So in my quest to figure out what is causing compatibility issues with Thunderbird's Idle implementation, I've come across a rather odd behavior. It appears that even though new mail is delivered to the mailbox, the "Exists" count is never updated until the mailbox is closed and reopened (via new Select). This renders the Idle command completely useless. Below shows a manual IMAP session where I initially Select Inbox and use Idle to monitor. I have modified the code slightly so that it reports the exists count even if not changed. You can see while the Idle is active it continues to report 98 exists and 3 recent. At this time I send a new mail to this mailbox, and verify from the logs that it is delivered. The count remains the same, even after I terminate the Idle and issue a Status to get the count. Only after I re-Select the Inbox, then the count updates to 100 exists and 2 recent. Ideas?
. select Inbox
* 98 EXISTS
* 3 RECENT
* FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Draft \Deleted \Seen $Forwarded $label5 $label1 $label2 $label3 $label4 nonjunk Junk $MDNSent Old)
* OK [PERMANENTFLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Draft \Deleted \Seen $Forwarded $label5 $label1 $label2 $label3 $label4 nonjunk Junk $MDNSent Old \*)] Ok
* OK [UNSEEN 96] Ok
* OK [UIDVALIDITY 1372114864] Ok
* OK [UIDNEXT 313892] Ok
* OK [HIGHESTMODSEQ 1] Ok
* OK [URLMECH INTERNAL] Ok
* OK [ANNOTATIONS 65536] Ok
. OK [READ-WRITE] Completed
. Idle
+ idling
* 98 EXISTS
* 3 RECENT
* 98 EXISTS
* 3 RECENT
* 98 EXISTS
* 3 RECENT
* 98 EXISTS
* 3 RECENT
. Done
* 98 EXISTS
* 3 RECENT
* 98 EXISTS
* 3 RECENT
. BAD Invalid Idle continuation
* 98 EXISTS
* 3 RECENT
. Status Inbox (MESSAGES)
* 98 EXISTS
* 3 RECENT
* STATUS Inbox (MESSAGES 546)
. OK Completed
. Select Inbox
* OK [CLOSED] Ok
* 100 EXISTS
* 2 RECENT
* FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Draft \Deleted \Seen $Forwarded $label5 $label1 $label2 $label3 $label4 nonjunk Junk $MDNSent Old)
* OK [PERMANENTFLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Draft \Deleted \Seen $Forwarded $label5 $label1 $label2 $label3 $label4 nonjunk Junk $MDNSent Old \*)] Ok
* OK [UNSEEN 96] Ok
* OK [UIDVALIDITY 1372114864] Ok
* OK [UIDNEXT 313894] Ok
* OK [HIGHESTMODSEQ 1] Ok
* OK [URLMECH INTERNAL] Ok
* OK [ANNOTATIONS 65536] Ok
. OK [READ-WRITE] Completed
