[Dovecot] Dovecot IMAP repeatedly disconnects

[Stan Hoeppner]

Edwin Humphries put forth on 4/4/2011 12:48 AM:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm running dovecot-1.0.7-7.el5 on a CentOS 5.5x64 server, accessed
> through Thunderbird clients. Thunderbird is reporting constant
> disconnections from the server; the maillog shows constant repeats of
> 
> Apr  4 16:39:21 holly dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<?user?>,
> method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:172.31.255.193, lip=::ffff:172.31.255.1
> Apr  4 16:39:21 holly dovecot: IMAP(?user?): mbox
> /home/?user?/mail/Trash: seq=1 uid=3469 uid_broken=0 originally needed
> 17 bytes, now needs 18 bytes
> Apr  4 16:39:21 holly dovecot: IMAP(?user?): Raw backtrace: imap
> [0x461b7e] -> imap [0x4618ec] -> imap(mbox_sync_rewrite+0x5e3)
> [0x4344a3] -> imap [0x42f5c0] -> imap(mbox_sync+0x428) [0x4309a8] ->
> imap [0x427a5c] -> imap(cmd_copy+0x2f9) [0x411ff9] -> imap(cmd_uid+0x48)
> [0x4152a8] -> imap [0x4157a7] -> imap [0x415839] ->
> imap(_client_input+0x6d) [0x415e7d] -> imap(io_loop_handler_run+0x106)
> [0x466ef6] -> imap(io_loop_run+0x18) [0x4663f8] -> imap(main+0x3f2)
> [0x41d5c2] -> /lib64/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xf4) [0x36d441d994] ->
> imap [0x411179]
> Apr  4 16:39:21 holly dovecot: child 14327 (imap) killed with signal 6
> 
> The Thhunderbird custoimisations (login_greeting_capability = yes and
> imap_client_workarounds = tb-extra-mailbox-sep) are configured

Is this server in production for a while and this just happened out of
the blue, or is this a new install?

If the former, did you make any configuration changes recently, to
either Dovecot or the CentOS operating system environment?

If not, you've probably got a corrupted mbox file(s) (hopefully not due
to a filesystem or disk problem).  From the snippet provided, it would
appear your trash folder is an IMAP folder stored on Dovecot as an mbox
file, and is corrupted.  I would recommend the following corrective action:

Log into the CentOS console via SSH etc and manually delete the mbox
file that is the trash folder, and delete the Dovecot index files for
the user in question.

Afterward, follow best practices and make the trash folder a local
folder on the TBird client PC.  Never put an MUA trash folder on an IMAP
server.

Finally, once you get the current problem cured, *UPGRADE* to a recent
version of Dovecot!  1.0.7 is absolutely ancient, almost 4 years old,
and likely has many bugs.  The latest version in the 1.x branch is 1.2.16.

-- 
Stan