RoundCube not showing full contents of email inbox

[#1]

If the above is a response to me - because I always have... Why would that make any difference to the behaviour of webmail

[#2]

Same again this evening (XPSP3-FF13) - I have screen-shots if anyone wants them. Today it was 32 (next to Inbox) when opened changing almost immediately to 25 then 35 once refreshed.
It's not just the more recent ones which are missing in the fuller list. The last two received are on both lists, then the refreshed "35" one has seven not included on the "25" listing, with the other three missing ones being interspersed over the previous 6 or so.

[#3]

Quote from: drj

If the above is a response to me - because I always have... Why would that make any difference to the behaviour of webmail

You're obviously not prepared to consider trying to pin down why it's happening and instead just keep spamming the forums when it does.
Investigating whether a conflict between POP3 and IMAP or if you have slightly unusual POP3 settings would be a possibility to consider.
I use IMAP and have never seen any issue with wrong message counts - webmail always agrees with Thunderbird.

[#4]

A  - please note I'm NOT Spamming the forum - I'm just trying to be helpful reporting the problem when it happens and how it happens in the hope someone might then be able to sort something out. Would someone from Plusnet please advise whether they wish me to continue reporting instances of this happening or not.
B - I fail to see what you mean by "Investigating whether a conflict between POP3 and IMAP or if you have slightly unusual POP3 settings would be a possibility to consider." - this problem is happening in webmail not in Outlook Express. It is happening on all three computers I use to access webmail. Perhaps you could explain why the manner in which I access emails from one of those computers will affect how webmail will operate?

[#5]

C - this problem happens in any case when I have not accessed my emails in the interim from Outlook Express, I had OE open last night and downloaded emails, but I don't generally use it in the morning, just looking at webmail and dealing with anything urgent directly through there. I then sometimes look at webmail from work at lunchtime, then open up webmail in the evening from home - primarily to weed out Spam emails plus the ones I'm plagued with supposedly intended for a building company in Somerset and wrongly addressed to me - then sometime during the evening open up OE and sort out all the ones I want to keep.

[#6]

Just to back drj up, I too only get the problem on plusnet webmail.  The mailbox I access is the spam mailbox so it is never accessed by any mail clients, only webmail.  There are no fancy folders or anything. It is a plain vanilla plusnet mailbox accessed by a plain vanilla webmail/roundcube.  Happens on many different computers with different ISPs and various flavours of IE and FF.

[#7]

@ Jelv :
I've already looked into POP and things previously with drj but the only conclusion to be found is that it's not connected to this issue.
As for posting every time it happens, umm... well it shows that it's still around but it's not really helpful in finding anything out. Unless there's a way you can get it to happen every time or something out of the ordinary shows up, it might be best not to report every instance.

[#8]

What happens in Outlook Express will obviously affect webmail because they are both looking at the same underlying mailbox (if you delete an email in webmail before going in to Outlook Express, that email doesn't appear in Outlook Express).
IMAP is designed to keep mailboxes synchronised when looking at it from multiple places (webmail uses IMAP to access your mailbox), so any changes you make to the contents of your mailboxes you make via webmail (including moving emails between folders) will be totally replicated if you look at your mailbox using an IMAP client and vice versa. Removing emails using POP3 isn't going to update the mailbox/folder status in the same way and could well cause what you are seeing, IMAP then sorts it out after a refresh.
If any serious attempt is to be made to reproduce your issue, knowing how OE is configured and what you've done via OE is essential. (You should also note that Outlook Express is one of the worst email clients out there when it comes to conforming to standards!)
When you've finished a session in webmail, do you log out or just close the browser window? Updated status not being written back to the server is another possibility.
I'd recommend using IMAP instead of POP3 and have a set of local folders as well as the folders for the email account, then move or copy the emails you want to keep to the local folders. One big advantage of that method is that if you send emails at lunchtime via webmail at work you'll have the sent emails on your PC when you fire up your email client and can save them as well (at the moment you probably BCC yourself if you want to keep a copy).

[#9]

@Jelv.
I get exactly the same problem as drj and my mailbox doesn't go anywhere near outlook or any other email client.
It is a 100% webmail based mailbox.

[#10]

Well just to add this to the mix, I use both Web mail and POP with Outlook Express, I've used Squirrel and Roundcube, and I can't reproduce this, but there is one difference I suspect, and that is my OE is set to leave mail on the server.
I still say, as someone else has also said IIRC, this is all to do with the way the data is retrieved from the server, and this is inherent in Roundcube.
Roundcube displays the Folder list first and then the message list when you first open it, but how and when it's retrieved which data from the server or compacted, I don't know, but clearly it's not updating itself in a timely manner in certain circumstances.
Nor do I have Roundcube set to Compact the Inbox on Logout. I guess kmilburn's post here may have some bearing on what is going on.
Has anyone visited the Roundcube site and their forums, to see if other users on other systems have ever experienced similar issues?

