[Dovecot] [LDA] save failed to INBOX: Timeout while waiting for lock

[Timo Sirainen]

On Thu, 2011-04-14 at 10:18 +0200, Frank Bonnet wrote:
> >>> mail_location = mbox:%h/:INDEX=/var/cache/dovecot/index/%u:INBOX=/var/mail/%u
> > 
> > That's the way mbox format works. One IMAP or POP3 client can lock the mailbox for a long time. LDA can either wait longer of fail and let MTA retry the delivery later. The default is:
> > 
> > mbox_lock_timeout = 5 mins
> > 
> > So apparently the LDA already waited for 5 minutes for the lock.
> > 
> > (There is also actually mail_max_lock_timeout setting, but the default is 0 = disabled.)
> >  
> 
> Should I do something to correct ?

I don't really know if there is anything except switching away from
mbox.

> When the problem occured some users were unable to access their mailboxes

How long does it occur? You'd need to find out what exactly is locking
those mailboxes for that long. It could simply be the user's client. Or
I guess it could be LDA itself, or anything really.. Difficult to say.
Difficult also to tell easy way to debug this..

Or when this happens does it happen to many people at the same time? Is
the system load really high at that time then?