Should'nt it be {8} toto*11? :D

Perhaps it would be a nice idea to implement some better login algorithm for IMAP instead of the old "A001 LOGIN user pass". AUTHENTICATE PLAIN would be such a candidate (through an SSL connection, sure).

I'm seeing this behavior as well with version 1.3.8b and 1.3.8a.
The issue is apparent in Wireshark captures.
The special characters in the IMAP password look as though they are being needlessly escaped with slashes.

I've found the cause of this.
Not sure if for some mailservers escaping these characters in the password is really needed.

In the SOPE-1.3.8 source tree, in sope-mime/NGImap4/NGImap4Client.m

on line 542 :

self->password = [[_passwd stringByEscapingImap4Password] copy];

you can either replace this with :

self->password = [_passwd copy];

or, you can edit sope-mime/NGImap4/NSString+Imap4.m

and comment out the characters you don't want escaped starting on line 269 :

  else switch (chars[i]) {
    //case '(':
    //case ')':
    //case '{':
    //case ' ':
    //case '%':
    //case '*':
    case '"':
    //case '\\':
      conv = YES;
      break;
  }

VIOLA!

Not sure what the security/stability side effects these changes have, but it did make it so the * in my IMAP password didn't make my mail folders not be displayed.

I've seen the same, or sth. similar with opengroupware, there I recognized the problem with umlauts in the password. The relevant bug entry is here: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mantisbt/opengroupware/view.php?id=66

Fixed properly - using IMAP4's continuation.

See: http://mtn.inverse.ca/revision/diff/00e41d1f78647ab913b68bad93535f9554a94aaf/with/a2112c6513358c1ff28c2f936a00c3fe72723427