[greeneggsandham]

Hello All:

Great forums here. Learned lots of things about bb's hereabouts. One of the most important of which being that BB's do not actually support IMAP despite what the marketing people may claim. From searching these forums Cyrus, Courier, etc. are erroneously blamed as being the problem, when in fact the problem lies with the false claims made by RIM, carriers, etc. regarding BlackBerry IMAP support. All of the Open source mail server offerings I am familiar with, e.g have admined Cyrus, Dovecot, Couier, implement IMAP4 protocol, as defined by the RFC's. Commercial offerings such as MS Exchange, Lotus Notes, etc. typically break various aspects of RFC conformance as part of their "embrace and extend" tactics (Google Halloween Documents for some very interesting reading on this on ESR's catb.org site) but RIM seems to be the most egregious. NAMESPACE being one such example. Thus, that BB's cannot cope with it is a BB client side issue, not a mailserver side issue.

Some things I've learned about BIS. This is not meant to be exhaustive, just a short list addressing a few issues that seem to come up quite a bit:

1) BB's can store sent mail IF your sent mail folder is named thusly:

a) Sent Items, sent items, sent-items, or Sent-Items

b) Sent Mail, sent mail, sent-mail, or Sent-Mail

c) BB's are apparently unable to recognize "Sent" by itself, however.

2) Drafts email seems to stay on BB regardless of what the drafts folder is named.

3) Deleted items will work with folders named:

a) Deleted Items and various capitalization and hyphen permutations listed above

b) Trash folder

4) Items deleted on bb device may also be deleted server side is you so choose BUT bb device's incomplete IMAP client support make them incapable of sync'ing with your server so messages deleted by your mua still show up in BB until deleted manually.

5) You're basically hosed on the rest of the PIM features if you do not use Outlook.

Blackberry's are in many ways SO cool but RIM's refusal to implement an actual IMAP client in their effort to force market demand for their BES product basically Blackberry's unusable for the rest of us, and we're left with following options:

1) Live with BB's lame limitations and the various convoluted workarounds involving various hacks, 3rd party services, etc.

2) Use either Palm or MS Mobile based device that have actually do support the IMAP protocol.

I have no fondness whatsoever for MS Mobile (been MS free hereabouts since circa mid 90's) but looks like I'm going to have to return this otherwise very nice 8320. I wonder if RIM is making enough profit off BES to offset the many, many others, who like me, find themselves reluctantly having to go this route, especially now that they're trying to enter to pro/consumer market??

I'm sure knowing such things up front would be of value to new bb users but it seems these threads are locked and hence not going to be found unless the new user is savvy enough also be an email administrator. The main issue here being that the false claims made by marketing types preying upon the average end user's ignorance of IMAP RFC's create confusion, frustration, and wasted time for those who do have a clue or two. So perhaps someone might clean up my comments above and post them as sticky? Keypoints being that although bb devices can retrieve email from an IMAP server they are not IMAP4 conformant.

Thanks again for the great forums. I eagerly await RIM implementing a true IMAP client so that the bb devices will be capable of performing up to my needs and expectations. And along similar lines, ICal support would just make the THE killer must have mobile messaging device.

[penguin3107]

Wirelessly posted (Breaking Ball: BlackBerry8300/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

Well, there's two minutes of my life I'll never get back.

[greeneggsandham]

Originally Posted by penguin3107

Wirelessly posted (Breaking Ball: BlackBerry8300/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

Well, there's two minutes of my life I'll never get back.

Well, yeah, if you're a BES admin then this is probably a no brainer. The problem for me was that the sales and tech support people and even bb documentation kept telling me that bb's did support IMAP, wh/results in certain expectations and leads to frustration and then bitterness when you learn that in reality they do not.

[tobyw]

I kind of see what you're saying. However, the fact that RIM operates a NOC model where the device doesn't connect directly to the IMAP server means that it's difficult to provide 'native' IMAP support that you might expect with an IMAP client on a WM or Palm device, for example.

It is worth remembering, however, that the NOC model does provide some benefits in terms of security and a vastly lower data transfer over the cellular network as against a direct connection. It also means that as the integration with the device is so tight that things like battery life are aided when you have e-mail 'on' all the time.

