Emails form an indispensable part of a hosting account. In our role as Outsourced server support specialists for web hosts, we encounter and resolve many email server issues in both Linux and Windows servers.

Wrong configuration paths, registry errors, lack of synchronization, folder subscription problems, binary corruptions, anything can lead to webmail related issues in Windows servers.

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Recently, while handling the support desk for a web host who was providing shared hosting in a Windows server, we got numerous complaints from the end-customers that the folders and messages were not displaying in webmail.

The server was having MailEnable webmail installed and all of a sudden, no messages were accessible in webmail. This included the inbox, deleted items, sent items, etc.

As email is a very critical service in web servers, this sudden inaccessibility of mails caused panic among the customers. As it was found to be a server-wide issue, our expert support specialists were keen on resolving it asap.

When we created new folders in email directory, they appeared in the file system but did not show up in the navigation pane. Even the event logs did not give out much errors.

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What causes MailEnable webmail folders to go hiding

Upon investigation, our support technicians detected that the issue is caused by the recent .Net Framework update (KB3186539), which breaks the webmail in the server such that it will not display folders and messages.

This affects multiple versions of MailEnable webmail, including the latest version in Windows servers. However, the MailEnable vendors have accepted this as a bug and has published a fix for this issue.

How to get MailEnable webmail folders to show up

There are 3 workaround to fix the issue with MailEnable webmail. We’ll see them here:

1. Update MailEnable to the latest version by downloading the updated kits with a fix from http://www.mailenable.com/beta . But this beta version of MailEnable is not yet a stable version and should not be installed in live hosting servers without proper testing.
2. For Windows servers that need to run older or customized versions of MailEnable, or which cannot risk running the beta version, the upgrade may not be possible. In those servers, we resolve this folder issue by editing the web.config file in the “Mail Enable\bin\Netwebmail” directory. Updating this config file will restart the application pool and will start displaying the folders fine. The following line to be added is between the <system.web> and </system.web> tags: <caching><cache disableExpiration=”true”/></caching> 
3. Uninstalling the 4.7 .Net upgrade would also resolve this issue. As certain software upgrades have known to mess up the production servers, at Bobcares, we perform all upgrades only after testing them in staging servers first and confirming that there are no issues.

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At Bobcares, our 24/7 server specialists constantly monitor all the services in the server and proactively audit the server for any errors or corruption in them.

With our systematic debugging approach for service or other software errors, we have been able to provide an exciting support experience to the customers.

If you would like to know how to avoid downtime for your customers due to errors or other service failures, we would be happy to talk to you.