Protonmail: All emails disappear from inbox (and reappear, then disappear again...)

Description

After syncing a new account (a ProtonMail one, through ProtonBridge IMAP/SMTP), all is well for about 10 minutes or so, and then all emails in the Inbox disappear from it (one at a time in a short span of about 10 seconds).
The missing messages do not appear in the Archive or when performing a research.
However, they are still in the Inbox on the server side.

The emails show up again from time to time when I check the Inbox folder, and as soon as I open up the Inbox folder they stard disappearing again.

I have a Gmail account also synced in and experience no issues with this one.

To Reproduce…

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

  1. Sync a new account (ProtonMail in my case)
  2. Wait for several minutes
  3. All Inbox emails disappear

Expected Behavior

I expect to see all my inbox emails in my inbox at all time :wink:

Screenshots

Setup

  • OS and Version: macOS 10.15.7 (19H114)
  • Mailspring Version: Version 1.8.0 (1.8.0)

Additional Context

Here is (already) an update, I don’t know whether I should keep that as a comment on this bug or as another new bug:
when I check my “all mail” folder I can only see in the list the most 2 recent mails that are actually in the all mail folder on the server…

It seems worth opening a new bug for that one. It may be connected, but then again, maybe it isn’t.

This sounds very similar to what I’m experiencing: New emails move automatically between archive and inbox

Hi dan,
I did read your bug report before filing mine. It’s a bit similar, but in my case new emails either show up in the inbox, or totally disappear (and do not show up in the archive).
The emails I see in the archive are supposed to be in the archive (but I only see a small fraction of what I’m supposed to see).

Hi

Yeah I wasn’t suggesting you hadn’t read mine, just wanted to point out the similarity in case it hadn’t been noted :slight_smile:

Have you tried clearing the cache in protonmail-bridge? I don’t want to speak prematurely but I’ve just done that and re-set everything back up and it doesn’t seem to be happening now.

Worth a shot?

Clearing cache didn’t solve it, still happening :frowning:

Here is an update.
I tried clearing the cache, thanks @danhead for the tip :slight_smile:
It didn’t fix the issue but allowed me to observe more carefully what happens during the sync.

Basically, clearing the cache of ProtonMail Bridge removes all email data and disconnects my account. So on MailSpring’s side it’s kind of like a sync reset of some sorts I guess. Anyway here’s what happens:
m

When MailSpring first scans the folders, the Inbox is “coherent” (all the messages that should be there are there).
During “scanning/browsing” of the other folders (“balayage” in French, when the green circle is slowly blinking next to all the folders), it’s fine.
The issue happens at the same time than this scanning is over. All email disappear progressively from the Inbox in a few seconds after the end of the scanning.
Hope this helps :wink:

Another element of interest: whenever I start the app, the Inbox is coherent. The inbox empties itself after a time (a few minutes usually). I haven’t seen any event that seems to trigger the emptying.

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Same issues here, does anyone have any new info on this? I watch all my emails disappear and then there’s a message that says “Hooray! You’re done.”

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I don’t know when exactly this’ll be something that Ben can look at. There are a lot of things to do! However, because Mailsync is now open source, anyone else tech-savvy is encouraged to take a look. (Yes, I know the Mailsync build system doesn’t work outside of Ubuntu 16.04 right now…that’s what I’m working on.)

If there is anything I can do to progress this issue to its resolution, let me know. I can follow troubleshooting steps, send log files, etc. For me, it does appear the emails are being archived in Mailspring, but are still in the inbox in ProtonMail itself. They disappear (Hooray! You’re done), then re-appear, disappear, etc.

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Heads up, @bl00mber is trying to debug this one in hopes of possibly addressing it in a related PR:

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Potential fix for this bug in:

Thanks, @bl00mber!

(PR now awaiting review/testing)

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How can we get this review taken care of?

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Is something else missing to merge this changes? if it needs more testing im willing to help

Is this supposed to be fixed by the (now merged) PR? I’m still getting the same issue.

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Now March 12, 2022 and issue remains for protonbridge users.

Please, guys, try to fix this. This disappear and reappear issue really annoys me. Thanks!

I would also appreciate if this issue could be fixed. It’s honestly the only thing preventing me from purchasing the pro version of the software and using it as my main email client.

Hi everyone,
have the same bug.

It’s really frustrating, because Mailspring, while re-syncing all the mails, uses A LOT of web traffic.
My Mailbox is about 2GB, and the Mailspring/ProtonBridge has over 35GB of Download Traffic in the last few days…