trouble downloading emails with large attachments - Yahoo

[Tamás]

Hi all!
I am using the Yahoo Webmail extension for Thunderbird.
My problem is that TB apparently cannot download email messages
containing large attachments (some MBs) from my Yahoo mailbox. TB
check for mail in the Yahoo mailbox, then in the status line at the
bottom it says downloading: 1/x, it really seems like it would be
downloading... but then, nothing happens, no new mail appears in the
TB inbox folder, but there is no error message frm TB either (I have
increased the POP timeout so that shouldn't be the problem).
Does anyone havea solution for this?
Thanks in advance,
Tamás

[Webmail Author]

Can you send me the Yahoo log file (see webmail extension)

[alanrf]

Just thought I would see what happens with a large attachment. I am
using the Yahoo add-on version 1.4.5b5 and Thunderbird timeout set to
300 seconds.

Just tested with a 5.5Mb file sent to my yahoo account which produced
(due to standard attachment encoding) a 7.5Mb message on Yahoo
server. It did take a while to download but did download
successfully.

[Tamás]

I did some testing, too.
It's very interesting, because the problem isn't present with all
large emails: in fact, I trsted with a 8 and a 10 Mb mail, and they
downloaded fine. The one that doesn't download is about 7 Mb, e.g. it
seems that size is not realy the problem. I forwarded this 7 Mb email
to another yahoo email address, and couldn't download it from there
either.
So somehow it seem that there must be something special besides the
large attachment with those emails that cannot download, but i can't
figure out what.
Any suggestions?
Tamás

[Chris Clifton]

Could it be something particular about that attachment? Some email
systems don't allow certain file types, as defined by the file
extension, in case they may be a virus. For example, file.exe will be
blocked by many email servers, but the same file renamed to file.aaa
will be accepted.

--

[alanrf]

Anything different (like the file type) in the problem attachment?

[Tamás]

Nothing special, it is a pdf file.
Meanwhile, I got another large attachment mail that doesn't download,
it has a pps file in it, so that's nothing special, too.
I am really starting to get confused about this :(
Tamás

[Tamás]

Could I send the problemful email to someone's yahoo address here, so
that we can see if he/she can download it ibto TB or if the same
problem appears than in my case?
Tamás

[alanrf]

Tamás,

certainly. I have sent my Yahoo address to your Gmail account.

[Tamás]

Thank you Alan, I have forwarded two emails of about 7 Mb-s to your
yahoo address.
I am really curious if you can download them in TB.
Thanks for your help, best regards,
Tamás

[alanrf]

Both messages downloaded. I had the Webmail extension logging turned
on during the download (incidentally the Yahoo log file for
downloading those two messages is itself over 35Mb). The log shows
that it took just over 3 minutes to download the two messages. I was
also monitoring the performance on my system - Thunderbird (or at that
time the Yahoo extension) was consuming ~60% of my systems CPU (I have
dual 3Ghz processors) so receiving those files also requires quite a
lot of CPU time. I suspect that older single processor systems could
find the time for download extended simply because the CPU is maxed
out.

[Tamás]

Thank you, but now I am really out of guesses what to do.
I have an Intel Core2Duo CPU @ 2 GHz so that shouldn't be the problem.
Tamás

[alanrf]

Tamás,

all I can suggest now is that you turn on the Webmail extension
logging (see the Logging tab in the main Webmail extension's options)
then try to retrieve the messages.

The Webmail Author asked above if you have a log of the problem. Of
course if it working the log will probably (as I reported above) be
too large for you to send to the Webmail Author but if small enough
then it will help the Webmail Author diagnose the problem.

[Tamás]

My Yahoo log files are large, even though the downloads crash. I asked
the Webmail Author if I should upload them somewhere for him to be
accessable, but got no answer yet.
Tamás

[Tamás]

I uploaded my yahoo log file here:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xppaqo
I guess the last several lines are the really inportant ones, since
they contain an error message, so I paste them here, too:

--0-1976634565-1249424058=:41776
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-2
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: attachment; fileName="98858995.txt"

_______________________________________________
fasor-kisifi mailing list
fasor-...@fasor.hu
https://secure.videsign.hu/mailman/listinfo/fasor-kisifi

--0-1976634565-1249424058=:41776--


.
6:19:06--YahooPOPBETA.js: serverComms : Exception :
NS_BASE_STREAM_CLOSED.
Error message: Component returned failure code: 0x80470002
(NS_BASE_STREAM_CLOSED) [nsIOutputStream.write]
1565
6:19:06--YahooPOPBETA.js: emailBuilt : END
6:19:06--emailBuilder.js: processAttachmentsCallback - END
6:19:06--emailBuilder.js: processAttachments - END
6:19:06--emailBuilder.js: processAttachmentsCallback - END

