Some messages cannot be deleted

iqaluit

@WildEnte chiming in
I have this issue exactly the way you described. I has been a couple of days. Also on the mobile app, everytime I toggle on ''allow background audio playback'' it goes back to 'off' after exiting-reopening the app and also mobile app sync logged out on its own a couple of time

WildEnte

@iqaluit said in Some messages cannot be deleted:

I have this issue exactly the way you described. I has been a couple of days. Also on the mobile app, everytime I toggle on ''allow background audio playback'' it goes back to 'off' after exiting-reopening the app and also mobile app sync logged out on its own a couple of time

I'm not sure what to make of this in a thread about undeletable emails...?

Granite1

@WildEnte Good questions.

Is this undeletable message one that you sent to yourself by any chance?

No, it is not. For future reference, though, are those "self"-messages undeletable by default?

Are we talking about an IMAP or POP3 account?

POP3.

When you right click the filter where the message was deleted but still shows, and choose advanced - rerun filter for folder, does the message disappear?

I don't understand what you mean by clicking a filter where the message was deleted:

the message was not deleted
I am not running a filter.

Once I managed to delete a message by marking it as "read", but that was probably a coincidence because ever since then, marking as read has not allowed deletion. I just mention it in case there is a connection with something else.

WildEnte

@Granite1 said in Some messages cannot be deleted:

I don't understand what you mean by clicking a filter where the message was deleted

sorry, terminology. I look at everything in the mail panel as a "filter" or "view"that shows emails based on criteria they fulfill. Received shows all emails that are received. Unread shows unread emails. Except for custom folders, none of these items are actual folders but just an access point (as it was called initially in Opera M2, which is the predecessor in spirit).

Here's what I asked you to try:

@Granite1 said in Some messages cannot be deleted:

For future reference, though, are those "self"-messages undeletable by default?

no, this is just a pet bug of mine (VB-93994) and doesn't seem to be the root cause of what you see though.
Emails sent to self cause a number of strange effects, only one of which is said bug. The root cause of all these issues is a design choice of Vivaldi, which checks if an email A might be the same thing as an email B in a process called deduplication (which is quite common for email programs) and then treats them as being the identical thing. With sent-to-self emails, Vivaldi treats the sent email and received email as the same thing.
One of my favorite effects is this one: VB-89087 which is about the email in Sent gets the same status updates (read/unread, labels, flags) as the one in Received.

Granite1

@WildEnte

Here's what I asked you to try:

Re-running the filter does not do the trick. The deleted messaged stay in the Unread folder, and are also in the Received folder.

I ran the filter in both folders, to no avail.

WildEnte

@Granite1 some more thoughts:

(unlikely) does the email show up in All messages - trash? If so, then check the view filter toggles above the Unread and Received message lists if "show trash" is selected, and check if right-click on the trash filter & "empty trash" works
try to delete the message by going directly for Delete permanently, i.e. without sending the mail to trash first. Do this either in the right-click menu on the email in the list, or by hitting shift+del
what is the account setting for deleting emails? (Settings - Mail - select account - go to "server" tab
in the undeletable message, check the header right above the received date. Does it show something like this there?
When you click the mail status icon in the status bar, are there any errors?

iqaluit

@WildEnte said in Some messages cannot be deleted:

I'm not sure what to make of this in a thread about undeletable emails...?

Nothing. Rest assured.

edwardp

@WildEnte I previously submitted VB-100402 and VB-107658. Could this issue be the same as one of these?

Granite1

@WildEnte

does the email show up in All messages - trash?

Yes, it does.

If so, then check the view filter toggles above the Unread and Received message lists if "show trash" is selected

No it was not, but I have now ticked that box.

check if right-click on the trash filter & "empty trash" works

Yes, it does.

try to delete the message by going directly for Delete permanently

I tried that from the beginning, no luck.

what is the account setting for deleting emails?

That setting was set at Delete mail from server, 7 days after receiving from server.
I changed the latter to when deleting locally.

in the undeletable message, check the header right above the received date.

Here's the thing. We talked about mails to self, and I said no. But this last question of yours set me thinking.

The undeletable messages are all test mails that I sent from my accounts to each other. So, there is this: [email protected] to [email protected], or [email protected] to [email protected].

All those messages were received OK, so I deleted those without any problems.

However, it is the sent messages that are undeletable. And I don't know if the schedule in the previous para counts as "mail to self".

When you click the mail status icon in the status bar, are there any errors?

Plenty!! Most are DNS resolution failed. I figured that is due to the VPN I am using, and anyway the resolution eventually works, apparently, because I am receiving those messages, as well as from other sources.

However, some of the error notifications in the mail status show Error: Message not listed on POP server 00002b8651fa4699.

WildEnte

@Granite1 said in Some messages cannot be deleted:

The undeletable messages are all test mails that I sent from my accounts to each other. So, there is this: [email protected] to [email protected], or [email protected] to [email protected].

If all these accounts are retrieved by Vivaldi, this counts as 'sent to self' and we are probably talking about VB-93994 as described here - the idea is that if you have large attachments in an email, then you don't want all that data duplicated on your hard drive. So the important part is the email body and the attachments on the email. If those are the same for some sent and some received email, regardless in which accounts, Vivaldi treats them as the same thing.

The error messages about DNS resolution are most likely unrelated. But to really make sure, please set the Mail setting for deleting on the server to off, i.e. when you delete, Vivaldi doesn't try to connect at all. If the mail still does not get deleted, the connection errors don't matter for this topic. If the mail suddenly deletes fine, then the connection issues may be the root cause, but I strongly doubt it.

Can you still check what it says in the undeltable email in the header just above the date?

