[Alpine-info] Search problem

[Eduardo Chappa via Alpine-info]

On Sat, 27 Jul 2024, Olaf Skibbe via Alpine-info wrote:


> I am in the INBOX of the account and want to select all mails from a 

> certain sender. I do

>

> ; T F <search pattern>

>

> where <search pattern> is in this case something in the "From" header, 

> e.g.

>

> ; T F olaf

>

> should find mails with a line like this in the header:

>

> From: Olaf Skibbe <olaf at kravcenko.com>

>

> But actually, the result of the sequence "; T F <search pattern>" is 

> always empty, regardless of obvious matching mails.


It seems like your IMAP server, who is the one doing the search, is not 
finding messages. Have you tried searching for an email address instead? 
Maybe your server searches that field.

On another note, Alpine can do the search instead of the server, but this 
requires that Alpine downloads the information first (which is closer to 
what Thunderbirds does before it shows your the index). In order to force 
Alpine to do the search you would have to modify your configuration to add 
the flag "/loser" into it. For example, if your inbox-path, say, is

{some.server.com/ssl/user=yourid}INBOX

then that needs to be modified to

{some.server.com/ssl/user=yourid/loser}INBOX

for Alpine to do the search. Please understand that there is a price to 
pay here, and that is that Alpine has to download the missing information 
on the folder, which will take time. The second time a search is done 
Alpine will search in the cached information, so it will be much faster 
than the first time, however, in both cases the search will be done 
correctly.

> [...]

> I would appreciate hints to how I could maybe get around this issue (I 

> use the select functions very much, dozens of times every day for many 

> years) or how I can evaluate the problem in more detail to address the 

> people at Strato with it.


In regards to how to debug this in Alpine, simply reproduce the issue, and 
once it has been reproduced press M J and set the debug level to 9, then 
look for the lines that say IMAP DEBUG. The one of interest to you is the 
one that says "SEARCH FROM" and the contents that follow it immediately.

I do not recall how to debug Thunderbird, but a quick search in 
DuckDuckgo.com will get you the answer your are looking for.

I hope this helps.

-- 
Eduardo