OL 2007 Interesting Post From windowsxp.general newsgroup

[Guest]

Some clues to the POP issue with Outlook 2007?

Nospam

Attn. MS MVP's, Developers, Coders, etc.


Sorry for posing here but I need to raise awareness of a problem with
Outlook 2007 confusing regular garden variety POP3 servers.

Netmon trace of IP traffic shows OL 2007 sending AUTH instead of USER

Trace of OL 2003 shows correct USER as first command (after TCP connect of
port 110 of course).

So, can I ask if MS intend to release an update for that?

Guys, this is so bad that there will be a few million teddy bears out there
who blindly upgrade to OL 2007 only to find that their POP3 email Send/Rec
is 10% of its usual speed!!!!!

(Us MSDN people are already feeling the pain.)

Sending AUTH as the first command to most POP3 servers of course results in:

" -ERR An authentication mechanism MUST be entered"

As per..

+OK POP3 server ready.
AUTH
-ERR An authentication mechanism MUST be entered
USER x
+OK please send PASS command
Etc.

I have also seen "-ERR AUTH not valid in this state" from Microsoft's OWN
POP3 Server on Windows Server 2003!!

This server, (mira.net) went into a SPIN ---- > **3 second timeout**!!
after it got the new fangled "AUTH" command.


2007.01.02 13:04:47 POP3 (mira.net): Connected to host
2007.01.02 13:04:47 POP3 (mira.net): +OK POP3 Ready mailproxy2 0001bff0
2007.01.02 13:04:47 POP3 (mira.net): Authorizing
2007.01.02 13:04:47 POP3 (mira.net): [tx] AUTH

** note 3 seconds later **

2007.01.02 13:04:50 POP3 (mira.net): -ERR Mate, the command must be one of
CAPA, USER, PASS or QUIT

I'll look at the RFC but remember OL 2003 does not do the AUTH thing. That's
why it gets your mail fast. I have 8 POP3 accounts that OL 2003 used to
query in a minute or two (with 80 spams downloaded of course). OL 2007 takes
around 6 minutes.

(Plus, I reckon there are other problems in the UI threading... Typing new
message locks up user interface if Send/Rec just happens.)

Someone please tell me I'm dreaming.

Hope this helps...

CW

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

This message was cross-posted to here as well.
I don't think it's the reason why Outlook 2007 is slow. 2007 is slow
regardless of POP or no POP. I'd suspect the slowness has to do with the
PST/OST file handling and how rules, receiving of new messages, etc
interact with those files. The main indicator I see that it has to do
directly with those files is that reducing the file size and number of
messages creates a significant performance boost.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
RibbonCustomizer Add-In: http://pschmid.net/office2007/ribboncustomizer
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Some clues to the POP issue with Outlook 2007?

Nospam

Attn. MS MVP's, Developers, Coders, etc.


Sorry for posing here but I need to raise awareness of a problem with
Outlook 2007 confusing regular garden variety POP3 servers.

Netmon trace of IP traffic shows OL 2007 sending AUTH instead of USER

Trace of OL 2003 shows correct USER as first command (after TCP connect of
port 110 of course).

So, can I ask if MS intend to release an update for that?

Guys, this is so bad that there will be a few million teddy bears out there
who blindly upgrade to OL 2007 only to find that their POP3 email Send/Rec
is 10% of its usual speed!!!!!

(Us MSDN people are already feeling the pain.)

Sending AUTH as the first command to most POP3 servers of course results in:

" -ERR An authentication mechanism MUST be entered"

As per..

+OK POP3 server ready.
AUTH
-ERR An authentication mechanism MUST be entered
USER x
+OK please send PASS command
Etc.

I have also seen "-ERR AUTH not valid in this state" from Microsoft's OWN
POP3 Server on Windows Server 2003!!

This server, (mira.net) went into a SPIN ---- > **3 second timeout**!!
after it got the new fangled "AUTH" command.