[#11]

Thank you jelv for taking the trouble to respond in detail

Quote from: jelv

What happens in Outlook Express will obviously affect webmail because they are both looking at the same underlying mailbox (if you delete an email in webmail before going in to Outlook Express, that email doesn't appear in Outlook Express).

I do realise that...

Quote from: jelv

Removing emails using POP3 isn't going to update the mailbox/folder status in the same way and could well cause what you are seeing, IMAP then sorts it out after a refresh.

Yes - but each morning I look at emails via webmail and generally don't download via OE as I've mentioned.
The total and unread email counts are both fine at that point.
It's only after the inbox has filled up during the day (I hardly ever access it at work) that I go back onto webmail and see experience this problem. The problem has arisen when OE hasn't been used...

Quote from: jelv

If any serious attempt is to be made to reproduce your issue, knowing how OE is configured and what you've done via OE is essential. (You should also note that Outlook Express is one of the worst email clients out there when it comes to conforming to standards!)

I am not a computer expert. As far as I know OE is configured as much as it can be as "standard" whatever that might be. I have used Outlook Express perfectly successfully for nearly 13 years. I have tried Outlook (since I used to use it at work) but it's overly complicated for a home user. I have tried converting my email archive to Windows Live Mail - that just wouldn't happen and I had to use System REstore to rid my computer of the corruption it caused. I've tried converting it to Thunderbird which wasn't satisfactory either (though not as bad). I realise I will have to sort out something shortly since a new computer beckons and I'm presently looking at alternative ways to keep my archive - but I'm not abandoning OE at present.

Quote from: jelv

When you've finished a session in webmail, do you log out or just close the browser window? Updated status not being written back to the server is another possibility.

More often than not I'm automatically logged out. Why Roundcube can't operate as GoogleMail or YahooMail is a mystery. On those I'm logged in for weeks at a time whereas with RC it's sometimes only minutes. I've tried leaving a browser window open with RC logged in but although that seems to hang on sometimes it also logs out if there's no activity.
At other times I just close the browser down. There seems little point in logging out as such. Are you suggesting that the fact I don't log out causes this problem? I concede that may have a bearing though would have to monitor the situation, and I'd still suggest the software is defective if that inaction then causes problems.

Quote from: jelv

I'd recommend using IMAP instead of POP3 and have a set of local folders as well as the folders for the email account, then move or copy the emails you want to keep to the local folders.

Sorry but I have around 450 .dbx files in my OE store - equivalent to folders. Whilst not all those are in everyday use, I don't intend to alter the way I work just because the webmail software is defective. I would be more likely to abandon Roundcube entirely and switch to either YahooMail or GoogleMail. I've been trialling both (in fact all incoming emails are mirrored to Yahoo) but find both more cumbersome than Roundcube which in its simplicity is actually quite pleasant to use in contrast to the heavyweights.

Quote from: jelv

One big advantage of that method is that if you send emails at lunchtime via webmail at work you'll have the sent emails on your PC when you fire up your email client and can save them as well (at the moment you probably BCC yourself if you want to keep a copy).

I would BCC myself if using Yahoo or Google (simply because I haven't fully learnt how to use them) but Roundcube has the big advantage of the "Save sent message in:" option. If I want to keep a copy of the sent email I merely set that option to "Inbox" and the email is thus automatically downloaded when I eventually connect with OE. In writing this email I've also discovered there's a "Place replies in the folder of the message being replied to" option which would do that automatically - albeit presumably only for replies and not initial emails which would still require the other solution (or BCC).

I will henceforward post no further examples to this topic since it's clearly of no use. No doubt others will report the problem arising from time to time.

[#12]

Further examples would be useful if you if have suspicions about the circumstances in which it fails or works - that would give people ideas to experiment with to try to pin it down. It's just that "it's happened again" with no further information isn't that useful.

[#13]

Quote from: Anotherone

I still say, as someone else has also said IIRC, this is all to do with the way the data is retrieved from the server, and this is inherent in Roundcube. Has anyone visited the Roundcube site and their forums, to see if other users on other systems have ever experienced similar issues?

I think it certainly is linked to that and it also explains the other curiosities with regard to RC, like the deleted email showing up instead of the email selected (first thing done after login is delete the message).
Not had time to look over the RC forums about any of this but it's more than likely there's something there also.

[#14]

Quote from: cjags

A slight variation.  Fired up roundcube. It displayed inbox(20) right away (and 1 to 20 of 20 in status bar). Clicked on check for new messages.  Inbox total up to 48 but status bar stil says 1 to 20 of 20.

Did it eventually say 1 to xx of 48 without you taking any further action? (xx being 48 or less depending on your Rows per page setting?)
Are you logging in and logging out each time?

[#15]

Quote from: Anotherone

Did it eventually say 1 to xx of 48 without you taking any further action?

No.  Had to open up a message to read it then the status bar corrected itself.

Quote

Are you logging in and logging out each time?

Yes.
The error only happens at logon. 
Once roundcube has sorted it self out (with a bit of help) it is fine until you logoff.