Disappearing Messages in IMAP Inbox

[cwilkens]

I have a quasi-repeatable problem: all the mail in my IMAP inbox sporadically
disappears from view (it isn't gone - Outlook 2007 just tells me there is
nothing to display.)

I use IMAP to access my primary e-mail account. Up to 50% of the time, when
I click on the IMAP inbox in the navagation pane, it takes me to the folder,
but I only see the small text "There are no items to show in this view." When
this happens, I can actually "see" the items disappearing from my inbox: the
white space where they would be displayed flickers slightly and the scroll
bar grows as if the number of items in the inbox is rapidly decreasing, until
it finally displays the text that there is nothing to display (about 2
seconds for my ~3000 item inbox.)

My problem seems to occur most when I quickly click between folders.

Has anyone else encounterd this? Is it a bug that I just have to live with,
or can it be fixed? Thanks!

 

[citizen]

Sounds like how the spam-filter works... You can tell if that's what your
seeing, by checking whether the "disappearing" messages are actually getting
moved into the "Junk E-mail" folder.
Is that what you're seeing?

 

[cwilkens]

No, I don't think it is the junk-mail. The messages are still there. They
appear again if you resort the view, or look at another folder for a while,
or probably many other things.

It does appear to be linked to the number of items in the mailbox - after
cutting my inbox size to about 700 messages, I cannot easily repeat the
situation (I guess that is a solution, though not one I find satisfactory in
the long term.)

 

[Brian Tillman]

No, I don't think it is the junk-mail. The messages are still there.
They appear again if you resort the view, or look at another folder
for a while, or probably many other things.

It does appear to be linked to the number of items in the mailbox -
after cutting my inbox size to about 700 messages, I cannot easily
repeat the situation (I guess that is a solution, though not one I
find satisfactory in the long term.)

Try lengthening your IMAP account's server timeout value. I'd reset the
view as well.