Problem: same mail(s) marked as spam over and over again

[netwolf]

Hello,

I'm a new user of FM, and so far pretty excited
Having used Opera 12.17 as my primary eMail client, there's a whole new world to explore with FM now!

I have one issue though: after migrating all my stuff (mail accounts, adress book, feeds etc.), there are a couple of mails that FM inists(!) to mark as spam.
I can if course 'Not spam' them, but this holds only until the next sync or Get Mail action. Then the spam icon appears again.

I already reset the learning spam filter, no success.
I also checked that there are no spam filters in Yahoo or GMX, no success.
I even marked and unmarked a couple other mails as spam, no success.

So please, could you help me and teach me how to convince FM that these are _not_ spam mails?

Thanks a lot, and thanks for this great product!

Win 7 with FM 25.1.9 (x64)

[KNTRO]

Hi netwolf! Welcome to the forums!

Have you already checked if you have checked this box? This could be one of the reason why most/all of your incoming mail is being marked as spam.



Best regards.

[netwolf]

Hi,

thank you for the warm welcome

Well, yes, I already tried that, but unfortunately it didn't help.
As soon as I click Get Mail (or restart), the mails are again marked as spam.

The are all from mailing lists, if that helps, but otherwise not at all suspicious.

[KNTRO]

As soon as I click Get Mail (or restart), the mails are again marked as spam.

You mean… The new mail is marked as spam or the already downloaded emails?

The are all from mailing lists, if that helps, but otherwise not at all suspicious.

Hmph… Sounds to me like if mailing lists' emails were into some kind of automatic adding black list. Weird. I think those emails won't be marked as spam no more once you reply to those mailing lists, because those lists' email addresses will be added to your contacts —i.e., they'll be "whitelisted", let's say. You should try replying to one of those mailing list and wait for an answer from there in order to know if this way actually work.

[netwolf]

The already downloaded, old mail is marked as spam in the main list again and again.

Well, actually I don't want to reply to those mailing lists, and I definitely do not want this to be the way FM works.
If I tell it that a mail is not spam (and noone ever considered it spam in the first place), I want it to accept that without any further actions.

Isn't that the usual way an email app works?

[KNTRO]

The already downloaded, old mail is marked as spam in the main list again and again.

This is really weird. It's an abnormal behavior. I can't tell why already downloaded emails are marked as spam again and again. This is not good. Do you have installed any add-on that could be interfering with FossaMail normal operations?

If I tell it that a mail is not spam (and noone ever considered it spam in the first place), I want it to accept that without any further actions.

Isn't that the usual way an email app works?

You're right and in fact is how FossaMail works for me currently. However I must confess I was experiencing a very similar scenario to yours when I made a Windows 10 clean installation with FossaMail 25.1.9, so it could be an issue in FossaMail latest version, but I'm not sure. In my case, just some of new emails were incorrectly marked as spam, but not already downloaded ones, so your case is heavier, bigger. I'll do some research later tonight and, if I found something more or less useful, I'll let you know.

[netwolf]

Well, the only add-on I use is the Lightning plugin, but I can't imagine that this is related.

Now that you mention it, I remember reading something similar when I googled the issue, but can't remember exactly what it was.
IIRC a user complained about a pretty similar issue, don't remember which version though.

Thank you for the research, and see/read you later

[KNTRO]

Well, the only add-on I use is the Lightning plugin, but I can't imagine that this is related.

Nah, it is innocent!

Now that you mention it, I remember reading something similar when I googled the issue, but can't remember exactly what it was.
IIRC a user complained about a pretty similar issue, don't remember which version though.

I searched the web for any user named IIRC, but I think it actually stands for If I remember correctly. Found nothing. However, I did found some interesting links about Mozilla Thunderbird acting just like your FossaMail does. Read them carefully:
by passing ***spam*** in subject for filters [is this the webpage you were talking about?]

Now, some community discussions about Thunderbird from SUMO:

• Cannot turn off junk mail filter in Thunderbird
• Messages marked as "Junk" will not go in the Junk folder but stays in the Inbox
• Why does Thunderbird put some junk into the junk folder but leaves others marked as junk in the Inbox (ie why inconsistent)?
• Why is junk filter operating when I have 'adaptive mail junk controls' turned off?

If those posts from Mozilla Support won't help, let me know and I will keep searching more.

[netwolf]

Yes, sorry, I used IIRC as an abbreviatioon for 'if I remember correctly'

Thank you for the links to the disussions. Though none of the proposed solutions helped, I now know that I'm not alone with these issues, and that it' more and more probable that the problem is in fast a bug in FM, maybe only latest version, as the threads are pretty young and users write that they've been using TB for years and never had those troubles with it...

Hmm, not really satisfying, but thanks a lot for your help anyway!

[loxodont]

I already reset the learning spam filter, no success.

Hi netwolf,

Just for better understanding: with "resetting" you meant the "Reset Training Data" in Options > Security?

