Roundcube Webmail: Server Error: Failed to send fetch command

November 27, 2020

Subject: Roundcube Webmail: Server Error: Failed to send fetch command

Good day from Singapore,

This is a personal experience. I use Roundcube webmail, which comes out of the box with CentOS/Control Web Panel (CWP) web hosting control panel.

After my Inbox reaches almost 200,000 email messages, I frequently encounter the following error:

"Server Error: Failed to send fetch command"

My Inbox fails to list messages even after multiple repeated attempts to reload. Using Microsoft Outlook to delete all the email messages in Inbox and then emptying the Trash/Deleted Items does not work.

After briefly searching the internet, I found the solution. The solution can be found in the following article.

Article: Standard Webmail (Round Cube) slow performance mitigation

Link: https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Standard-Webmail-Round-Cube-slow-performance-mitigation/td-p/1661899

The solution is quoted as follows:

[QUOTE=Townman]

The SUs have had this under constant review with Plusnet. After many months of looking at the obvious likely causes, it now looks as though a performance issue within the Round Cube Webmail client has been identified as being a significant contributor to the end user experience of slow loading email lists. Though other issues have been found and addressed, this one remains under investigation.

There is however a simple end user mitigation for the issue, which tests have shown makes a SIGNIFICANT performance difference. The issue appears to be related to the mail list display sort sequence. If a user has EVER changed the sort list from the default setting (none) - which lists newest email first - to something different … and then switches back to most recent item first using the column sort toggles, this DOES NOT result in the same configuration as per before changing the sort sequence. There remains an explicit sort setting which gives rise to the performance issue. Not exactly an obvious expectation.

To set the sort sequence back to the default setting requires EXPLICT user action...

1. Log into webmail

2. On the inbox list screen select LIST OPTIONS which is the little grid icon on the left of the column title bar

3. Set sorting column to NONE

4. Click save

5. See the mailbox list display nearly instantly

Work continues to identify the cause of the delay in retrieving a sorted list. Squirrel Mail (Basic webmail) does not suffer this issue, so might be more pragmatic if you have a large mailbox which you wish to view in a sequence other than by date, most recent first.

[/QUOTE]

Mr. Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming is very happy to have solved this problem/issue with Roundcube webmail, because I will be able to use Roundcube webmail anywhere in the world.

Mr. Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming, 42 years old as of 26 November 2020 Thursday, is a TARGETED INDIVIDUAL (TI) living in Singapore.

REFERENCES

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[1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2020/11/26/183

[2] http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/2011.3/02919.html

[3] https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=160638308017156&w=2

[4] https://lwn.net/ml/linux-kernel/5b93da4f118ec3e987e83ae41a42fa06%40teo-en-ming.com/

[5] http://lists.linuxfromscratch.org/pipermail/lfs-chat/2020-November/029161.html

[6] http://lists.roundcube.net/pipermail/users/2020-November/012644.html