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I have this problem with some mailboxes (actually Maildirs) on my system. After some user's activity there is following information in dovecot logs:

Jan 29 16:24:28 mailserv dovecot: IMAP(username): unlink(/var/spool/mail/imap/user/username/Maildir/cur/Sent:2,ST) failed: Is a directory

User can not connect to his account neither via POP3 nor IMAP. There is one workaround I know which is:

rm /var/spool/mail/imap/user/username/Maildir/dovecot.index*

But after some time (some activity of user) the problem comes back.

Mikie

Please post the configuration of dovecot (dovecot -n) for more information of your problem.

# 1.0.15: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf log_path: /var/log/dovecot.log info_log_path: /var/log/dovecot-info.log log_timestamp: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S protocols: imap imaps pop3 pop3s ssl_cert_file: /etc/apache2/ssl/server.crt ssl_key_file: /etc/apache2/ssl/server.key disable_plaintext_auth: no login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login login_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3-login first_valid_uid: 100 first_valid_gid: 100 default_mail_env: maildir:%h mail_location: maildir:%h mail_debug: yes mail_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap mail_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap mail_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3 mail_plugin_dir(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap mail_plugin_dir(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap mail_plugin_dir(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/pop3 pop3_uidl_format(default): pop3_uidl_format(imap): pop3_uidl_format(pop3): %f auth default_with_listener: mechanisms: plain login verbose: yes passdb: driver: sql args: /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf userdb: driver: sql args: /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf socket: type: listen client: path: /var/spool/postfix/private/auth mode: 432 user: postfix group: postfix master: path: /var/run/dovecot-auth-master mode: 384 user: mailsystem auth default: user: mailsystem verbose: yes passdb: driver: sql args: /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf userdb: driver: sql args: /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf

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Jan 29 16:24:28 mailserv dovecot: IMAP(username): unlink(/var/spool/mail/imap/user/username/Maildir/cur/Sent:2,ST) failed: Is a directory Something has created a directory called Sent inside Maldir/cur or Maildir/new. Dovecot treats it as a message and so it has added \Seen and \Deleted flags to it. Dovecot didn't create the Sent directory, look at other software/scripts you have.

Indeed.

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There is one workaround I know which is: rm /var/spool/mail/imap/user/username/Maildir/dovecot.index* Delete the Sent* directory.

Seems like there used to be any software or exadmin which created those directories. I can not find out the source of it. I'm thinking about deleting all those but I am wondering if Maildir specification does allow any subdirectories in new/cur/tmp?

Thanks a lot!

On Jan 30, 2009, at 5:24 AM, mikie@x.org.pl wrote:

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There is one workaround I know which is: rm /var/spool/mail/imap/user/username/Maildir/dovecot.index* Delete the Sent* directory.

Seems like there used to be any software or exadmin which created
those directories. I can not find out the source of it. I'm thinking about deleting all those but I am wondering if Maildir specification does
allow any subdirectories in new/cur/tmp?

tmp/ doesn't matter, but everything in new/ and cur/ is supposed to be
a message, no directories.