2007.01.02 13:04:47 POP3 (mira.net): Connected to host
2007.01.02 13:04:47 POP3 (mira.net): +OK POP3 Ready mailproxy2 0001bff0
2007.01.02 13:04:47 POP3 (mira.net): Authorizing
2007.01.02 13:04:47 POP3 (mira.net): [tx] AUTH

** note 3 seconds later **

2007.01.02 13:04:50 POP3 (mira.net): -ERR Mate, the command must be one of
CAPA, USER, PASS or QUIT

I'll look at the RFC but remember OL 2003 does not do the AUTH thing. That's
why it gets your mail fast. I have 8 POP3 accounts that OL 2003 used to
query in a minute or two (with 80 spams downloaded of course). OL 2007 takes
around 6 minutes.

(Plus, I reckon there are other problems in the UI threading... Typing new
message locks up user interface if Send/Rec just happens.)

Someone please tell me I'm dreaming.

Hope this helps...

CW

 

[Brian Tillman]

Sorry for posing here but I need to raise awareness of a problem with
Outlook 2007 confusing regular garden variety POP3 servers.

Netmon trace of IP traffic shows OL 2007 sending AUTH instead of USER

Trace of OL 2003 shows correct USER as first command (after TCP
connect of port 110 of course).

RFC 2554 clearly shows that AUTH should occur instead of the USER and PASS
commands. It should, however, occur after the EHLO command. In fact, the
client must send EHLO instead of HELO to identify itself if the AUTH command
is to be used, since AUTH is an extension to ESMTP, which uses EHLO.

Sending AUTH as the first command to most POP3 servers of course
results in:
" -ERR An authentication mechanism MUST be entered"

As per..

+OK POP3 server ready.
AUTH
-ERR An authentication mechanism MUST be entered
USER x
+OK please send PASS command
Etc.

In this example, the AUTH command is lacking the SASL (SImple Authentication
and Security Layer) mechanism keyword. The AUTH command needs a parameter.
However, the server, when it accepts the connection and the EHLO command is
supposed to tell the client what SASL mechanisms the server supports, as in:

ehlo localhost
250-local.sendmail.ORG Hello localhost [127.0.0.1], pleased to meet you
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-DSN
250-AUTH DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5
250 HELP

Now the client can choose either ""DIGEST-MD5" or "CRAM-MD5" as the
mechanism by sending, for example

AUTH CRAM-MD5

followed by the BASE64 authentication handshake. Because there is no EHLO
command, your server can't tell the client what SASL mechanisms it honors
and so Outlook doesn't include one. So, while there may be an issue with
Outlook, it doesn't appear to be the one you think it is.

It could be that if you were to enable POP before SMTP, that the connection
may complete properly. It's worth a try.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

According to an Outlook developer who worked on POP3, Outlook 2003 also
sends AUTH first. It's also part of RFC 2554 to send AUTH first. I believe
that OE also sends AUTH first.

 

[Tim Anderson]

According to an Outlook developer who worked on POP3, Outlook 2003 also
sends AUTH first. It's also part of RFC 2554 to send AUTH first. I believe
that OE also sends AUTH first.

That RFC is for SMTP not POP3.

Tim

 

[Tim Anderson]

That RFC is for SMTP not POP3.

In fact, a typical POP3 session according to RFC 1939 goes:

S: <wait for connection on TCP port 110>
C: <open connection>
S: +OK POP3 server ready <[email protected]>
C: APOP mrose c4c9334bac560ecc979e58001b3e22fb
S: +OK mrose's maildrop has 2 messages (320 octets)

AUTH is not a valid command as far as I can tell.

So the sequence:

+OK POP3 server ready.
AUTH

looks odd - can someone identify under what circumstances Outlook is doing
this?

Tim

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

AUTH is defined in RFC 1734 for POP3:
http://www.rfc-archive.org/getrfc.php?rfc=1734
It is a valid command and its purpose is:
" This document describes the optional AUTH command, for indicating an
authentication mechanism to the server, performing an authentication
protocol exchange, and optionally negotiating a protection mechanism
for subsequent protocol interactions. The authentication and
protection mechanisms used by the POP3 AUTH command are those used by
IMAP4."

