Re: Dreamhost Compatibility

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed July 11 2007 9:26:28 am Tom Purl wrote:
> Dreamhost support, and here's their response:
> > Unfortunately it does not appear that our system is compatible with
> > this application because the ID changing is part of our standard mail
> > setup.  Our servers are setup to fully support standard IMAP, which to
> > my knowledge means that we support OfflineIMAP as well. You may want
> > to see if you can find another application that supports IMAP folders
> > whose IDs change. Sorry that I couldn't be of further assistance.

By IDs are you referring to the folder UIDVALIDITY?

See the "UID VALIDITY PROBLEM FOR SERVER" section in the OfflineIMAP for more 
detail on that.

It is not possible to guarantee an accurate sync if the server is not 
preserving UIDs.  While the server is probably complying with the IMAP 
protocol by at least indicating that it isn't preserving UIDs (which is why 
you get an error instead of losing mail), saying that it "fully supports 
standard IMAP" would be quite incorrect.  Failure to support UIDs will 
likely break -- or at least impair -- any mail reader with offline support 
(KMail's disconnected IMAP folders, Thunderbird, Evolution, etc.)

> Will any of the new features planned in OfflineIMAP 6.0 make it possible
> for me to use it again?  Do you need more information from Dreamhost to
> make an educated guess?

Probably what I need is the OfflineIMAP error you're getting.  If it's a UID 
validity problem for a folder, then no, OfflineIMAP will never work with 
that server and never can because the server isn't providing enough info to 
sync with.

> Also, if what I want isn't possible, then what would be a good
> workaround so that I could use OfflineIMAP again?

If you have direct access to your Maildir/mbox/whatever store, you could 
compile your own IMAP server and invoke it via a preauth tunnel (where 
OfflineIMAP invokes ssh to the server and runs the IMAP server from the 
command line -- so you don't have a running "server" process listening on 
any ports)

-- John