From what I read in an older Thunderbird paper the training filter sometimes categorizes mails as spam if it finds repeatedly used words or phrases, typically used at the end of mails. To re-condition an existing training database, the paper says it would need up to 30-50 times to manually un-junk mails and so re-educate that filter. Should be easier with deleting the learned Training Data and start from scratch.
Another advice on spam marked mails said, it would be good to add the sending adress to the personal adresses. But both tips might be no help with a big mailing list.
I've had that problem only once in old Thunderbird, with one adress. After un-junking it a few times the problem was gone.
I never used that, but an option could be to add a keyword in the mailing list subject line, create a new filter (in > Message Filters), set it to work > before the junk filter and under > Actions tell it how to handle mails containing *xyz* in the subject, for example > Set junk status to...
But this means everyone in the list should add this subject phrase ... might be unreal.

[netwolf]

Yes, exactly, 'Reset training data'
Though actually there shouldn't habe been much in there yet, as the installation is only a few days old and hardly any spam arrived yet.

Another weird thing is that those mails (one is e.g. from Apache mailing list, so not suspicious at all, two others from a forum where all the other mails from the same forum are not considered spam) are not moved to the Spam folder.
They seem to be only marked with the spam icon in the main list.
I can click on it, the icon disappears, and on the next sync it's back again.

I also did that (or clicked 'Not spam') at least a few dozen times, but it still doesn't stick
(btw, something I normally don't do more often than 3 times until I accept that it just doesn't work that way...)

Well, thanks for the hint regarding filters, but that seems a bit absurd to me. Already right now this 'spam filter gone nuts' cost me way more time than manually filtering spam messages, so actually I'm not willing to add rules or add adresses just in order to make the spam filter act as it is supposed to in the first place

[loxodont]

Though actually there shouldn't habe been much in there yet, as the installation is only a few days old and hardly any spam arrived yet.

Ah yes, I interpreted "migration" in your first post like "moving all the old stuff" to Fossa Mail. - I actually did that and, triggered by this post, looked up the Training Data log, being surprised about the ice aged entries I found. Also 2 or 3 that once marked a friend as spammer (which he was indeed sometimes:)

Ok, that mentioned paper about the Bayessic filter in TB left me more or less clueless about the magic that's working here. And if you have no Training Data, it shouldn't mark anything spam in my understanding.
Sorry for being no help. I'm not even sure if it's the same thing that works in actual Fossa Mail. On a quick search I found TB people who claimed they still had the problem after they turned the Training filter completely off. Mysteries...
:scratching head:

[Moonchild]

Since you talk about syncing, may it be the case that this spam flagging is done server-side, e.g. if you use IMAP?

[netwolf]

@loxodont: no reason to say sorry, I'm really grateful that you tried to help me!

Well, I do use IMAP, but the messages are not flagged as spam server-side.
Actually it's even more strange, as the 4 messages are only 'visually flagged', but not actually treated as spam.

What I mean is that they only show the spam icon in the main list, but are not moved to the spam folder, which is what happens with 'real' spam, e.g. if I manually tag a message as spam.
On the other hand, one out of 15 messages in my spam folder does NOT have the spam icon, and I have not managed to make it show for this message.

So - maybe - this is "only" a visual glitch and does in no way affect the spam filter logic? Is this plausible/possible?

[loxodont]

Hi netwolf,
I just looked up old mails in one of my spam accounts, which I migrated to Fossa Mail and also found a filehoster mail(header), which was marked with the flame symbol too, although I set their mails to "show header only, but leave it on server".
The header only says "Your files will be deleted soon". It is marked, but not send to trash. If I click on it FM gives me a bar that says "FossaMail thinks this junk" with a "No Junk" option button on the right. So I guess this is more like the filter isn't sure and marks it possible spam, asking for user confirmation.

[netwolf]

This sounds similar to my situation, yes!
The mails have the spam icon, but are still in the inbox folder and not moved to the spam folder.

The unfortunate thing here is though that I can not convince FM that there mails are NOT spam

Have you been able to permanently(!) un-spam the mails in question?

[loxodont]

Yes, the spam marking was gone, but in my case it hit only a very few single mails in years(!). I guess it might be the "mass factor" that has a weight here. Many mails from same adresses, with same or similar subject.
My problem is rather the opposite with real spam that comes from a certain country. I tried to block them completely by .*countrycode*, but still some of them pass and don't get marked spam.

[scrambledegg]

I have seen this problem many times. It can be caused by a few things. Are you connecting via POP3 or IMAP.
One reason why POP3 started to wane in popularity is because of the way the email stack is read on the server.
If too many emails remain on the server a POP3 connector will start at the top and work its way down, never reaching the newer mails.
Maybe that is not the problem. It would still be interesting to see if you have a pop3 or imap connection

[netwolf]

Well, they are both IMAP (yahoo and gmx), but only yahoo causes those (not) spam troubles. I used to check mails with pop3, but changed to imap when I changed from Opera to FM.
There are quite many mails (5000), and only 4 are incorrectly marked as spam so far.

[netwolf]

Just for the record, the problem is still there, and is getting more and more annoying.
Seemingly random mails are marked as spam, even contacts that already sent me hundreds of mail over the last ten years.

Is there any chance for a fix, or do I really have to go back to Outlook/Opera Mail, which I'd actually like to avoid...?