Items not marked as Read - Frustrating

[Kro]

Hi Everyone,

Emails in my Sent Items and Inbox sometimes display as Unread(Bold) even though I have read them. The Sent Items do actually send but still remail bold.

I've tried right clicking and selecting "Mark as Read" but that does not work.
And the problem is not only with my Outlook, I have confirmed the same behavior with at least 3 other colleagues.

The only way to temporarily fix this is to restart Outlook or some times restart the machine.

Please Help
We are running Scalix 11.0.1.22 connectors on a Scalix 10.0.0.175 Server with Outlook2003
Thanks in advance.

[operator]

Hi Kro,

do you have the same problem, when using a 10.0.352 connector ?
It´s not supported to use newer connector version, than the server version is.

Regards Markus

[kanderson]

Hi Kro.

Actually I'll word that stronger. You likely will create problems using a SX11 Client against an sx10 server. You should downgrade to sx10 on the desktop. now.

If you've rolled out the client to lots of users, and you don't want to downgrade them all, then you should upgrade the server ASAP.

Kev.

[Kro]

Hi All,

I was in actual fact misinformed,
About 2 or so test rigs were set up with the Scalix 11 connectors however a majority of the other users are using Scalix 10 connectors and are experiencing the same problems

I have downgraded the test rigs to Scalix 10 connectors and still the same problem.

Thanks for the response.

[kanderson]

This was a response in bugzilla for the error I submitted. Does it help?

http://www.scalix.com/wiki/index.php?ti ... d_imapsync

Be aware it will flag all messages as read.

How many users are you migrating, and what are you migrating from?

Kev

[Kro]

Hi Kev,

We did not migrate anything on the server.
The server was always a Scalix 10.0.0.175 with Scalix 10.0.0.366 connectors, we just happened to upgrade the Scalix Connectors on a few test rigs to Scalix 11.0.1.22.

Can we still use the flag mentioned. It should not be a problem if it flags everything and continues to do so in the "Sent Items" as read.

Kro

[racmar]

I have this same problem. I have only been using scalix v11, and we are currently on the 11.0.2 ( the new one ) release. This is frustrating, because all of my users have this same problem. It can be corrected for a short time if you close outlook and reopen it. I really wish scalix could fix this problem.

[kanderson]

I think that post belongs with a different thread. Hmmm.

Kev.

[racmar]

My post is relevant to this thread. My users and I also have problems /w using scalix's outlook connector. Sometimes, email cannot be marked as read, and it just stays bold. I was offering a workaround to his problem ( close outlook and reopen ). I guess after reading my post, it was not as clear as it should have been.

[les]

Hi Everyone,

Emails in my Sent Items and Inbox sometimes display as Unread(Bold) even though I have read them. The Sent Items do actually send but still remail bold.

I've tried right clicking and selecting "Mark as Read" but that does not work.
And the problem is not only with my Outlook, I have confirmed the same behavior with at least 3 other colleagues.

The only way to temporarily fix this is to restart Outlook or some times restart the machine.

Please Help
We are running Scalix 11.0.1.22 connectors on a Scalix 10.0.0.175 Server with Outlook2003
Thanks in advance.

I've seen this behaviour throughout all versions of scalix.

I found it to be a problem with antivirus software (in my case nod32) and specifically the EMON component of nod32 (the outlook email scanner portion).

With nod32 and EMON turned on every sent item displays as bold. If you disable the EMON it works fine and sent items are all unread as they should be.

You may not be using nod32, but i bet your antivirus has its outlook email scanner turned on and this is causing the problem. Try disabling that.

[racmar]

You are right about the antivirus probably being the cause, we use Avast!. But the thing is... I would never recommend people to turn off their email antivirus software. It is very irresponsible to do so. Especially since we've never had any problems with our previous email server(s). However, perhaps scalix could recommend an approved, or known to work antivirus software package?

