[Dovecot] Sieve problem. Timo, is this mbox file size limitation hard coded? If so, why?

[Stan Hoeppner]

Charles Marcus put forth on 5/11/2010 7:53 AM:
> On 2010-05-10 10:06 PM, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
>> I set it to zero and that fixed the problem.  This is indeed one strange
>> situation.  The error was reported in the log by dovecot, but the setting
>> that fixes the problem is actually in Postfix.  It would be nice if there
>> was a short heads up regarding this in the dovecot wiki postfix LDA and/or
>> sieve sections.  I'll mention this on postfix-user as well.
> 
> Bob already pointed you to the wiki entry, 

You're reading messages out of order Charles.  Bob didn't post his message
until 4.5 hours _after_ I'd already solved the problem and posted what you
quote above.

> but it was also *telling* you
> to look in the server (postfix) logs, where the error is most likely
> much clearer:

>> May 10 17:45:04 greer dovecot: deliver(stan): sieve:
>> msgid=<20100510224422.GA4293 at heima.gjk.dk>: failed to store into
>> mailbox '1-Debian-Users': Internal error occurred. Refer to server
>> log for more information. [2010-05-10 17:45:04]
> 
> :)

Charles, first off, that _IS_ the "server" log you're looking at, from both
mail.err and mail.log.  Second, Postfix doesn't log _anything_ relating this
error.  That is the entirety of this problem.  I made that abundantly clear
in my previous two emails on this subject.  The fact that Postfix doesn't
log anything, but that LDA does log it on behalf of Postfix, but _without
telling the OP this is the case_, makes standard troubleshooting procedure
useless.

Postfix generates the error condition but Dovecot LDA reports it.  _This
should be fixed_.  If Postfix generates the error it should be Postfix
stamping the log with the error, not Dovecot.  If for some reason changing
it so that Postfix logs the error is difficult or can't be done, then at the
very least Dovecot should add information to the logged error telling the OP
to troubleshoot in the direction of Postfix, _not_ Dovecot.  From all I've
found to this point, this situation _ONLY_ occurs with Postfix.  So log it
that way for $deity's sake.  Anyway...

I used the Dovecot Wiki search function to find the error message and it
returned nothing, zilch:
http://wiki.dovecot.org/LDA?action=fullsearch&context=180&value=write%28%29+failed+with+mbox+file&titlesearch=Titles

I then reread the Postfix/LDA section of the wiki and found nothing.  I then
turned to Google and found the answer via a couple of archived list/forum
posts a couple of years old from OPs that ran into the same situation I did.
 Thank $deity for Google.  The posts I found were to neither this list nor
the Postfix list.  IIRC they were on Linux distro list archives, CentOS maybe.

Most people managing computer systems are logical thinkers.  If we weren't,
we'd be doing something else for a living.  It's _not_ logical to:

1.  Have one software report errors on behalf of another software
2.  Then give no clue that this is what's happening in the log
3.  Have the documentation of the issue buried in an illogical location

I took all the logical steps to troubleshoot and resolve this.  My efforts
were thwarted by:

1.  An illogical error reporting mechanism
2.  Documentation located in an illogical place

Charles, you make it sound as if I'm some nitwit of an OP who can't read
logs properly.  I hope you now understand that the problem is the opposite.
 The problem was my thorough, _logical_ reading of the logs.  The logs said
look at Dovecot LDA, but the problem was Postfix.

In closing, there are currently _5_ MTA specific subsections of the LDA
wiki.  The documentation describing this _Postfix specific_ issue is in the
main LDA page under "Logging".  There is no other MTA specific information
in the "Logging" section but for Postfix.  This information belongs in the
Postfix section.  In addition, Deovecot needs to add additional text to the
error message sent to the log somehow identifying that the error is related
to Postfix.

-- 
Stan