[Dovecot] Some help required - dovecot: IMAP(matthew): unlink(/home/matthew/Maildir/cur/new) failed: Operation not permitted

[matbic at gmail.com]

Hi all, I have tried very hard to solve this problem but turn to the  
mailing list as a last resort.

In the log I get, for just one account:

Jul 31 09:06:17 bickertons dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<matthew>,  
method=PLAIN, rip=78.130.81.201, lip=168.143.5.18, TLS
Jul 31 09:06:17 bickertons dovecot: IMAP(matthew): Effective uid=1003,  
gid=1003, home=/home/matthew
Jul 31 09:06:17 bickertons dovecot: IMAP(matthew): maildir: data=/home/ 
matthew/Maildir
Jul 31 09:06:17 bickertons dovecot: IMAP(matthew): maildir: root=/home/ 
matthew/Maildir, index=/home/matthew/Maildir, control=, inbox=
Jul 31 09:06:17 bickertons dovecot: IMAP(matthew): unlink(/home/ 
matthew/Maildir/cur/new) failed: Operation not permitted
Jul 31 09:06:18 bickertons last message repeated 3 times

All the other accounts work fine.

I have tried removing the dovecote.index and the dovecote-keywords and  
uidlist  files. This gets it working for a while but soon we are back  
to the same problem.

I would really not like to lose all the mail in this account, its that  
of my boss, (slight note of panic)

Matthew


bickertons# dovecot --version
1.0.13
bickertons# dovecot -n
# 1.0.13: /usr/local/etc/dovecot.conf
protocols: imap imaps pop3 pop3s
disable_plaintext_auth: no
login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login
login_executable(default): /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/imap-login
login_executable(imap): /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/imap-login
login_executable(pop3): /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/pop3-login
login_max_processes_count: 30
max_mail_processes: 50
verbose_proctitle: yes
first_valid_gid: 0
mail_privileged_group: mail
mail_location: maildir:~/Maildir
mail_debug: yes
mail_executable(default): /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/imap
mail_executable(imap): /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/imap
mail_executable(pop3): /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/pop3
mail_plugin_dir(default): /usr/local/lib/dovecot/imap
mail_plugin_dir(imap): /usr/local/lib/dovecot/imap
mail_plugin_dir(pop3): /usr/local/lib/dovecot/pop3
imap_client_workarounds(default): delay-newmail outlook-idle netscape- 
eoh tb-extra-mailbox-sep
imap_client_workarounds(imap): delay-newmail outlook-idle netscape-eoh  
tb-extra-mailbox-sep
imap_client_workarounds(pop3): outlook-idle
pop3_uidl_format(default):
pop3_uidl_format(imap):
pop3_uidl_format(pop3): %08Xu%08Xv
pop3_client_workarounds(default):
pop3_client_workarounds(imap):
pop3_client_workarounds(pop3): outlook-no-nuls oe-ns-eoh
auth default:
   passdb:
     driver: pam
     args: *
   userdb:
     driver: passwd