not at the cost of a SERIOUS performance hit to our mail server.

I can agree with your comments. Speaking with their support folks on Friday I got the impression they were probably going to stop this "automatic" IMAP-IDLE feature and in fact they have.

I think what they will/should do is change the default of using IMAP as the first option when setting up an account on the BIS user interface (currently both POP & IMAP accounts default to IMAP polling on port 143 - if found it uses IMAP for both protocols). Then in advanced settings, for IMAP accounts, have an option to use IMAP-IDLE with a popup notification stating "check with your imap mail administrator to see if IMAP-IDLE & concurrent conections are supported."

At least that would eliminate MOST bis users from using imap as the default. Most don't even know what POP/IMAP is anyway. The way they have it set now, with IMAP as the default, it could definately impact your server's loads.

Just my 2 cents.

[vliou]

As a previous email administrator for well over half a million email accounts...I am going to throw in my two cents.

I think that the apprehension surrounding RIM is completely unfair. If they choose to force email administrators into switching to IDLE, then GOOD for them.

And here's why.

When AOL forced servers to obey the rules of rDNS, several email providers, including myself, did the same thing. rDNS curbed spam and was incredibly effective at stopping home-email providers using dynamic DNS's. AOL just flipped the switch.

This ticked off a lot of people, but it was a GOOD thing and they had every right to do so.

Now while I think RIM should have either made a public announcement or not have let non IMAP-IDLE users "high and dry" without email for 6 hours or whatever, RIM definitely can and should switch to IDLE.

IDLE is a great protocol which cuts down on RIM's costs, improving email delivery standards, and etc etc.

IDLE has been out for years now and it's a shame and sad that so many email providers are STILL non-idle compliant.

Just my two cents...

[vliou]

And also, IDLE does not tax a email system. It would have been worse with 15 minute polling.

[whsbuss]

As a previous email administrator for well over half a million email accounts...I am going to throw in my two cents.

I think that the apprehension surrounding RIM is completely unfair. If they choose to force email administrators into switching to IDLE, then GOOD for them.

And here's why.

When AOL forced servers to obey the rules of rDNS, several email providers, including myself, did the same thing. rDNS curbed spam and was incredibly effective at stopping home-email providers using dynamic DNS's. AOL just flipped the switch.

This ticked off a lot of people, but it was a GOOD thing and they had every right to do so.

Now while I think RIM should have either made a public announcement or not have let non IMAP-IDLE users "high and dry" without email for 6 hours or whatever, RIM definitely can and should switch to IDLE.

IDLE is a great protocol which cuts down on RIM's costs, improving email delivery standards, and etc etc.

IDLE has been out for years now and it's a shame and sad that so many email providers are STILL non-idle compliant.

Just my two cents...

I want RIM to implement IDLE as well. But not all IMAP servers allow concurrent connections by default (our does not - yet). In my case the IDLE connection would not allow the BIS to grab the new email being delivered, hence the long delays.

I think my comments of providing an option within the BIS interface for IDLE is the best way to implement it. That will reduce the amount of support calls regarding delayed email delivery on the BB.

[vliou]

I agree. There is one other option though.

If BIS can actually "test" to see if IDLE is implemented, and then do one of these rules:

IF IDLE is present >--Use Idle
IF IDLE is not present >--poll every 15 minutes.

To give a customer the option to use IDLE...well...I'm not sure about that. Most of my clients are a bit...slow...when it comes to computers....let alone a BB...

[whsbuss]

Question for those who use/have Deleted Items on the IMAP server. When I delete BIS polled email on my BB it shows up in the Deleted Items file on the IMAP server (after wireless reconcilation). When I do Messages->Options->Email Reconcilation->Purge Deleted Items, the Deleted Items files on the IMAP server never clears.

Am I mistaken on how this is supposed to work?

[whsbuss]

I agree. There is one other option though.

If BIS can actually "test" to see if IDLE is implemented, and then do one of these rules:

IF IDLE is present >--Use Idle
IF IDLE is not present >--poll every 15 minutes.

To give a customer the option to use IDLE...well...I'm not sure about that. Most of my clients are a bit...slow...when it comes to computers....let alone a BB...