@edwardp said in Some messages cannot be deleted:

I previously submitted VB-100402 and VB-107658. Could this issue be the same as one of these?

Possibly. Not sure though, I haven't seen that behavior yet. Seems to me that VB-100402 requires an IMAP setup but @Granite1 said his is a POP3 account. VB-107658 looks more like it but I have no idea how to reproduce that. So for now, in particular after @Granite1 suggested that the mail might after all have undergone some deduplication, I'll put my money on VB-93994

Granite1

@WildEnte

But to really make sure, please set the Mail setting for deleting on the server to off, i.e. when you delete

Do you mean like this?

If so, then the messages stay on the server forever, don't they?

My email provider with the POP3 server asks that messages are deleted when they are downloaded.

Can you still check what it says in the undeltable email in the header just above the date?

It says Sent and then the email address.

Seems to me that VB-100402 requires @WildEnte said in Some messages cannot be deleted:an IMAP setup but @Granite1 said his is a POP3 account.

I discovered that there is also an undeletable "message sent to self" in my Vivaldi account Sent folder

WildEnte

@Granite1 said in Some messages cannot be deleted:

If so, then the messages stay on the server forever, don't they?

yes, this is just for testing purposes. If the email still refuses to be deleted, then the DNS errors in the Mail Status are unrelated, and you can check the "delete mail from server" box again.

I'm now rereading this older thread about Ghost messages stuck in some filter, maybe I'll find something that helps...
EDIT: nothing new, really.

Things I can come up with is to ...

restart Vivaldi and hope the issue is gone
once more do the 'rerun filter for folder' on every single view the message appears in, i.e. All messages; All messages - Sent; All Accounts - Account - Sent; ...
rebuild the mail search database (Mail status icon, then cogwheel icon, select Rebuild Mail Search Database)
Settings - Mail, right-click the account, reveal the data folder, go there, find the pesky .eml file containing that email, close Vivaldi, delete the .eml file, restart Vivaldi and do the above steps....

For an IMAP account, I suggest to go to the webmail interface and delete the email there and then let IMAP sync take care of it in Vivaldi.

Granite1

@WildEnte

yes, this is just for testing purposes.

You are amazing. Shift+Delete worked with that setting – deleting on server set to off.

So, what does that mean for:

the DNS/VPN side?
the POP3 server?

WildEnte

@Granite1 wow! that's a good question. Just to recap:

Email sent from Account A (POP3) to Account B (also POP3?)
Email received email was deleted from Account B, so only left in Sent of Account A
Email could not be deleted from Sent. Trash icon showed but deleting it permanently was impossible (empty trash, shift+del)
Tried Rerun filter for folder in several views, did not help.
Error messages in Mail status, apart from DNS errors specifically a message "Error: Message not listed on POP server 00002b8651fa4699"

Looking at this thread and the summary above I don't understand what you said here:
@Granite1 said in Some messages cannot be deleted:

Re-running the filter does not do the trick. The deleted messaged stay in the Unread folder, and are also in the Received folder.

shift+del did not work when "Delete on Server" -> after 7 days was set.

shift+del did work when "Delete on Server" was set to off.

So in hindsight, that "Error: Message not listed on POP server 00002b8651fa4699" message should have been the giveaway. Vivaldi tried to delete a message, tell the server about it, server said "this message doesn't exist" and then Vivaldi gave up deleting the message locally.

@Granite1 if you can confirm that this is the gist of it, I'll put it in a bug report. I hope that now your message is gone, you can go back to changing that setting back to how you like it and ideally you don't run into this issue again

EDIT: did you maybe delete that message in another email client, so it was already gone on the server when Vivaldi tried to delete it there? I would be quite surprised if that usecase would make Vivaldi trip over its own feet. Then again, POP3 is not all that common anymore.

Granite1

@WildEnte

if you can confirm that this is the gist of it

I'll put it in a bug report
I really hope this time they'll take notice because you have already put in a lot of effort with this is kind of issue and filed bug reports but they seem to ignore them.

Yes, it most certainly is. I am impressed that with all the back and forth and "try this", nope does not work, "try that", yep it works a bit but ... etc., you still manage to see the trees for the forest.

now your message is gone, you can go back to changing that setting back to how you like it and ideally you don't run into this issue again

OK, I'll do that but will remain alert.

EDIT: did you maybe delete that message in another email client

Nope, I did not

POP3 is not all that common anymore.

I know, I don't like it but it is with an email provider that is not controlled by anyone, therefore not financed by a 3rd party, they are financed by donations. Therefore they go for the cheap solution.

Maybe, when I have some spare time, I'll change to another provider.

Thanks again for your help and patience

Thot

I have this with replies to emails. The original email, to which I replied, can be deleted, but my answer to that cannot be. Sometimes moving it to the trash helps to make a deletion. But there were also cases in the past where this doesn't work.

WildEnte

@Thot @edwardp @Granite1 I filed this as a new issue --> VB-109950

reikkireikkipandit

@Granite1

I'm having the same issue. I can not delete a few of my emails, which is very weird. This is amazing, IE. I love this, but sometimes it consumes too much memory, so putting the other TABs in memory-saving mode is not available, which is insane.

WildEnte

@reikkireikkipandit welcome to the forum! Is your issue with undeletable emails like the one described here (root cause apparently: POP3 connection, error message 'message not listed on POP server') etc?

If not, please start a new thread and explain your setup in some detail:
IMAP or POP3 accounts, anything special about the undeletable emails (like sent to yourself from Account A to Account B), what steps do you take to delete the message, which filters/folders/views does the message appear in although it shouldn't etc.

Granite1

@WildEnte said:

I filed this as a new issue --> VB-109950

Thank you.