Suddenly lost AOL IMAP push on one of my two addresses

[tonygamble]

I was one of the first people to get two Compuserve addresses with names after they upgraded from the mix of numbers.

When AOL took over Compuserve they agreed to host the addresses for nothing and all has gone well until just now.

I have both set up to use 'Push' with Aquamail and the software picked up the messages as soon as AOL got them.

Now one account works and the other has the 'push' tick boxes greyed out. When I look at that account in settings I get the message 'This account can be upgraded to stronger security (oauth2).

I have sent a query to AOL but I guess it could be some time before they reply.

Does anyone here have a suggestion as to what has gone wrong and, better still, a way I can fix it? I see no way I can set up a new account and have oauth2 as an option if it is not something like gmail.

For ref I am using 1.16.0.1198

[mikeone]

It seems, they're working constantly on a transition of their different mail systems:

https://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=6777.msg40879#msg40879

... and - unfortunately - there's nothing good about that, I guess:

https://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=6346.msg38386#msg38386

[tonygamble]

Thanks Mike,

Back in 2017 Kostya posted this

"Re: push

For push mail, for "Internet Mail" (IMAP) accounts, Aqua Mail uses the industry standard, well documented, widely supported "IDLE" extension.

It is supported/used by: Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, Yandex, GMX, Fastmail, Web.de services and others, and also servers like Dovecot, Courier, Cyrus and others."

That was in this thread
https://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=5673.msg34487#msg34487

However I take your point that techies can get transitions wrong and this seems to be what has happened here. I got an email back from AOL overnight and their main rebuff is to beware of third party email applications. With that in mind I re-activated my K9 that I had used before I heard about Aquamail and it cannot get my wife's account to recognise the IDLE.

I think I will have to accept that it may not be corrected by AOL.

Whilst digging for the solution I read several times on this forum about how much more battery power is used by IDLE compared with doing a frequent sync. With that in mind I have moved from IDLE to a five minute sync. I can live with that delay. Would you agree that my battery will be benefitting.

The other extremis solution is to move the whole email address which is my wife's name @compuserve.com to my own UK based server that I trust. Is it possible to migrate/move a full email address with the @ to a server that is nothing to do with the words after the @. Google is far from clear. What is your view?

Thanks for your interest and help so far. Aquamail is brilliant. I wish I had come across it earlier and not wasted so much time with other software.

[mikeone]

The other extremis solution is to move the whole email address which is my wife's name @compuserve.com to my own UK based server that I trust. Is it possible to migrate/move a full email address with the @ to a server that is nothing to do with the words after the @. Google is far from clear. What is your view?

That's a technical question 'behind the scene' of an average user that I unfortunately can not answer.

[tonygamble]

Thanks Mike,

And your understanding of the power useage of IDLE v sync every five mins?

Tony

[mikeone]

Sync every five minutes drains more battery than IDLE push if you receive less than 50 messages per day, according to my own experience (on several devices).

Unfortunately, because AOL / Yahoo does not properly implement IDLE (Push), the user must increase the frequency for the 'Scheduled Sync' to compensate.

[tonygamble]

Thanks Mike,

You say that AOL does not implement it correctly.

What is odd is that I have one account that works with IDLE and one that does not (now, but it did).

I am trying to get AOL support to tell me what the difference is in the way they are hosting. At the moment all I am getting is 'cut and paste' replies but I will struggle on.

Tony

[mikeone]

Thanks Mike,

You say that AOL does not implement it correctly.

What is odd is that I have one account that works with IDLE and one that does not (now, but it did).

The only thing I know about is this post written by Kostya:

https://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=5673.msg34487#msg34487

Re: push

For push mail, for "Internet Mail" (IMAP) accounts, Aqua Mail uses the industry standard, well documented, widely supported "IDLE" extension.

It is supported / used by: Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, Yandex, GMX, Fastmail, Web.de services and others, and also servers like Dovecot, Courier, Cyrus and others.

Yahoo however chose to not implement it. I believe they have their own mechanism for push mail which they'd worked out with Apple and which is undocumented.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Please long press on the account on the app's main screen -> options and folder

First, do you see "IMAP options" section there or perhaps "POP3 options"?

Second, if you see "IMAP options" please tap into "account options" - where I guess you see "Push mail" grayed out:

- Is "scheduled sync" there enabled? If not please enable it.

- If "scheduled sync" already enabled - is there an explanation under "push mail" why it's disabled, maybe "this server does not support push mail"?

[tonygamble]

Thanks Kostya,

Yes it says 'This server does not support Push Mail. (IMAP\IDLE'

What is frustrating is that I have two email address using @compuserve and hosted by AOL.

One of them works with Push Mail.

So far I cannot get the AOL support desk to do anything more than reply with what is clearly a Cut and Paste of the settings I should use. I want someone to spend a modicum of time looking into why the two mailboxes are hosted differently. In a way I would be less annnoyed if neither of them worked but now I see that one can I would like the other to be configured the same way.

Tony

[Kostya Vasilyev]

RE: Yes it says 'This server does not support Push Mail. (IMAP\IDLE'

For push in IMAP accounts, Aqua Mail relies on the industry standard "IMAP IDLE" extension.

The message means that the server doesn't include the IMAP IDLE extension capability in the list of extensions it says it supports.

Here is an idea. The standard incoming server for @aol.com addresses is imap.aol.com and it does support IMAP IDLE last I checked.

I'm guessing you're using some other server / server name for the "bad account".

Maybe imap.aol.com would work too? Since the account is "taken over", "migrated" etc.?

[tonygamble]

Thanks Kostya,

I have tried altering the setting to the aol one you suggested.

It still shows no access to IMAP/IDLE

When I go back in to Edit Account it flags up a message with a green background saying 'This account can be upgraded to stronger security (OAUTH2)' - so your Aquamail is spotting something different in the connection with AOL. I could not find any way I could use OAUTH2 on Aquamail. If you can think of one I'll give it a go.

I sent two more queries to AOL support but I suspect I am still being dealt with by the lowest level of support - and it is hard to know how to break out of that loop for an ordinary customer like me!

Tony

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Looks like same exact issue - push (IMAP IDLE) not working anymore:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/k-9-mail/lvHmlg9HMnE

I *think* it's all fallout from this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_Inc.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Oh OK.

They're now using Yahoo mail servers instead of AOL mail servers I mean for @aol accounts too.

imap.aol.com -> is really (DNS-aliased) imap.mail.yahoo.com

And Yahoo never supported IMAP IDLE.

This is also why you're getting the prompt about OAUTH2 upgrade - but it doesn't actually work because they did not import @aol accounts into Yahoo OAUTH2 back-end.

What a mess.

---

I was almost sure they'be migrating @yahoo accounts to AOL's servers, but they went in the other direction.

[tonygamble]

Bad news then Kostya.

Mike admitted he did not know the answer. Maybe you might.

Is it possible for me to take my two  ****@compuserve.com addresses over to my own local web server without changing their names?

I'm assuming not but, if I could, I'd feel safer and I know that it does support IDLE and Push.

My guess is that they would still need to route via AOL/Yahoo and I'd be just as open to their failures and muddling.

Tony