Server side searching never works for me

[dfects]

Hiya,

Am I missing something with server side searching? When I go onto my message list for any account and hit the search icon it says "search folder and server" but it never seems to return any results from anything other than cache. It takes 20-30 seconds maybe then nothing. I have two IMAP accounts registered from two different providers and both have this issue.

Searching in their web interfaces for the same term in the subject line works fine and also works from thunderbird.

Any ideas?

[StR]

Could it be that both IMAP servers do not have the search capability (or it is disabled)?

Yet another thought:
The search interface is somewhat cryptic, and I am still getting confused by it. Sometimes, I am not sure if I searched the way I intended.
If I were you, I'd try to add a GMail account (I suspect it should have server-side search enabled), and try searching in it. If it still doesn't work, - it might mean that you are not using the search option correctly.

[dfects]

Thanks for the reply. The providers are fastmail and office 365. I could believe office 365 doesn't fully implement the IMAP spec, but I'd be surprised if fastmail didn't. Not sure if I can find out if they're supported or not.

Not sure how I can be using the search feature incorrectly... go to the list of messages, hit the search icon and it clearly states it will be searching the server. I know if you search from the main account list it only searches the local cache. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but I remember this working properly a while back.

I'm a paid user and have been for years but this is pretty much a deal breaker for me.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: Not sure how I can be using the search feature incorrectly... go to the list of messages, hit the search icon and it clearly states it will be searching the server.

You are doing it the right way.

Re: fastmail

I have an account there, just checked, it worked, found two messages from 2013 (waaay beyond what the app had synced).

Please note that the search bar has a button for "what exactly to search for" -- initially it's message text, and tapping it, cycles through that -> all headers -> sender address only.

If the above doesn't help, please capture the issue in the app's debug log as described at the link in my signature, below. You will need to enable "raw session data".

[dfects]

Hmm that's interesting. If I leave it on the T option that it was on, the same behaviour persists where it seemingly times out. If I switch it to headers only then 2-3 seconds later I get results back. Switching back to T then works fine (guessing its been cached at that point). Searching for a new term on T though and I get the same results.

I wonder if fastmail is just too slow doing a text search? Although their own app is really quick when searching. Gmail doesn't have this problem on exactly the same list of emails (mirrored the account to there as I'm probably switching back to gmail).

The folder I'm searching on has about 26000 emails in.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: the same behaviour persists where it seemingly times out

Oh if it times out, then yes, the server isn't able to complete the search within the timeout (and it's quite generous, at least 30 seconds).

You should see a short flashing error message if this is the case.

And yes, searching by just some headers is faster.

Re: number of messages, Gmail

I have > 60K messages there, server search completes within just a few seconds (up to 5 or so).

But my Fastmail account / folders have maybe 1-2 K messages.

Re: Fastmail's own app

Maybe it uses a different server / backend which does a better job at indexing?

[dfects]

I don't see any error messages it just shows "Search complete (0)" with it showing cached results. Flip to headers, 2-3 seconds I get the results. Will send through a log to the support email in case you get time to have a look 

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: Will send through a log to the support email in case you get time to have a look

OK, thanks.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

@dfects

I checked your log (thank you).

The server finds (returns) no matching messages.

2017.01.06 18:28:31.770 +0000    [IMAP.4610]    Sending: kman15 SEARCH RETURN (ALL) CHARSET US-ASCII TEXT {6+}
2017.01.06 18:28:31.770 +0000    [IMAP.4610]    Sending search literal
2017.01.06 18:29:02.149 +0000    [IMAP_RAW.4610]    Data is <45>:
kman15 OK Completed (0 msgs in 26.884 secs)

2017.01.06 18:29:02.150 +0000    [IMAP_RAW.4610]    Line: kman15 OK Completed (0 msgs in 26.884 secs)

This is the IMAP command sent by Aqua Mail:

kman15 SEARCH RETURN (ALL) CHARSET US-ASCII TEXT {6+}

( kman15 is the "command tag", essentially "the command's sequence number" )

The server takes about 30 seconds (see timestamps on the left) to come back with:

kman15 OK Completed (0 msgs in 26.884 secs)

"kman15" is the command tag again (to identify which command this response is for)

"OK" means the command executed successfully

But there were no matching messages.

---

And this is a search (my fastmail account, on my phone) that actually found matches, for comparison:

kman91 SEARCH RETURN (ALL) CHARSET US-ASCII TEXT {4+}
* ESEARCH (TAG "kman91") ALL 2,4:6,11,16:18,20:30,32:37,43,45,51,53,56,58,61:65,67,70,75,77:78,81:82,87:88,91,93,97,100,103,107:109,113,115,117,119,122:125,127,129,132,134,138,140,143:145,149,153:155,157,160:162,165:167,171:172,174:179,182,186,188,190,192,195:196,199:200,204,207:208,210:212,214,219,223,226,228,230,232,234,240:241,243:244,247,250,253,255,262,267,271:272,274,277,282,285,287,290,292,294,296,298,301:302,307:309,312,314,317,319:323,325:326,328:329,331,335,337,343,346:355,364,367,372,375,380:383,393,397:403,407,409,413,425,436:438,442:443,447,463,466,470:477,480,487,491,494,505:506,519,524,527,533,538:539,555,568:569,573,577,582,589,593:594,596:597,610,613,615,618,622,626,632,636:637,639,653,655,661:662,668:669,672,675,694,697,699,705,708,745:747,766,778,780:783,789:791
kman91 OK Completed (259 msgs in 0.704 secs)

[Ken Butler]

I'm curious if this problem has been resolved?  I have a gmail account and I have exactly the same problem, server/loaded searches only provide returns from messages loaded on my device (S7 Edge).  I can send a log if that helps.

I'm also a paid long-time user as well, but I really need the server search function.  It used to work fine for me.  I'm not sure when it stopped working.

[Ken Butler]

I start Aqua Mail and open up the message list, not the smart folder.  I tap the search icon at the top, after which it says "Search folder and server".  I type a string for a message that I know is not loaded on my phone but is in a message residing on the server, and the search comes up "Search complete (0)".  Since the prompt says that it is searching on the server, I would expect it to retrieve a list of messages that are sitting on the server that match the string I gave it.  The symptoms sound exactly the same as posted by dfects on 1/4/2017.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

@Ken Butler

Yes, a debug log would help. At least I'd be able to tell if Aqua Mail is getting any results from the mail server (Gmail) at all.

This is an important point -- for @dfects above, I could see in the log that Fastmail was not returning any matches.

[Ken Butler]

I'll send you the log.  I'm pretty sure that it isn't that the server isn't sending anything because I can do the exact same search with either the Gmail app or the Samsung native email app and they both find the message that I'm looking for on the server.

Thanks for the help.