[Dovecot] Dovecot crashing with "Status userdb: Empty key (=)"

[Mark Maynereid]

Hi,

Dovecot is crashing at startup on my system:

mantrid:/etc/apt# tail /var/log/mail.err
Oct 25 17:10:50 mantrid dovecot: Auth process died too early - shutting down
Oct 25 17:10:50 mantrid dovecot: auth(default): Status userdb: Empty key (=)
Oct 25 17:10:50 mantrid dovecot: child 21810 (auth) returned error 89
Oct 25 17:10:51 mantrid dovecot: Temporary failure in creating login 
processes, 

I have also noticed this error:
mantrid:/home/vmail# tail /home/vmail/dovecot-deliver.log
deliver(support at unitdb.com): "2007-10-25 04:59:54 "Error: 
net_connect(/var/run/dovecot/auth-master) failed: No such file or directory

I've been trying to implement the tutorial at:
http://workaround.org/articles/ispmail-etch/
which seemed to be going well until the end of step 6 and I've posted a 
message on their mailing list but figured this looks like a deeper problem 
hence the post here also.

System info:
dovecot-common 1.0.rc15-2etch1
dovecot-imapd  1.0.rc15-2etch1
dovecot-pop3d  1.0.rc15-2etch1
Debian stable 4.0 (Etch) but running mixed on some packages
Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.40GHz
Ext3 filesystem

mantrid:/etc/init.d# dovecot -n
# /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
log_timestamp: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S
login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login
login_executable: /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login
mail_extra_groups: mail
mail_location: maildir:/home/vmail/%d/%n
auth default:
  mechanisms: plain login
  debug: yes
  passdb:
    driver: sql
    args: /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf
  userdb:
    driver: passwd
  userdb:
    driver: static
    args: args = uid=5000 gid=5000 home=/home/vmail/%d/%n allow_all_users=yes
  socket:
    type: listen
    client:
      path: /var/spool/postfix/private/auth
      mode: 432
      user: postfix
      group: postfix
    master:
      path: /var/run/dovecot/auth-master
      mode: 384
      user: vmail

Can anyone help?

Thanks,
Mark