Having said this, I have noticed that a lot of the sales people in mobile stores (certainly here in the UK, not sure about US or elsewhere) don't seem to understand the crucial difference about how BlackBerry works with your e-mail account as opposed to Windows Mobile. I also suspect that many purchasers of BB don't understand either. Therefore to some extent I agree with your comments from the view of consumers who get a BB and use BIS. This is why I've posted my view, in other threads on BBF, that RIM needs to think very carefully about the future direction of the BIS service and whether they can provide additional functionality - rightly or wrongly, consumers will compare a BB directly against WM or similar devices.

That said, I still love my BlackBerry. I like the reliability above all else, the simplicity, the battery life etc. So, even though I might have a more comprehensive e-mail experience if I used WM (especially using Exchange Activesync) I am set on staying with my BB.

[greeneggsandham]

Originally Posted by tobyw

I kind of see what you're saying. However, the fact that RIM operates a NOC model where the device doesn't connect directly to the IMAP server means that it's difficult to provide 'native' IMAP support that you might expect with an IMAP client on a WM or Palm device, for example.

It is worth remembering, however, that the NOC model does provide some benefits in terms of security and a vastly lower data transfer over the cellular network as against a direct connection. It also means that as the integration with the device is so tight that things like battery life are aided when you have e-mail 'on' all the time.

Having said this, I have noticed that a lot of the sales people in mobile stores (certainly here in the UK, not sure about US or elsewhere) don't seem to understand the crucial difference about how BlackBerry works with your e-mail account as opposed to Windows Mobile. I also suspect that many purchasers of BB don't understand either. Therefore to some extent I agree with your comments from the view of consumers who get a BB and use BIS. This is why I've posted my view, in other threads on BBF, that RIM needs to think very carefully about the future direction of the BIS service and whether they can provide additional functionality - rightly or wrongly, consumers will compare a BB directly against WM or similar devices.

Precisely!! Apparently nor does Blackberry Tech Support, at least T-Mobiles'. What was really so frustrating in my case is that I knew from past client experiences that bb's did not support imap. Thus I made very specific inquiries from about imap4 support prior to purchase and was told that now they did. So with all these people insisting that it did, and being the 1st bb device that I personally owned, I wasted FAR too much of my valuable time before figuring out the problem was not on my end. I suspect they actually did know, however, but were hoping I did not and trying to hold out on the truth of the matter as long as possible in hopes I would come to accept things as they were.

Regarding your remarks about comparing to other devices - indeed they should. To wit I suspect RIM may be living in the past and desperately hiding their heads in the sand in their efforts to secure demand for their BES product. They're no longer the only game in town - which just might be correlated to their decreasing market share (I recently read somewhere has decreased to only 6% share of the mobile market). Perhaps this will increase a bit with their entry into the "prosumer" realm but looks like maybe too little too late. For example, subsequent to my op I had a chance to discuss this with a family member who is a fairly high level exec with a Fortune 100 company that has used Blackberry devices pretty much since their inception. Guess what? IT has been trialling wm6 devices for the past several months and bb's are going to be phased out start of new year. That's going to be 10's of thousands of seats lost by RIM which leaves me to wonder how many other big corps have similar such plans for wm6? Having used Unix since the early 80's I'm definitely NOT a MS fanboy but wm6 "just works" out of the box and with corp "right sizing" why maintain another whole department just to keep the BES servers running?

Originally Posted by tobyw

That said, I still love my BlackBerry. I like the reliability above all else, the simplicity, the battery life etc. So, even though I might have a more comprehensive e-mail experience if I used WM (especially using Exchange Activesync) I am set on staying with my BB.

Yes, they are otherwise very nice devices. So much so that even though they are a royal PITA when it comes to what they supposedly do best if you're not on BES platform, I still intend exploring some of the various hacks and workarounds I see posted hereabouts. Elegant? Certainly not, at least from what I've seen thus far. Workable? Perhaps....

Anyhow, don't mean to rant, but would appreciate if you would expound upon the security aspects - wh/is one of big concerns I have about running pretty much any software developed by MS. All the major AV vendors include wm offering in their lineup these days and wm6 now supports ssl, etc. I think perhaps thread is appropriate forum since related to bb network? The reliability may be the biggest selling point, as I don't recall ever having anyone having to call me back and apologize for their Blackberry crashing.

