[Dovecot] great disappearing email mystery

[dhottinger at harrisonburg.k12.va.us]

Quoting John and Catherine Allen <allen at vo.lu>:

> dhottinger at harrisonburg.k12.va.us wrote:
>> Have there been any issues with dovecot and using outlook express   
>> (imap) as an email client?  I have had a couple of users come up   
>> with random missing emails.  Im trying to figure out if it is user   
>> error, or something wacky in my mailserver.   I cant find anything   
>> telling in maillog files or my messages.  Dovecot version is 1.0.3.  
>>   Its ok to reply to me, I get list messages digest.
>>
>
> Dwayne,
>
> I've seen a lot of answers to your question which talked about Outlook,
> not Outlook Express. As far as I know, Outlook Express is a completely
> different piece of software.
>
> I've been using Outlook Express and Thunderbird as IMAP clients for
> years (more than 8 years in the case of Outlook Express) and hundreds
> of thousands of emails, and there's never been any systematic problem
> with either of these applications used as IMAP clients.
>
> Occasional apparent "missing" emails were caused by:
> - The local Outlook Express mail file getting out of sync with the
> server. Fixed by using the button to "delete all headers and message
> bodies" on the local file. But if your missing emails are also missing
> on the server, then this is irrelevant.
>
> - My email is retrieved using fetchmail and delivered to my mailserver
> using exim. When moving the whole operation to a new server, there was
> a glitch when some deliveries were accidentally made to the old server
> which was still running.  The emails were not lost but they had to be
> retrieved from the old server. As I see that you changed servers 2
> years ago, is it possible that you have a similar issue?
>
> - Spam filtering and other automated sorting: my Popfile system
> occasionally puts emails into unexpected places. When in doubt, I check
> the Popfile logs. But this is generally an issue for current emails.
> Are your users running any kind of sorting or filtering tools?
>
> I really can't see any way in which Dovecot could be involved in losing
> emails from the mailserver.
>
> John
>
> -- 
> John Allen
> Bofferdange, Luxembourg
> allen at vo.lu
> http://allenlux.dyndns.org

Thanks for the information.  I totally agree with you in that dovecot  
couldnt be involved in any missing email.  I think the user either A.  
deleted the emails sometime ago and forgot or b. They didnt get moved  
over from the old mailserver when it crashed.   The user said that  
they should have emails from 2004, but I couldnt find any newer than  
Jan. 2007.  Also, none of the 'missing emails' were on my backup, and  
I get 5 days worth of backups of mail and home folders.

take care,

ddh

-- 
Dwayne Hottinger
Network Administrator
Harrisonburg City Public Schools

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
-- Albert Einstein

"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral
crisis, preserved their neutrality."
-- Dante