That's also a workable solutions. But remember if the IMAP server doesn't support concurrent connections, IDLE will lockout the BIS from getting the recent messages and delay for hours.

[vliou]

Question for those who use/have Deleted Items on the IMAP server. When I delete BIS polled email on my BB it shows up in the Deleted Items file on the IMAP server (after wireless reconcilation). When I do Messages->Options->Email Reconcilation->Purge Deleted Items, the Deleted Items files on the IMAP server never clears.

Am I mistaken on how this is supposed to work?

Try hitting Reconcile Now after purging. I have never purged be4, but the delete works great

[Berry One]

That's also a workable solutions. But remember if the IMAP server doesn't support concurrent connections, IDLE will lockout the BIS from getting the recent messages and delay for hours.

How hard would it be to do this:

Open connection A to host: telnet yourdomain.com imap ; login with user credentials
Open connection B to host: telnet yourdomain.com imap ; login with same user credentials

Check if both connections are open. If they both are, IMAP server does support concurrent connections.

[vliou]

The thing is..

Until I read this thread...I have never seen ANY imap server not host concurrent connections...

I mean...for Crying out LOUD!!!

[Berry One]

Takes only few 'bad' IMAP servers out on the wild and few people with the right attitude http://www.blackberryforums.com/general-blackberry-discussion/87283-bis-servers-visiting-my-imap-server-infrequently.html#post613080 to 'fix' IMAP IDLE into standard polling for all of us.

[vliou]

It's sad that so many people are unaware of all the intricacies of email hosting.

I am praying that RIM will develop a "fix" so that the rest of us IDLE compliant businesses can actually get real PUSH. A Palm running Chattermail gets email faster than me, and that infuriates me.

[whsbuss]

How hard would it be to do this:

Open connection A to host: telnet yourdomain.com imap ; login with user credentials
Open connection B to host: telnet yourdomain.com imap ; login with same user credentials

Check if both connections are open. If they both are, IMAP server does support concurrent connections.

Works for me. Maybe RIM will integrate that process in the BIS setup. Would eliminate the problem.

[vliou]

Works for me. Maybe RIM will integrate that process in the BIS setup. Would eliminate the problem.

Not entirely true. B/c the IDLE command would need to be tested as well. there are still archaic email providers out there (think ISP's!) who aren't IDLE compliant.

[whsbuss]

The thing is..

Until I read this thread...I have never seen ANY imap server not host concurrent connections...

I mean...for Crying out LOUD!!!

I feel you man. But in my case, email is shared across virtual domain using sendmail and procmail to deliever. So the IMAP server IDLE w/concurrent connections has to be setup separately, and using dmail to deliver to the INBOX in .mbx format.

[whsbuss]

Try hitting Reconcile Now after purging. I have never purged be4, but the delete works great

Tried that. After deleting BB messages and waiting for them to reconcile to the Deleted Items folder, doing Purge and a Reconcile Now does not delete them.

[vliou]

I don't know your setup, but if you want, I would not mind hosting your domain and all its emails for free on my system. I don't mind supporting BB users!

[vliou]

Tried that. After deleting BB messages and waiting for them to reconcile to the Deleted Items folder, doing Purge and a Reconcile Now does not delete them.

What's the point of purging? Same as emptying Trash? Or Like the "Purge Deleted Messages?

While we're at it, how about replicating folder structure?! That would be great!! :idea: Ability to move emails....no more computer needed!

[whsbuss]

I don't know your setup, but if you want, I would not mind hosting your domain and all its emails for free on my system. I don't mind supporting BB users!

Thank you for such a gracious offer. But I have to keep these domains local to our servers.

[Scott8586]

We use UW-IMAP4 as well (2003.337 older version). Trying to get the latest version installed. We also use sendmail & procmail for mail delivery into mbox for each user. Is there any documentation regarding UW concurrent connections besides the tmail delivery and mailbox conversion? I doubt we can alter mail delivery from sendmail to tmail.