[NJBlackBerry]

Yes, RIM is clearly living in the past. We should all switch to Palms. Their stock price and continued increases in customers are clear examples of that.

Enjoy looking for hacks. Another Palm relic.

And you ARE ranting..

[Scott8586]

I have an 8703e on Verizon Wireless. My primary service with my office is BES based, but I also have an IMAP based home account. I've setup a BIS service with this account. My IMAP server is protocol IMAP4rev1 2004.357 via University of Washington's uw-imapd, and I'm using a NetBSD server to support the service. My INBOX is in mbx format to allow concurrent access by multiple imap connections.

The following is true for my BIS based home imap service and my 8703e. I really don't know if Verizon is running BIS 2.3 or 2.4 or what, I just know what I observe:

Originally Posted by greeneggsandham

Some things I've learned about BIS. This is not meant to be exhaustive, just a short list addressing a few issues that seem to come up quite a bit:

1) BB's can store sent mail IF your sent mail folder is named thusly:

a) Sent Items, sent items, sent-items, or Sent-Items

b) Sent Mail, sent mail, sent-mail, or Sent-Mail

c) BB's are apparently unable to recognize "Sent" by itself, however.

My sent mail folder is called "Sent". There are no other links or aliases to this folder. E-mails sent from by blackberry are immediately copied to this folder: a bb network host logs into my imap server and deposits the sent mail in my "Sent" folder.

Originally Posted by greeneggsandham

3) Deleted items will work with folders named:

a) Deleted Items and various capitalization and hyphen permutations listed above

b) Trash folder

4) Items deleted on bb device may also be deleted server side if you so choose BUT bb device's incomplete IMAP client support make them incapable of sync'ing with your server so messages deleted by your mua still show up in BB until deleted manually.

My Deleted Items folder is named "Trash" I found that I had to make a link to a folder named ".Trash" for my particular imap server to work with BB network expectations, but besides that, I get bi-directional deleted e-mail syncronization. (that box is checked in my BIS account settings).

BB delete results in a server-side delete upon the next login of the bb network.
(currently 5-20 min).

Server-side e-mail delete results in a BB delete in 2-6 hours.
Usually, the deleted messages will clear on my BB after
1) I logout of my e-mail client, and
2) the BB network logs in.

I'm guessing this is because my deleted e-mail is expunged to the Trash folder upon logout. (freshly deleted e-mails are in my Trash, but also invisibly in my INBOX until I logout, then they are only in my Trash folder).

I use Thunderbird as my e-mail client, set to "Move it to the trash folder" when I delete a message. (I empty my Trash folder every couple of days or so.)

As an aside, I'm looking forward to the day that RIM turns back on the IMAP IDLE loop processing that was in-place briefly this past July.

I hope this is useful information.

[greeneggsandham]

Originally Posted by NJBlackBerry

Yes, RIM is clearly living in the past. We should all switch to Palms. Their stock price and continued increases in customers are clear examples of that.

Enjoy looking for hacks. Another Palm relic.

And you ARE ranting..

Hmmm..... I don't recall ever mentioning palms... lemme double check... Nope. Rather replying to specific points made by tobyw and in process provided some specific examples and asked a question since they seem to have technical clue or two about Network Operation Centers and the backend of things. The hacks and workarounds are stuff I've run across in these forums, e.g. "Linux Users Corner". Maybe you want to call them "enhancements". Fine by me. Sure, a bit of rant may have crept in but I suspect your beak may have been a bit tweaked as well had it happened to you. But the fact that I'm still even considering a BB device after being lied to by marketing, sales, and tech support, in my opinion demonstrates I'm trying to keep an open mind about bb's themselves. Lots of REALLY great things about them but also one major bad that's probably going to end up being the deal breaker. What I'd really like to see from RIM is actual IMAP4 support. Then I'd be jumping for joy! Other options on the table are either wm6 or symbian based devices. If anyone would like to expand upon various network or security related aspects of these options then I'm all ears

[greeneggsandham]

Originally Posted by Scott8586

I have an 8703e on Verizon Wireless. My primary service with my office is BES based, but I also have an IMAP based home account. I've setup a BIS service with this account. My IMAP server is protocol IMAP4rev1 2004.357 via University of Washington's uw-imapd, and I'm using a NetBSD server to support the service. My INBOX is in mbx format to allow concurrent access by multiple imap connections.

