Robert Creager writes:
Do the timestamps of the directories change, when you get new mail? Did you searched the mail archive for inotify/dnotify problems?
No, they don't change: From dspam Wed Sep 13 08:32:03 2006 Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Template1 oops Folder: .PostgreSQL.General/new/1158157923.13449_0.thunder.logicalch 6091
[robert@thunder Maildir]$ ll -d .PostgreSQL.General/new drwx------ 2 robert users 8 Sep 13 07:57 .PostgreSQL.General/new/
ll -a .PostgreSQL.General/new/ total 16 drwx------ 2 robert users 8 Sep 13 07:57 ./ drwx------ 5 robert users 4096 Sep 13 08:01 ../ -rw------- 1 robert users 6091 Sep 13 08:32 1158157923.13449_0.thunder.logicalchaos.org
Hmmm... I see the problem, but what is to be done about it?
This is the reason why you're not getting notifications. Dovecot checks the timestamp of the directory to see if it has changed. That is how it detects if there is new mail. Normally, when a new message is inserted into a directory, the directory's timestamp should be updated. In your case, something strange is going on. I missed your earlier message, so I'm not sure if you described what kind of filesystem you have. Could you supply details of your filesystem (type and mount options)?
I'm not using dnotify. I tried dnotify briefly, and the problem didn't appear to get any better, so I recompiled without - using poll now.
I don't know the details of dnotify or poll, but if they also depend on metadata updates to detect a change, then they will also fail to work on your system. I think that if you solve the problem of the directory timestamp update, then you'll be alright.
-- Anand