If a company is lucky enough to do scanning at the MTA ( yes, we do ), I still would recommend they leave their email scanning software turned ON. We use ClamAV on the server, and a different antivirus on the client as a backup. I think scalix could ( and should ) find a way to get this working, since I've seen no problems /w exchange + antivirus ( note, that's just my experience ).

my $0.02

[les]

You are right about the antivirus probably being the cause, we use Avast!. But the thing is... I would never recommend people to turn off their email antivirus software. It is very irresponsible to do so. Especially since we've never had any problems with our previous email server(s). However, perhaps scalix could recommend an approved, or known to work antivirus software package?

If a company is lucky enough to do scanning at the MTA ( yes, we do ), I still would recommend they leave their email scanning software turned ON. We use ClamAV on the server, and a different antivirus on the client as a backup. I think scalix could ( and should ) find a way to get this working, since I've seen no problems /w exchange + antivirus ( note, that's just my experience ).

my $0.02

You misunderstand me......

I only recommend turning of the EMON Outlook Email Monitor portion of Nod32 or similar in other antivirus products.

Nod32 has about 5 different modules off the top of my head, IMON, AMON, EMON etc. They all do separate things.

Turning off just one component, which isn't absolutely necessary is ok.

Evey antivirus program as a type of "resident shield" which scans every file as you access it.
When you create a mail message and send it the system has to store that file somewhere before sending it, and it does this in a temporary location. The resident shield kicks in to ensure there is not a virus in the message you are creating.
The same happens when you attach something to an email, resident shield kicks in and scans the file as you attach it.
Then when you send, if you have EMON enabled (or an outlook email monitor part of another AV) it scans again outbound.
Effectively you are repeating the same step for nothing. The resident shield always checks every file.

The same is also true for incoming email, regardless of whether you use a front-end filtering setup on your gateway.
A new email arrives, you download it, it has to create a file on your pc, resident shield kicks in and scans it.
Even if a virus is in an attachment, if you try to open it it too has to create a file on your pc and resident shield is there again.

So turning off the EMON or Outlook Email Monitor portion is an ok thing to do. Leaving every other part of the anti-virus program running is fine.

and....if your using scalix its a piece of cake to integrate clamav (which you have) which will scan incoming and outgoing mails on the gateway also.

[racmar]

Ok, I see. Yes, you are right about the resident shield. But I wonder why antivirus companies have these plugins for outlook, if it is already taken care of by the resident shield? Another benefit of turning it off is faster outlook response, but I will have to consult my antivirus vendor to determine if they recommend disabling the outlook plugin.

[Kro]

Hi All,

Racmar, the symptoms you describe is exactly what we are experiencing and yup we use Avast! on our workstations as well.

I have sent this forum post to Avast! and will post the reply here.

Thanks for all your help

[racmar]

This was posted on the avast! forums:

The whole point of scanning email inbound is that it prevents infections from ever making it to your message store. It is far better to prevent it getting into the message store in the first place than detect it once it is there. Once the infection is in the message store there is the risk of it being detected there and the whole message store being quarantined or potential damage to the message store by an effort to excise the infection from the message store by an anti-virus program. These are the points being missed when you are told to just turn off the plugin.

The Outlook plugin is definitely the recommended method of scanning email when using the Outlook program. If the plugin is not used then, depending on the type of email accounts being used, scanning of the mail might still be done using the Internet Mail provider of avast. This scan will work for regular POP/IMAP/SMTP mail accounts in Outlook but will not work for any secured access (using SSL/TLS connections) - this is of course where the great advantage of the plugin exists - it is totally independent from the connection.

The concern about mail remaining marked unread in the Inbox is very understandable. Hopefully the avast team might have some comments on how the plugin could be involved in the observed problem.

I guess I'm just going to live with closing and re-opening outlook whenever my inbox items cannot be marked as "Read". I think it's probably a good idea anyway, and I'm not comfortable /w disabling my users outlook email scanning. I hope someone figures out a good fix for this problem in the future.