Ah, thanks. FreeBSD and Cyrus in this particular instance. But also Courier and Dovecot in the past. Maybe uw is good these days but has very checkered past so non option for me. IN any event, IMAP was pretty much invented at UW so would think devices should work with this implementation.

Originally Posted by Scott8586

The following is true for my BIS based home imap service and my 8703e. I really don't know if Verizon is running BIS 2.3 or 2.4 or what, I just know what I observe:

I'm trying to move off vzw. Does anyone know what version BIS t-mo is running, as they're their bb support has not been able to answer this question for me. From the gui I can tell it's 2.x but that's extent of my knowledge.

Originally Posted by Scott8586

My sent mail folder is called "Sent". There are no other links or aliases to this folder. E-mails sent from by blackberry are immediately copied to this folder: a bb network host logs into my imap server and deposits the sent mail in my "Sent" folder.

Strange. Sent only works for me if I use default folder names implemented commercial offering, e.g. Exchange, Notes, etc. I use altnamespace on this box but get same results with altnamespace turned off.

Originally Posted by Scott8586

My Deleted Items folder is named "Trash" I found that I had to make a link to a folder named ".Trash" for my particular imap server to work with BB network expectations, but besides that, I get bi-directional deleted e-mail syncronization. (that box is checked in my BIS account settings).

Strange again, because I didn't have to do anything special to get mine to use "Trash".

Originally Posted by Scott8586

BB delete results in a server-side delete upon the next login of the bb network.
(currently 5-20 min).

Ditto.

Originally Posted by Scott8586

Server-side e-mail delete results in a BB delete in 2-6 hours.
Usually, the deleted messages will clear on my BB after
1) I logout of my e-mail client, and
2) the BB network logs in.

I'm not seeing this behavior. Messages deletes by mua appear to stay on bb forever. T-Mo tech support did tell me that it took 48 hrs. for initial sync'ing though. I was expecting that it would just work after that but maybe I need to just be more patient and see what happens if I let them sit on the bb for a couple days. Although w/the volume of email I get this would be a major headache, maybe it's one I could live with

Originally Posted by Scott8586

I'm guessing this is because my deleted e-mail is expunged to the Trash folder upon logout. (freshly deleted e-mails are in my Trash, but also invisibly in my INBOX until I logout, then they are only in my Trash folder).

Hmmm... you may well be onto something here.

Originally Posted by Scott8586

I use Thunderbird as my e-mail client, set to "Move it to the trash folder" when I delete a message. (I empty my Trash folder every couple of days or so.)

Ditto on the generic MS worksatations but Sylpheed rocks on *nix. Also now a pretty good MS port from what I hear, but have yet to check it out.

Originally Posted by Scott8586

As an aside, I'm looking forward to the day that RIM turns back on the IMAP IDLE loop processing that was in-place briefly this past July.

I hope this is useful information.

Yes, thank you very much. Although with IMAP Idle, as you're mobile with your device, moving from tower to tower, how would that affect client ip address and serverside? Would bb IP address change -> client reauth and mess up IMAP idle?

Also, you didn't mention anything about Drafts folder. If you create draft on bb does it ever show up serverside?

[Scott8586]

Originally Posted by greeneggsandham

Strange. Sent only works for me if I use default folder names implemented commercial offering, e.g. Exchange, Notes, etc. I use altnamespace on this box but get same results with altnamespace turned off.

"Sent" does seem to be the default for Thunderbird. I've not tried to change it.

Originally Posted by greeneggsandham

Yes, thank you very much. Although with IMAP Idle, as you're mobile with your device, moving from tower to tower, how would that affect client ip address and serverside? Would bb IP address change -> client reauth and mess up IMAP idle?

