IMAP Timeouts with No-op dead stream Error

[RJ]

I think this is particular to Fastmail and Eudora not getting along: when
re-syncing IMAP mailboxes at Fastmail I continually get a timeout with an
error No-op dead stream. If I resynce right after launching Eudora its
fine. However after some period (like an hour) of not doing anything then
I get the error. If I clear out the error and try again it works, buts
thats something of a pain.

Had on both Eudora 6 and now 7.0.1. - running XP

Fastmail suggested that I use Thunderbird, and I verified that Thunderbid
does not have the problem. However, I'd prefer to stay with Eudora.

I have seen some other mentions of this error in other forums, but no
solution. Has anyone perhaps found any settings that can impact this
problem?

Thanks
RJ

[Katrina Knight]

Post by RJ
I think this is particular to Fastmail and Eudora not getting along: when
re-syncing IMAP mailboxes at Fastmail I continually get a timeout with an
error No-op dead stream. If I resynce right after launching Eudora its
fine. However after some period (like an hour) of not doing anything then
I get the error. If I clear out the error and try again it works, buts
thats something of a pain.
Had on both Eudora 6 and now 7.0.1. - running XP

I used to have that problem fairly often with 6.x if something else was
using enough bandwidth that Eudora couldn't quickly contact fastmail's
server. Do you have a really slow connection or is something else using a
lot of bandwidth when this happens?

[RJ]

Post by Katrina Knight

Post by RJ
I think this is particular to Fastmail and Eudora not getting along: when
re-syncing IMAP mailboxes at Fastmail I continually get a timeout with an
error No-op dead stream. If I resynce right after launching Eudora its
fine. However after some period (like an hour) of not doing anything then
I get the error. If I clear out the error and try again it works, buts
thats something of a pain.
Had on both Eudora 6 and now 7.0.1. - running XP

I used to have that problem fairly often with 6.x if something else was
using enough bandwidth that Eudora couldn't quickly contact fastmail's
server. Do you have a really slow connection or is something else using a
lot of bandwidth when this happens?

I have a broadband connection - cable modem, with ~3MB down, less than that
up, but still decent. I also don't think there is anything else using the
pipe most of time. Also, this timeout happens 100% of the time after I
have not checked the fastmail server in the last 30 to 60 minutes.

On the other hand if I exit Eudora and start it up again, it works just
fine. Sometimes it just quicker to do that than deal with getting and
clearing the error.

[Katrina Knight]

Post by RJ

Post by Katrina Knight

Post by RJ
I think this is particular to Fastmail and Eudora not getting along: when
re-syncing IMAP mailboxes at Fastmail I continually get a timeout with an
error No-op dead stream. If I resynce right after launching Eudora its
fine. However after some period (like an hour) of not doing anything then
I get the error. If I clear out the error and try again it works, buts
thats something of a pain.
Had on both Eudora 6 and now 7.0.1. - running XP

I used to have that problem fairly often with 6.x if something else was
using enough bandwidth that Eudora couldn't quickly contact fastmail's
server. Do you have a really slow connection or is something else using a
lot of bandwidth when this happens?

I have a broadband connection - cable modem, with ~3MB down, less than that
up, but still decent. I also don't think there is anything else using the
pipe most of time. Also, this timeout happens 100% of the time after I
have not checked the fastmail server in the last 30 to 60 minutes.

It certainly sounds unlikely to be a problem with slowness/lack of
bandwidth then. The fact that it happens when you haven't contacted the
server for a length of time is interesting. That's probably a big clue as
to what is going on, except that I don't know what to make of it. I'll
think on it and see if anything occurs to me. That kind of sounds like
some information on how to contact the server is being cached somewhere
and when it gets removed from the cache, you have problems. Are you using
any kind of proxy server?

For what it is worth, the issues I've had in the past with that error with
fastmail have not fit the pattern you describe.

[RJ]

Post by Katrina Knight

Post by RJ
I think this is particular to Fastmail and Eudora not getting along: when
re-syncing IMAP mailboxes at Fastmail I continually get a timeout with an
error No-op dead stream. If I resynce right after launching Eudora its
fine. However after some period (like an hour) of not doing anything then
I get the error. If I clear out the error and try again it works, buts
thats something of a pain.
Had on both Eudora 6 and now 7.0.1. - running XP

It certainly sounds unlikely to be a problem with slowness/lack of
bandwidth then. The fact that it happens when you haven't contacted the
server for a length of time is interesting. That's probably a big clue as
to what is going on, except that I don't know what to make of it. I'll
think on it and see if anything occurs to me. That kind of sounds like
some information on how to contact the server is being cached somewhere
and when it gets removed from the cache, you have problems. Are you using
any kind of proxy server?
For what it is worth, the issues I've had in the past with that error with
fastmail have not fit the pattern you describe.

Thanks for the reply, and to answer your question, no proxy server or
anything like that involved.

To support your nothing of something being cached, I've also noticed that
with more than one Fastmail email address, if go through the sequence with
one (let it time out, clear error, retry and its OK), then if I check
another Fastmail email address - they all use same Fastmail server address
- the second one will time out. So its something on each IMAP mailbox, not
the server in general.

On the other hand checking different mailboxes on the same email address
does work OK after the first mailbox for that address went throught the
timeout mess.

RJ

[Katrina Knight]

Post by RJ
I think this is particular to Fastmail and Eudora not getting along: when
re-syncing IMAP mailboxes at Fastmail I continually get a timeout with an
error No-op dead stream. If I resynce right after launching Eudora its
fine. However after some period (like an hour) of not doing anything then
I get the error. If I clear out the error and try again it works, buts
thats something of a pain.

I just came back from spending several days away from home, at a hotel
with wireless internet. Guess what happened when checked my Fastmail
account? Something very similar to what you describe, except that was
happening at intervals shorter than an hour. Any mail check done shortly
after another worked, but if a check wasn't done for a while, no-op dead
stream errors were the result.

The files on my laptop were all copied off my desktop computer right
before I left, so the misbehavior wasn't do to using different settings.
It definitely seemed to be related to the internet connection being used.
I would expect a faster connection to work better though, not worse, so I
don't know what was going on there, and unfortunately, I didn't have much
time to try to figure it out.