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

[Frank Bonnet]

On 04/14/2011 10:23 AM, Timo Sirainen wrote:
> 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.

I plan to ... but I am hesitating on future format ...
Maildir or MDBOX ? Your advice would be precious Timo :-)


> 
>> 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?
> 
> 

I checked much better .... this happened to ONE (1) user ...
maybe HE is the problem ... I'm gonna check which MUA/protocol
he's using.

Thanks