IMAP Status: Failed - possible solution<[email protected]>

C

Chris Rimple

I recently encountered the same problem; mysteriously, I began seeing the error "Your IMAP4 server informs you of the following: STATUS failed" in Outlook every few minutes. My configuration:

- Oracle 9 email server
- Outlook 2003
- Oracle Connector For Outlook (from Oracle 10g) configured for IMAP access

I did some searching and came across a few possible causes:

1. Hidden sub-folders of the default Oracle Inbox sub-folder Trash have been removed and need to be replaced. See http://readlist.com/lists/lists.sourceforge.net/courier-users/0/3585.html for more.

2. There could be a bug in the IMAP implementation in Oracle that leaves "hanging" sub-folders after a parent folder has been deleted. See http://bugzilla.zimbra.com/show_bug.cgi?id=21382 for more.

3. There could be some problem with a folder that isn't obvious in Outlook, but that might be obvious with another client. See http://www.tutorials-win.com/OutlookGen/Your-server/ for more.

I tried hiding and unhiding the default Inbox sub-folders Sent and Trash, which are not used by Outlook but which are present in Oracle, but that didn't solve the problem. However, the posts about deleted sub-folders got me to thinking; sure enough, I had created a number of Inbox sub-folders in the past, and had recently deleted one.

Specifically, the issue appears to be that:

- Deleting an Inbox sub-folder from Outlook moves it to be a sub-folder of Deleted Items
- Sub-folders of Deleted Items are never permanently deleted (except perhaps if you have "permanently delete" selected in your AutoArchive settings in Outlook)
- Normally, after deleting an Inbox sub-folder and seeing it moved to be a sub-folder of Deleted Items, I would manually delete it again, causing me to be prompted to permanently delete it, which I would accept
- This time, I left the deleted Inbox sub-folder as a sub-folder of Deleted Items for a day or more

So, I permanently deleted the sub-folder of Deleted Items, and the STATUS errors stopped immediately. Hopefully, this solution will solve your problem, too.


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Keywords included for people who may be searching the Internet for this issue:
"Your IMAP server informs you of the following: STATUS failed"
"Your IMAP4 server informs you of the following: STATUS failed"

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