I had a small problem with using IMAP in a new email account I just subscribed to. I figure it would be good to share the problem and the solution. The solution was mentioned in another post back in 2004 so I figured a new post would be OK.
The first problem was I could not login to my account. PocoMail would tell me Login Failed on the status bar when using Special Folder to login via IMAP.
I then fired up OE (shudder) and added an IMAP account, it worked. That leads me to believe it is a PocoMail problem.
I then fired up Ethereal and looked at the IMAP packets. The LOGIN command in PocoMail is [LOGIN username pas)wor=d]. The LOGIN command in OE is [LOGIN "username" "pas)wor=d"]. Note the quotes.
Out of curiosity I added quotes to the Username: and Password: fields in Accounts Server Settings. It actually worked, I was able to login to my IMAP account.
The ultimate solution was to not use a password the uses symbols. Once I modified my password to alpha, numeric only all problems went away.
Two things I see with this PocoMail is not handling passwords with symbols, it should as password with symbols is considered more secure. Also error reporting is weak. There should be an option to add more details. For example the error reported back by the server was "Unexpected extra argument to LOGIN". PocoMail didn't even log this problem only reported login failure on the status line.