The PC (Outlook) is accessing the mailbox via POP3, the iPhone is using IMAP; please consider we are talking about a user's home setup, so it's pretty difficult to have a more detailed report on his part (Outlook version, iPhone OS version, xDSL router type and configuration, etc.). The mail server 'dovecot -n' output is attached.
The symptoms: when the Mail application is "closed" on the iPhone, Outlook still says the mailbox is in use; a Dovecot imap process is still active for that user even after a few minutes (manually killing it releases the lock, thereby leaving the inbox available for Outlook).
From the client side, there is a seemingly relevant article at
http://blogs.sun.com/chienr/entry/iphone_supports_imap_idleit describes, among others, the "Settings / Mail / Auto-Check" and "Settings / General / Auto-Lock" parameters; from my point of view, however, being able to solve the problem directly on the server would be far better, and might also accomodate other broken clients we haven't seen yet: that's why I asked you whether there is a way to tell Dovecot only one POP3 or IMAP process from the same user, the latest one, can be active at the same time, closing and disconnecting all the others.
Regards, and thanks a lot again for your help
Federico Bianchi
Dipartimento di Storia delle Arti
Universita` di Pisa
piazza S.Matteo in Soarta, 2 - I56127 Pisa (Italy)
fax.+39-050-580128; e-mail: <f.bianchi@arte.unipi.it>
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