[Dovecot] strange email client problems

[Timo Sirainen]

On 21.3.2005, at 13:32, Gabriel Granger wrote:

> Closing the email client doesn't kill the process, it does sometimes 
> but normally have to wait a while (5mins or more).  When you refer to 
> CPU load are you talking about on the server itself? if so I don't 
> believe it is.  I will check next time this happens.

Or the load in general? That sounds like Dovecot is busy re-reading the 
mbox file.

>  My largest users mailbox file is 200Mb with the total disk space used 
> by all their mail folders is 6GB.  Is there any information regarding 
> limits on what is a safe maximum size for a mailbox folder?  I try to 
> get my users to keep their inboxes under 200 messages or 50Mb.  
> Currently I'm gettting my heavy users to reduce their inboxes from 
> 150Mb down to something sensible.
..
>>> The users get the "loading message" or "opening messages" and the 
>>> egg timer goes round but never completes.  I managed to clear the 
>>> problem by getting the user to close their email client and then 
>>> kill their IMAP processes on the server, when the user logs in again 
>>> the client responds correctly.

OK, sounds like a new message has arrived to mbox and Dovecot re-reads 
the whole mbox which takes a while. Although Dovecot 1.0-stable doesn't 
anymore re-read the mbox as long as it's selected.. Maybe the clients 
open another connection to server which.. Try setting:

mbox_very_dirty_syncs = yes
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