As you probably know, the blackberry device doesn't connect to the imap server, a host at the BB network does. In fact, the server host that connects to my accout is *aways* the same host from the domain bis.na.blackberry.com. When the IMAP IDLE loop protcol was in place, there were a pair of hosts that contacted my server, one listened to the IMAP-IDLE loop, and another would login to peruse the account when the IDLE loop was broken by some event.

Originally Posted by greeneggsandham

Also, you didn't mention anything about Drafts folder. If you create draft on bb does it ever show up serverside?

No, not in my experience.

[greeneggsandham]

Originally Posted by Scott8586

"Sent" does seem to be the default for Thunderbird. I've not tried to change it.



As you probably know, the blackberry device doesn't connect to the imap server, a host at the BB network does. In fact, the server host that connects to my accout is *aways* the same host from the domain bis.na.blackberry.com. When the IMAP IDLE loop protcol was in place, there were a pair of hosts that contacted my server, one listened to the IMAP-IDLE loop, and another would login to peruse the account when the IDLE loop was broken by some event.

duh... had a brain fart for a moment there....

Originally Posted by Scott8586

No, not in my experience.

Mine neither :(

btw- could your .Trash workaround is artifact of bb lack of namespace support? The "." being the traditional IMAP folder seperator, maybe bb needs to see it? Does your uw-imap implement altnamespace or unixheirarchy (use trad unix slash as seperator instead of period)?

btw- emptied "Trash" on mua about 1.5 hrs ago but thus far they're still on bb.

[CanuckBB]

greeneggsandham,
Remember the crucial difference, there is no mail client in the traditional way on the BB. All mail is pushed to the device from a server, be it BES or BIS. When mention of IMAP support by BB, it is meant that the BIS can retreive mail from your accounts using the IMAP4 protocol, as opposed to POP3. BIS then sends that mail to your device. There is no direct link between the device and the IAMP account.

The 'Berry is designed to be pushed mail, so that it does not have to constantly poll mail accounts, This results in much better battery life.

[Keyscan]

Originally Posted by CanuckBB

greeneggsandham,
Remember the crucial difference, there is no mail client in the traditional way on the BB. All mail is pushed to the device from a server, be it BES or BIS. When mention of IMAP support by BB, it is meant that the BIS can retreive mail from your accounts using the IMAP4 protocol, as opposed to POP3. BIS then sends that mail to your device. There is no direct link between the device and the IAMP account.

The 'Berry is designed to be pushed mail, so that it does not have to constantly poll mail accounts, This results in much better battery life.

Everything you say is absolutely correct but I see some advanced users' desire to see IMAP IDLE return and to support a few for common names for TRASH, sent items, etc...

They have their reasons behind why they only support certain aliases but it is still beyond me why they haven't allowed for IMAP IDLE, even on a domain by domain basis.

A lot of us who followed the story in depth know why they disabled it, but it will be nice when they have their new integrations configured to sniff out the IDLE CAPABILITY/Concurrent connections and allow it to be applied to a domain automatically.

[Scott8586]

Originally Posted by greeneggsandham

d

btw- could your .Trash workaround is artifact of bb lack of namespace support? The "." being the traditional IMAP folder seperator, maybe bb needs to see it? Does your uw-imap implement altnamespace or unixheirarchy (use trad unix slash as seperator instead of period)?

Maybe. There isn't much of a way to control how the uw-imapd oserver perates. A grep of the source for uw-imap does not show anything for altnamespace or unixheirarchy. However several specific namespaces are available such as #shared,and #public

In my case, the BB network imap client was trying to move messages deleted by BB into a folder called ".Trash". uw-imapd was barfing on moving a messages to a non-existent folder, so i made a hard link from Trash to .Trash in my home directory. That solved the problem.

[greeneggsandham]

Originally Posted by CanuckBB

greeneggsandham,
Remember the crucial difference, there is no mail client in the traditional way on the BB. All mail is pushed to the device from a server, be it BES or BIS. When mention of IMAP support by BB, it is meant that the BIS can retreive mail from your accounts using the IMAP4 protocol, as opposed to POP3. BIS then sends that mail to your device. There is no direct link between the device and the IAMP account.

The 'Berry is designed to be pushed mail, so that it does not have to constantly poll mail accounts, This results in much better battery life.

