Problems connecting to gmail IMAP server

[jdmorris]

After reading the rave reviews of Roundcube I'm excited to try it, but I can't get it to connect to gmail's IMAP server, and I've tried just about everything. I always get the same result:

IMAP Error: Could not connect to ssl://imap.gmail.com at port 993: Connection timed out in on line 0

I know everything is enabled and working from the Gmail side because I use my mobile phone's IMAP client daily. I know the application has no trouble connecting to the MySQL database. I tried both RC2 and 0.1 stable - no difference. I was originally running RoundCube on a site hosted by 1&1, and found some evidence that they are blocking outbound connections to port 993 - so I signed up with a different ISP (A Small Orange) which I know does not filter that port. That didn't make any difference either. I verified that the ISP's PHP stack supports SSL. I'm using the setting 'ssl://imap.gmail.com:993' (although I tried with and without the :993 at the end). Here's the phpinfo for my ISP:

http://mreko.asmallorange.com/phpinfo.php

Are there other dependencies that could be missing? Does Roundcube need the c-client library? Are there other PHP options that might be needed? Is there a straightforward way to change to a different IMAP implementation? Has anyone successfully used RoundCube with Gmail's IMAP service? Any ideas for other experiments I could try?

Suggestions appreciated,
- Joe

[jdmorris]

I'm happy to reply to my own question. I can confirm that the problem was my ISP blocking outbound connections to imap.gmail.com:993 and smtp.gmail.com:465. By request, my ISP was able to adjust their firewall to allow those connections, and now RoundCube works perfectly.

Kudos to the RoundCube developers - it's beautiful. Thumbs down to my former ISP (1&1) for blocking those ports and being clueless when I asked their tech support about it. And thumbs up to my new ISP (A Small Orange), who responded to my questions quickly and fixed the problem.