Description of Problem:



Ximian's Evolution IMAP client will not work with mail servers that do not properly implement the string literals (RFC2060) used by Ximian in


the login phase.  This of course is a bug in the mail servers, but since most (actually, nearly all) other IMAP mail clients do not use string literal format in the login phase, the bug usually goes unrepaired.  This is the case here at the University at Buffalo, where we use a home-grown proxy system for the authentication to our mail servers.





Incidentally, the IMAP client originally released with  MacOS X used string literals in the login phase.  Enough people complained that the program "didn't work", so the next version released by Apple with MacOS 10.1 did not use the string literal format for login.












Steps to reproduce the problem:



Unfortunately, you would have to login to the University at Buffalo mail server to reproduce this problem.  (imap.buffalo.edu)  You'll have to take my word that several of us have attempted to make Evolution work with our mail system without any success.  It has been documented in local linux USENET newsgroups and bulletin boards.






Actual Results:



Here is a copy of an IMAP session that illustrates the problem:





>received: * OK mail3.acsu.buffalo.edu Cyrus IMAP4 v2.0.16 server ready


>sending : B00000 CAPABILITY


>received: * CAPABILITY IMAP4 IMAP4rev1 ACL QUOTA LITERAL+ NAMESPACE 


>UIDPLUS ID NO_ATOMIC_RENAME UNSELECT MULTIAPPEND SORT 


>THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT THREAD=REFERENCES IDLE X-NETSCAPE


>received: B00000 OK Completed


>sending : ------ LOGIN {N+} ....


>received: B00001 NO Login failure


>sending : ------ LOGIN {N+} ....


>received: sorokine BAD Please login first






Expected Results:



A sucessful login.






How often does this happen? 



Every time.







Additional Information:



Obviously, this is not a bug in Evolution, it is a bug on our end.  However, the relatively small number of Linux users here at the university do not have the political pull to make the fix on our mail system a priority.  I'm sure this is a problem elsewhere.





I am requesting that the string literal format not be used for the login phase, or at least an option be provided to not use he string literal format during login.





Thank you for your time.