Dovecot expects mail user's home to be writable. If your home is not writable by the user, you need to set mail_home=~/mail/ or something and make that directory writable to dovecot, e.g. with chown.
Aki
Hello Aki,
I tried to change mail_home to several options (I've restarted dovecot after each test):
mail_home = %h/mail/%d/%n mail_home = ~/mail/%d/%n
I've even created a new dir (/dupes/) with 777 perms
mail_home = /dupes/
But I'm still viewing in the logs that it is trying to use /home/USER/
Sep 22 12:25:47 lda(postmaster@domain2.tld)<48129><kwMQFqtrDWUBvAAAElSLcQ>: Error: duplicate db: transaction: file_dotlock_open(/home/user2/.dovecot.lda-dupes) failed: Permission denied
Sep 22 12:25:47 lda(postmaster@domain2.tld)<48129><kwMQFqtrDWUBvAAAElSLcQ>: Error: duplicate db: transaction: Failed to lock /home/user2/.dovecot.lda-dupes.locks/duplicate.lock.b0be0da6c6a062c630bb7aa8dd72846a: mkdir_parents(/home/user2/.dovecot.lda-dupes.locks) failed: Permission denied
Thank you. sahsanu