Any ideas what this may mean? Webmail Author maybe?
Thanks, Tamás

[Webmail Author]

> 6:19:06--YahooPOPBETA.js: serverComms : Exception :
> NS_BASE_STREAM_CLOSED.
> Error message: Component returned failure code: 0x80470002
> (NS_BASE_STREAM_CLOSED) [nsIOutputStream.write]
> 1565

This is a timeout, you need increase the connection time out value
(tools -> options -> advanced -> Disc and network)

[Tamás]

Timeout has been set to 99999999 sec already. How could that not be
enough?
Tamás

[alanrf]

Hi Tamás,

I just re-downloaded the emails you sent to me with the same timeout
setting as you have in Thunderbird. Both of them downloaded again
without a problem.

I did take a look at your log file. Please accept my assurance that I
have never found anything in the extensions that timeout the
connection. It suggests that (for some reason) Thunderbird is no
longer willing to accept the input from the Webmail extension after
about 4 minutes.

What might be getting in the way is the question.

Are you using an antivirus product that scans your email messages?
Are you using any anti-spam scanner?

[Tamás]

Hi Alan,
You are just great! :)
It was my AVG antivirus that didn't let the mails download. When I
have disabled its email protection, the downloads succeeded (with
heavy CPU load, though, but as you wrote, that's normal, although I
don't really see what is so CPU-consuming about downloading an email
attachment :) ...).
Now I'm trying to find some settings in AVG that would not disable
email protection completely but would let my attachments download.
Thank you for your helpfulness,
best regards,
Tamás

[Chris Clifton]

Downloading an attachment through web mail is processor intensive
because the extension has to first download the file from the web site,
then encode it into a form that Thunderbird will recognise as being the
same as an attachment in an email from a normal POP server.

--

[Tamás]

Thanks, I didn't know that!
Tamás

[alanrf]

Let me put in a small advertisement for my anti-virus of choice. I
use the free home edition of avast! - just as highly rated as AVG - it
scans my emails and has caused me none of the issues you have
encountered.

Alan

[Tamás]

Avast? Hm... I think I have tried it once, but then I stopped using
it, I think I have found it eating up too much memory or something
like that...besides, as I recall, I its "glossy, media-player-like"
outlook didn't arise my confidence in it (however, I know this
shouldn't be a consideration when choosing antivirus software, but I
just remember I didn't like it somehow).
So maybe it is time to give it another try and see how it performs
compared to AVG as far as memory usage is concerned...
Thank you again for yout tips, best regards,
Tamás

[alanrf]

There have always been alternatives (at least in the current version)
to the old fashioned default media player scanner. However, the whole
thing will change in the last part of the year with their new version
avast! release 5.

As I recall ...even the moderators who were die-hard AVG proponents in
the main Thunderbird forum became avast! advocates after the last
major update of AVG.

Nevertheless, your system and your choice, of course.

Alan

[Tamás]

> As I recall ...even the moderators who were die-hard AVG proponents in
> the main Thunderbird forum became avast! advocates after the last
> major update of AVG.

Uh, what terrible thing did the AVG guys do in that update? :)

> Nevertheless, your system and your choice, of course.

In fact, your posts convinced me of your expertise, so I pretty am
sure I will give Avast a try.

Thank you again, regards,
Tamás

[Chris Clifton]

I was finding that AVG slowed my system to a crawl when scanning. Avast
runs as a screensaver and only scans when you're not doing anything else.

--

[Tamás]

One more question.
Is there a way to download mails sent from yahoo web into TB? With
GMail, this isn't a problem, TB downloads mail sent from GMail web
into TB inbox, but of course with filtering it can be downloaded to TB
sent, too.
But as far as I have tried, mails sent from Yahoo web aren't
downloaded :(
Regards,
Tamás

[rug...@gmail.com]

I had this issue quite a while ago and don't remember exactly what
solved it.
So let me tell u what my settings are and maybe that will help.
I don't believe it had anything to do with my firewall or AV, but if
the settings don't work, that would be the next place to look.

I am using version 1.4.4 of Webmail for Yahoo
The Yahoo site is set for "All-New Mail"
Sign in to Yahoo Mail using ur browser.
If u are using "Classic" u will need to click the third tab over on
the top left on the mail page = "All-New Mail"

If u are using "All-New Mail" u will see "Available Mail Classic" on
the top left next to ur welcome.
Clicking that will take u back to classic mail - don't!

in TB -- Go to "Tools/Add-ons/Webmail - Yahoo 1.4.4/Options/Account"
Mode = Beta Website
POP > check mark emails as read
> check download junk
Advanced = short ID

Hopefully, that will do it. Good luck.