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
RibbonCustomizer Add-In: http://pschmid.net/office2007/ribboncustomizer
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

 

[Tim Anderson]

AUTH is defined in RFC 1734 for POP3:
http://www.rfc-archive.org/getrfc.php?rfc=1734
It is a valid command and its purpose is:
" This document describes the optional AUTH command, for indicating an
authentication mechanism to the server, performing an authentication
protocol exchange, and optionally negotiating a protection mechanism
for subsequent protocol interactions. The authentication and
protection mechanisms used by the POP3 AUTH command are those used by
IMAP4."

Patrick,

You are correct, apologies. However I'm still not clear why Outlook would
sent AUTH without specifying an authentication mechanism.

I've run some tests of my own.

With a dovecot POP3 server, I get the -ERR Unsupported authentication
mechanism that the OP describes. However there isn't a significant delay
introduced.

With another POP3 server (not sure which) Outlook still sends AUTH but it
doesn't trigger an error.

I have a feeling Outlook is not doing quite the right thing, but that it
isn't really the cause of the slow collections.

Tim

 

[Brian Tillman]

RFC 2554 clearly shows that AUTH should occur instead of the USER and
PASS commands.

And clearly I missed the fact that the connection was to a POP server and
not an SMTP server. so what I posted is hardly germaine.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

According to the Outlook dev this is the same as was done in Outlook 2003 so
it's not likely to introduce any delays other than what were there before.
Some servers send back an error and then Outlook responds, others accept the
AUTH. Again, he also said that OE was doing the same thing but I don't use
it for email so I can't verify that.

 

[Tim Anderson]

According to the Outlook dev this is the same as was done in Outlook 2003
so it's not likely to introduce any delays other than what were there
before.

This is not true in my tests. I tried a POP3 retrieval in OL 2003 and no
AUTH command was sent at all.

Tim

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

I don't see it in my own log either, all I see there are USER/PASS
connections for my POP3/SMTP servers. All I can say is what I was told by an
MS developer. It might only be in cases of SPA or something else, but
supposedly Outlook 2003 does it also.

In any case AUTH should not cause more than a 3 second delay so shouldn't be
the cause of the email download slowdown in Outlook 2007. My suspicions are
towards more input processing going on somewhere in the incoming path to the
Inbox. But I'm just guessing on that.

 

[heirdrier]

Hi Guys,

I just ran up Outlook Express and did a connect to mira.net. It worked
perfectly. I traced the IP traffic and OE did NOT send any silly AUTH
command.

I tried OL 2003 the other day and there was no AUTH sent forward at any
time. So I'm not sure how come the OL developer thinks it is!!!

I also agree that OL 2007 is just plain slow anyway! And the UI locks
up during Send/Rec and - when I type - nothing happens - then - a
whole word squirts out and catches up with me. Lol - takes me back to
the days of microprocessors and when I had an ASR 33 hooked up to my
6802 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASR-33).

Yes 3 seconds isn't too bad. I agree. But why send auth in the first
place? There is obviously some POP3 server software out there that -
when it gets AUTH, it gets quite upset as 3 seconds for a server is an
eternity.
Try it yourselves.

Open a command prompt and type this in:


C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>telnet pacific.net.au 110
(And hit enter)

You will get a clear screen with the text shown below. Type in AUTH
(And hit enter) Nothing happens for 3 seconds - then the POP server
tells you you don't know what you are doing.
i.e Its telling Outlook 2007 its got it wrong!

+OK POP3 Ready mailproxy1 0001bfef
AUTH
-ERR Mate, the command must be one of CAPA, USER, PASS or QUIT

So, I don't know how much more bashing my head against a brick wall
this will take to finally get through to the OL 2007 Developer team. I
see some comments above about someone knowing someone.
Perhaps MS dont care - as there are bigger issues with OL 2007 UI
locking up (for 20 seconds I have seen at one point).

In hindsight, sure, this is not the reason I now wait 6 minutes for my
mail - something else is screwed too.

CW