Here's the problem again - BIS can retrieve email from an IMAP server via BIS, but it does not conform to IMAP4 protocol. So we should Instead cease using the term and just say that BIS implements a limited subset of IMAP4 client commands which provide for a restricted subset of interactions with IMAP mail servers. Then tell us what this subset is so we may then make an informed decision as to whether said subset will meet our needs. That would, I think, save a lot of confusion a frustration, but may not be the best for sales.

[John Clark]

Call me simple minded....I get email on my BB.

[juwaack68]

Originally Posted by greeneggsandham

Here's the problem again - BIS can retrieve email from an IMAP server via BIS, but it does not conform to IMAP4 protocol. So we should Instead cease using the term and just say that BIS implements a limited subset of IMAP4 client commands which provide for a restricted subset of interactions with IMAP mail servers. Then tell us what this subset is so we may then make an informed decision as to whether said subset will meet our needs. That would, I think, save a lot of confusion a frustration, but may not be the best for sales.

Uh...... wow. I agree with John. I get my non-BES email (aka, BIS), on my device. I honestly don't care how it works. It just does - and that's what's so nice about it.

I don't even need a lot of big words or acronyms to appreciate it

[greeneggsandham]

Originally Posted by Keyscan

Everything you say is absolutely correct but I see some advanced users' desire to see IMAP IDLE return and to support a few for common names for TRASH, sent items, etc...

They have their reasons behind why they only support certain aliases but it is still beyond me why they haven't allowed for IMAP IDLE, even on a domain by domain basis.

A lot of us who followed the story in depth know why they disabled it, but it will be nice when they have their new integrations configured to sniff out the IDLE CAPABILITY/Concurrent connections and allow it to be applied to a domain automatically.

Perk?? Is this in the works? Would also be really nice is if BIS would simply let you configure where you want drafts, trash, deleted item folders, etc. to be named like pretty much every other mua. Seems like it should not be too difficult to implement.

Originally Posted by John Clark

Call me simple minded....I get email on my BB.

So do I. And several other places as well, all of which are capable of presenting me with a consistent view of my IMAP account(s). Nor do I have to delete mail repeatedly on each mua - a common hack from back in the days before IMAP when we had to configure POP3 clients to "leave copy on server" so that we could have copies of our mail on multiple machines. Been there and done that - but not since the mid 90's. Call me complex minded but now I'm spoiled rotten brat and expect to delete once and be done with it. Looking like these puppies haven't evolved much on the backend of things since POP3 days

Bottom line is that various trade offs are being made that present associated advantages and disadvantages. Just like everything else in life. Knowing what they ahead of time, however, lets you focus on what bb devices CAN do instead of their short comings that come as a big surprise because of sales and marketing claims that I'm somewhat surprised have not resulted in a lawsuit.

Originally Posted by juwaack68

Uh...... wow. I agree with John. I get my non-BES email (aka, BIS), on my device. I honestly don't care how it works. It just does - and that's what's so nice about it.

I don't even need a lot of big words or acronyms to appreciate it

But I bet you know what MP3, SMS, MMS, and GPS mean... And the problem is that BIS doesn't really work. That's what started this thread. Trying to figure out what does, does not, and why might just make it fixable for us smart *nix geek types that built the internet that the rest of y'all enjoy using so much

[NJBlackBerry]

Ah yes - thank goodness for the smart geeks who made this all possible.

Enjoy IMAP, and the knowledge that you are superior. Heh heh heh.

I think many of us will keep using our nice BES, and enjoy wireless reconciliation and syncing.

Good night all.

[juwaack68]

Originally Posted by greeneggsandham

But I bet you know what MP3, SMS, MMS, and GPS mean... And the problem is that BIS doesn't really work. That's what started this thread. Trying to figure out what does, does not, and why might just make it fixable for us smart *nix geek types that built the internet that the rest of y'all enjoy using so much

I do know what most of those mean (ok, all of them), but I don't understand what you mean by "BIS doesn't really work". I receive my BIS email on my Blackberry. How is that considered not working? Yes, I read the entire thread, but I think I need pictures.

The same thing happens when my husband tries to explain VMWare and TSM Storage to me...my eyes just glaze over and I start counting ceiling tiles.