I noticed i had mail_location wrong, i was specifying INDEX=/dovecot-index instead of INDEX=~/dovecot-index
so i modifed and restarted dovecot, one of my techs that happens to have thousands of emails reopened her mail and this showed up in the log. Not sure if this is critical or if more info/dovecot -n is needed
dovecot: 2009-05-05 14:06:38 Panic: imap <REMOVED>: file mail-search.c: line 712 (mail_search_args_equal): assertion failed: (args1->simplified == args2->simplified) dovecot: 2009-05-05 14:06:38 Error: imap <REMOVED>: Raw backtrace: imap [0x4a3042] -> imap [0x4a30c3] -> imap [0x4a2796] -> imap [0x467ffa] -> imap(mail_thread_init+0xaa) [0x463a5a] -> imap(index_storage_search_init+0x132) [0x45e222] -> /usr/local/lib/dovecot/imap/lib20_virtual_plugin.so(virtual_search_init+0x13) [0x7fedbd5d1d73] -> imap(index_search_result_update_appends+0xac) [0x4660ec] -> /usr/local/lib/dovecot/imap/lib20_virtual_plugin.so(virtual_storage_sync_init+0x1383) [0x7fedbd5d5123] -> imap(mailbox_sync+0x30) [0x46a7c0] -> imap(cmd_select_full+0x383) [0x420613] -> imap [0x422d8c] -> imap [0x422e4a] -> imap(client_handle_input+0x35) [0x4234b5] -> imap(client_input+0x63) [0x423963] -> imap(io_loop_handler_run+0xcb) [0x4aae9b] -> imap(io_loop_run+0x18) [0x4aa328] -> imap(main+0x52b) [0x42b7fb] -> /lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe6) [0x7fedbde095a6] -> imap [0x41bcf9] dovecot: 2009-05-05 14:06:38 Error: child 18843 (imap) killed with signal 6 (core dumps disabled)