Re: BAD Missing or invalid argument to APPEND

On Mon, 11 Jan 2010, Robert Hardy wrote:
> I get the error message "BAD Missing or invalid argument to APPEND" from my
> mail clients (Profimail 3.25 and I think alpine 2.00 too) when sending a
> message and it's saving in sent-mail.

I doubt very much that this is happening with Alpine 2.00.  I would have 
to see proof before I believe such a thing.

Proof would be a .pine-debug# file resulting a session started with the 
command "alpine -d imap=4" in which the problem was made to happen.

I'm not saying that it's impossible.  I am saying that I don't believe it; 
and I won't believe it, unless/until I see a .pine-debug# file that shows 
Alpine making it happen.

I wrote both the APPEND command generation code in Alpine 2.00, and the 
APPEND command parsing code in UW IMAP.  Those two segments of code have 
interoperated successfully with each other for nearly two decades without 
ever generating that error message.  I would be extremely surprised if 
there was a bug after all these years.

The error message is from UW IMAP.  It is a catch-all for a syntax error 
in the APPEND command from the client.  I would have to see the command in 
question to determine what, precisely, is wrong with it.

> Can someone tell me if this is a server bug or a client bug, what is wrong
> and ideally how to fix it?

It is almost certainly a client bug.

If, as I suspect, you can not make the problem happen in Alpine 2.00 after 
all, then delete the word "almost" from the previous sentence.

If that is the case, then see if there is some option in Profimail 3.25 
that takes a telemetry transcript of the IMAP protocol negotiations.  If 
so, I can look at it for you, and tell you what Profimail 3.25 is doing 
wrong.  It will then be between you and the vendor of Profimail 3.25.

-- Mark --

http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
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