Connection Diagnostics

Connection Diagnostics records what QuickMail is doing when it talks to your mail servers, so a problem that is hard to describe can be looked at directly instead of guessed at.

It is off by default and most people will never need it. While it is off, nothing is recorded, no log file is created, no connections are made on its behalf, and no Connection Diagnostics item appears in the Help menu.

When you might use it

Turn it on if:

• An account shows as disconnected when it seems to be working, or shows as connected when mail is not arriving.
• Mail stops arriving for one account but not others.
• An action reports a failure you cannot explain — a delete or move that “may not have completed”, for example.
• You are filing a bug report about any of the above and want to include something concrete.

It is a troubleshooting tool, not something to leave on. Turn it off again once you have what you need.

Turning it on

1. Open Settings (Ctrl+comma) and go to the Advanced tab.
2. Check Record connection diagnostics.
3. Select Save.

Recording starts immediately — you do not need to restart QuickMail first. That matters when a problem is happening right now, since restarting would clear the very thing you are trying to capture.

Once it is on, Connection Diagnostics appears in the Help menu.

The Connection Diagnostics window

Open it from Help → Connection Diagnostics. Focus starts in the accounts list.

Accounts lists every account with two things: the status QuickMail is currently showing for it, and what its mail server actually said the last time it was checked. When those two disagree, the list says so in plain words — for example that an account shown as disconnected answered normally, which means the status is wrong rather than the connection.

Test this account — press Enter on an account, or use the button, to check it right now. QuickMail opens a brand-new connection that shares nothing with the connections it is already using, signs in, and reads your Inbox. The result is announced and added to the list. This is the question the window exists to answer: whether the problem is your connection or what QuickMail is reporting about it.

Connection events is the running record, newest first. Each line is one event — a connection being opened, reused, or dropped, a sign-in failing, a status changing. The dropdown above the list filters it to a single account.

Copy report puts a complete report on the clipboard. Save report writes it to a text file. Either can be attached to a bug report or pasted into an email.

Keyboard: F6 and Shift+F6 move between the accounts list, the events list, and the buttons. Ctrl+Shift+P opens the command palette. Escape closes the window and returns focus to where you were.

What it records

• Your account names, and the names and network addresses of your mail servers.
• Connection attempts and what happened to them, including how long they took and the exact error when one fails.
• Changes to the connection status QuickMail shows for each account, and what caused each change.
• The results of any checks it runs.

What it never records

• Passwords or authentication tokens.
• The contents, subjects, senders, or recipients of your mail.
• Anything you type.

Your account names may be your email addresses, and your mail server names identify your provider, so it is worth knowing that before you share a report. If you would rather not send one, describe what you saw instead — that is still useful.

Where it is kept, and removing it

The record is written to connection.log in your profile directory (usually %APPDATA%\QuickMail), next to QuickMail’s other settings. It is capped in size and older entries are discarded, so it cannot grow without limit — a full session of ordinary use produces roughly 50 KB.

Recording stops as soon as you turn the setting off. To remove what has already been recorded, use Delete QuickMail logs on the Advanced tab, which deletes the connection log along with the application log.