v1.0-RC5 implements a better IMAP auto-connect mode. If you are not using RBE in IMAP mode, you do not need to read the rest of this article.

After Automatically reconnect? is enabled and saved on the admin settings page:

If you are not connected to the IMAP inbox, a Connect button will appear in the "Connection Info" section:

Clicking on the "Connect" button will try to connect and keep a persistent connection to the IMAP inbox. In the screenshots above, this means that the IMAP connection will try and persist for five minutes before killing the connection and then attempting to restart the connection process again.

This process will repeat infinitely until a site admin either deactivates RBE or if there is a problem with the IMAP connection.

Sometimes, the IMAP connection can fail due to an unexpected problem or timeout issue. If this happens, an email will be sent to the site admin asking the user to manually reconnect.

The following is a screenshot of the IMAP disconnected email:

By default, the IMAP connection email is sent to the email address set on the WP admin dashboard's Settings > General page. You can also filter the email recipients with the 'bp_rbe_imap_down_recipients' filter to either add more email addresses or to disable this email altogether.

If the "Automatically reconnect?" option isn't enabled, IMAP mode fallsback to the previous pageload invoking method.

What this means is if there is no connection to the IMAP inbox when a user is on a frontend page, RBE will attempt to invoke an IMAP connection. The problem with this is if a site has a decent amount of traffic and an IMAP connection needs to be invoked, it is possible that multiple IMAP connection attempts can occur. This can result in duplicate emails being sent.

The "Automatically reconnect" option in v1.0-RC5 was designed to workaround the duplicate IMAP connections problem. So it is highly recommended that this option is enabled if you are using IMAP mode.