POST IMAP translation problems cleanup procedure

Problem reported by Sébastien Riccio - 11/4/2020 at 7:02 AM

Resolved

Hello,

As you know some versions we installed that had IMAP folders translations enabled created a mess (mostly for outlook users using IMAP).

While these versions were running on our production server and because of these translations, duplicate folders were created for Drafts, Junk, and other special folders.

Now that the issue is fixed, we're left with a lot of user mailboxes that have these duplicate folders.

We need a procedure to problematically clean them. We wouldn't mind go manually if we had 10 users but for 25k+ accounts it's a nightmare.

These folders being present is quite an annoying situation because the update fixing the IMAP translation issues seemed to have reset all users language back to english (which is not a huge problem as each user could switch it back to french, indivitually).

However, most of them can't switch back to their original language because SmarterMail refuses to accept the change saying that switching the language would conflict with existing folders (the ones created by Outlook while these bogus IMAP versions were running).

It is generating quite an huge amount of support requests of customers not able to change their language in the webmail.

We need a solution to programatically check for each mailbox if such folders exists, and remove them if they are empty (or move the content back to the original special folder if they aren't).

Any idea / Suggestion ?

Thank you.

Sébastien Riccio

System & Network Admin

https://swisscenter.com

7 Replies

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Sébastien Riccio Replied

11/5/2020 at 11:26 AM

Hi Ronald,

I used to code in ColdFusion back in the days when it was still Macromedia :)

Well I was thinking about doing something in python with API calls (and maybe IMAP libs if needed). But well, first I have not much time to spend on this and also would need the list of all possible special folders translated names to check the folders against, and I don't have this list.

As the issue was generated by "bogus" translation changes to IMAP in SmarterMail production release I would think that SmarterTools had thought about a solution for their customers that were affected.

For our CEO, I already spend too much time on troubleshooting these IMAP (and other) issues on many clients and arguing in tickets/community to have these changes reverted, to now spend more time on coding a cleanup script.

At first we bought SmarterMail commercial solution to avoid having to develop our own solution and deeply troubleshoot/fix the problems ourselves, but in the end I've spent more time on bugs reporting/troubleshooting than setting up our own solution based on opensource components and own scripts...

That's why I'm asking if there is a near-ready solution to clean this :)

Kind regards.

Sébastien Riccio System & Network Admin https://swisscenter.com

Sébastien Riccio Replied

11/5/2020 at 12:18 PM

I would do something like this:

- Get a list of all accounts

loop start

- List mail folders for the account that aren't the official special folders

- Check if the folder name matches a possible translated special folder name (for this I need the whole list of possible translations).

- If it matches, check if it's empty

* If it's empty remove it

* If it's not empty, move the content to the user real special folder (need again the list of the possible translation of the folder and what special folder to know where to move the content), then remove it

loop end

But I don't know if all this is possible using the API only. Maybe ST can give some hint about what calls to use for the operations.

Sébastien Riccio System & Network Admin https://swisscenter.com

Sébastien Riccio Replied

11/5/2020 at 11:14 PM

Well I think so too Ronald.

It wouldn't be a big issue if there wasn't a side effect of these duplicate translated folders, but actually most of the people willing to switch back their webmail language from english to their original language are getting an error (because SM says it would conflict with existing folder names).

This create a lot of support requests and THIS is an issue.

Kind regards

Sébastien Riccio System & Network Admin https://swisscenter.com

Andrew Barker Replied

11/11/2020 at 9:21 AM

Employee Post

Sébastien -

We are currently developing a utility to help resolve the problem you are seeing. As you suggested, it will iterate through each user and merge any potentially conflicting folders.

Andrew Barker Lead Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Sébastien Riccio Replied

11/11/2020 at 9:33 AM

Hello Andrew,

Thank you for the information, this is great news.

Kind regards,

Sébastien

Sébastien Riccio System & Network Admin https://swisscenter.com

Andrew Barker Replied

11/12/2020 at 11:12 AM

Employee Post

We have completed development of the clean-up utility for this issue. If you have an open ticket for this issue, our support team will be reaching out to you. If you do not have a ticket and need this utility, please open a ticket.

Andrew Barker Lead Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Sébastien Riccio Replied

11/26/2020 at 11:14 PM

Hello,

Just a little update and warning about the cleaning utility provided by ST.

We cloned our SmarterMail server and ran the utility. At first it seemed to be great, but after checking a few "conflict resolved" mailboxes.

It appears that the content of the conflicting/dupe folder, that should be moved to the official folder, for example Brouillons -> Draft, is lost.

The tool says "XX messages moved" but they are not present in the destination folder and the source folder is removed.

I would advise not to run the tool on production servers yet until this is sorted out.

I've updated our related ticket at ST with this information...

Kind regards.

Sébastien Riccio System & Network Admin https://swisscenter.com

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