Mail read flag not sync between EWS and IMAP
Problem reported by Sébastien Riccio - 4/14/2022 at 11:15 PM
Submitted
Hello,

Some customers are reporting an issue when using their account on both emClient (connected with EWS) and any other mail client (mobile, desktop) using IMAP.

When a mail is flagged as read/unread on either side, it's not sync'ed with the other side.

I was able to replicate the issue on a fresh account by setting it in emClient (EWS) and IMAP (Thunderbird).

Of course this is _very_ annoying and critical issue because the customers are lost knowing which mail they've already read/processeed when switching workplaces.

Some additional tests I did while troubleshooting this issue for our customer:

- Changing mail read/unread state from Thunderbird, then forcing a refresh of the folder on emClient -> The flags are refreshed in emClient (also when closing/reopening emClient)
- Changing mail read/unread state from emClient, then forcing a refresh of the folder on Thunderbird -> The flags are _NOT_ refreshed in Thunderbird (even after closing/reopening Thunderbird)

- Changing mail read/unread state from Thunderbird, while checking in the webmail -> Flags are synchronized in the webmail
- Changing mail read/unread state from emClient, while checking in the webmail -> Flags are _NOT_ synchronized in the webmail

- Changing mail read/unread state from webmail, while checking in Thunderbird -> Flags are synchronized in Thunderbird right away.
- Changing mail read/unread state from webmail, while checking in emClient -> Flags are _NOT_ synchronized in emClient (unless forcing a refresh)

At this point I've stopped any further investigation as it looks there are many different synchronisation issues here.

 I'm not conviced yet if it's a global EWS sync problem with SmarterMail or if it's an issue with emClient implementation of EWS.

Thank you in advance for the help.

Kind regards

Sébastien Riccio
System & Network Admin

Sébastien Riccio Replied
Update: Opened a ticket about the issue.
Sébastien Riccio System & Network Admin https://swisscenter.com
Mike Mulhern Replied
Not sure this helps, have had a ticket open with SM since Oct 2021 trying to figure out a similar problem.  

Emails on iOS EAS remaining unread while same acct in MAPI > Outlook shows the email as read.  It appears to be intermittent.  SM has tried a few things and we've been trying to figure out the pattern/cause but no luck so far.
Sébastien Riccio Replied
Thanks for the info Mike.

In the case we're facing, my guess is that it is something around EWS or at least EWS/emClient combo.
When changing read/unread state from emClient, the webmail doesn't reflect the change, neither IMAP.

But all good when I alter the read/unread state from the IMAP client...

Perhabs it could also affect MAPI too, as if I'm not wrong, some EWS is also used when using MAPI.

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

The source of the issue of this topic seems to be located at client-side (emClient with EWS):

It is partially fixed with an internal emClient build available here:

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

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