In a given imap source directory check the docs/drivers.txt file for infomation on which formats support concurrent connections. For me tmail was a dropin replacement for mail.local (I wasn't using procmail for local delivery)

(I also see that RIM gone back to login/logout polling rather than IDLE/TIMEOUT in a persistent connection :-( )

[JGBerry]

The problem is that bberry bis doesn't play nice with email servers that do not allow concurrent connections. gmail must allow it.

The BIS 2.3 upgrade is the problem and is conflicting with email servers that do not have concurrent connections enabled. So if your carrier doesn't use BIS 2.3, you won't see the problem. Verizon does, so I'm seeing the problem.



every major US carrier is using 2.3
(verizon, att, tmobile, sprint)

[whsbuss]

In a given imap source directory check the docs/drivers.txt file for infomation on which formats support concurrent connections. For me tmail was a dropin replacement for mail.local (I wasn't using procmail for local delivery)

(I also see that RIM gone back to login/logout polling rather than IDLE/TIMEOUT in a persistent connection :-( )

I actually got concurrent connections to work after I read thru some of the docs. We still deliver sendmail->procmail, but for the IMAP accounts I need to work with the BIS, I use dmail to deliver to the IMAP-INBOX (in mbx format).

Thanks for all your info on concurrent connections.

PS: yes RIM is back to normal polling. Spoke w/RIM support on my ticket and they haven't made a decision on whether or not to do IDLE across the board. I'm hoping RIM will set IDLE for the 2 BIS accounts I have.

[vliou]

If you ever get a reply to that ticket regarding RIM's decision, please let us know :)

[vliou]

If we all complain about no imap-idle and threaten to ditch the BB. That may help!

[vliou]

Out of curiosity,

For your request to make your two BIS accounts IMAP-IDLE, did it cost you anything? Talk straight to RIM or through your carrier?

[whsbuss]

Out of curiosity,

For your request to make your two BIS accounts IMAP-IDLE, did it cost you anything? Talk straight to RIM or through your carrier?

Went through carrier to open a ticket for the long delays last week. Still no reply from RIM on my request. Why would it cost me anything?

[vliou]

Rim Costs you $49USD per incident request.
Carrier is free but generally useless

******UPDATE*********

Just got off the phone with RIM. They have decided corporately NOT to enable IMAP IDLE for ANY acct, even if you call in (so save your time).

Blackberry is "currently working to develop a failsafe method" and IMAP IDLE will be "available in the near future".

I tried to ask how "near is near", no direct answer.

[whsbuss]

Rim Costs you $49USD per incident request.
Carrier is free but generally useless

******UPDATE*********

Just got off the phone with RIM. They have decided corporately NOT to enable IMAP IDLE for ANY acct, even if you call in (so save your time).

Blackberry is "currently working to develop a failsafe method" and IMAP IDLE will be "available in the near future".

I tried to ask how "near is near", no direct answer.

Thanks for the update. I'm sure they will respond back to my ticket with their answer. As was posted earlier in this forum they will build something in the BIS (2.4 ??) that can check 1)IDLE and 2)concurrent connections. That's as it should be. No need to contact RIM for special setups.

RIM charges the carrier when going thru them, not me.

[gresch]

just got off the phone with bberry tech support checking on my open case.

as was stated earlier, they have disabled imap idle for everyone and are working on a script to detect whether your mail server supports it, and they have no eta on re-enabling imap idle.


I would like to personally thank RIM for wasting about 10 hours of my time over the course of the last week between dealing with them and my isp to try to get this working/resolved.

A big F U to RIM.... :x (n)

[vliou]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry8703e/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/109)

Any timeframe for 2.4?

[whsbuss]

just got off the phone with bberry tech support checking on my open case.

as was stated earlier, they have disabled imap idle for everyone and are working on a script to detect whether your mail server supports it, and they have no eta on re-enabling imap idle.


I would like to personally thank RIM for wasting about 10 hours of my time over the course of the last week between dealing with them and my isp to try to get this working/resolved.

A big F U to RIM.... :x (n)

Well at least they are working on a fix. I too was inconvenienced but my only complaint was RIM turning it on without any notification until they ran into trouble. Good news is when IDLE is working again, we;ll have instant email delivery.