Deltachat app says "Error: Number of retries exceeded the limit." with no context or info what it is about

[ell1e]

Deltachat app says "Error: Number of retries exceeded the limit." with no context or info what it is about. I've heard another user talk about this but assumed some weird special circumstances, but then today saw the same error.

It doesn't say if it refers to IMAP, it doesn't say what it tried to do or what server it was even connecting to, or failing to connect to. My only server has no retry limits, so what does this mean? Is it a networking issue on the client side? If yes, why would there need to be a retry limit? (E.g. couldn't it just keep retrying every hour or so?)

To make matters even more confusing, somebody responded to the message so clearly it has been sent out to some of the people.

As a result I'm not quite sure what to make of it, and therefore I suggest the message - whatever exactly it means - should either be more detailed or more actionable by e.g. showing a "Retry anyway" button or something.

• Operating System (Linux/Mac/Windows/iOS/Android): Linux
• Delta Chat Version: v2.57.0 desktop
• Expected behavior: error message is either more detailed or gives me some sort of obvious action to deal with it, or both
• Actual behavior: error message seems both unclear and not actionable
• Steps to reproduce the problem: I'm not sure, it just showed up some day
• Screenshots:
• Logs: this was hours ago (I didn't immediately notice) so finding the right part of the log could be quite difficult

[link2xt]

The message means the number of retries to send the message over SMTP has reached the limit, probably the server has responded with an error too many times. The limit is there to make it possible to send next messages that are in the queue if some message is repeatedly rejected.

[ell1e]

Okay, interesting! Thanks so much for the quick response.

It seems to me like 1. the message actually was sent though, and 2. it's not entirely clear to me why it couldn't just silently be rescheduled an hour later or so, after other messages had some time to be sent (it seems like this error eventually happened and then no further attempts were made), and/or 3. why there is not e.g. a button to do anything about this or to show more details or whatever, inside the actual error dialog once I open it up.

I realize there is right-click > Resend, but I don't think it'll be obvious to most users that when they see this error, that's what they should be doing.

[WofWca]

Deltachat app says "Error: Number of retries exceeded the limit."

Where does it say so? In the dialog that opens when you click the red exclamation mark on your sent message?

[WofWca]

On the Desktop side the best we can do is to add something like "Error sending message" instead of just "Error" but IDK if that's always right.
Otherwise this is probably about the Core adding more context.

[ell1e]

Where does it say so? In the dialog that opens when you click the red exclamation mark on your sent message?

Yes, exactly. And then the dialog just has a close button and no info about what this means or what the user could do.

For example, I think a resend button might be a good idea. There already is one in the context menu but I would guess most users don't know about it, so offering a 2nd one along with the retries exceeded dialog seems more sensible. (Since a retry error will often be solvable by just manually trying again. It was in my case, at least.)

I think what might also be a good idea is something like "Did you check your internet connection?". In my case it was caused by a wifi issue.