[Alpine-info] Search problem

[Olaf Skibbe via Alpine-info]

Dear Eduardo and Carlos,

Thank you very much for your support.

On Sat, 27 Jul 2024 at 15:25, Eduardo Chappa via Alpine-info wrote:


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

>

>> 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.


This does not change the behavior.


> 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.


This works, but...


> 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.


...does this apply for the full text search as well? I just did

; T A <pattern>

on a 360M sized INBOX with the flag /loser set. It took about 10 
seconds, the downloaded data was below 1M. So the full text search is 
still done on the server, right?

If the /loser flag only downloads the headers to search them locally, 
this might be a way to go.


> 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.


Ah, I did not knew this function. I checked this with a pattern which 
matches the FROM header of one mail in the INBOX:

; T F <pattern>

and got the message: [Select failed.  No messages selected.]

The journal contains:

IMAP DEBUG 12:57:15 7/28: 1800001c SEARCH FROM <pattern>
IMAP DEBUG 12:57:15 7/28: * SEARCH
IMAP DEBUG 12:57:15 7/28: 1800001c OK SEARCH completed (0.000 s)

Then I did

; T P <pattern>

which selected the expected mail. The journal now contains:

IMAP DEBUG 13:02:39 7/28: 18000025 SEARCH OR (TO <pattern>) (OR (CC <pattern>) (FROM <pattern>))
IMAP DEBUG 13:02:39 7/28: * SEARCH 5
IMAP DEBUG 13:02:39 7/28: 18000025 OK SEARCH completed (0.009 s)

Searching in the CC or the TO header does not select the mail, since the 
pattern can only be found in the FROM header.

Is there something the learn from the debug information?

Thanks again,
Olaf