[Dovecot] troubles with broken clients (iPhone) - again
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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!DISCLAIMER!: my e-mail reflects _my_own_ opinions!
===================================================Le 7 juil. 09 à 10:02, Federico Bianchi a écrit :
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_idle
it 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.
Hello Frederico,
Thanks for the additional info.
The output of dovecot -n doesn't show mbox_write_locks nor
mbox_read_locks; it could thus be supposed that the locking methods in
use are:
mbox_write_locks = dotlock fcntl
mbox_read_locks = fcntlThe question is now "who delivers mail to the mailboxes?"; since
killing the last imap process allows the pop client to open the
mailbox, one may suspect a deadlock involving the imap and the
delivery processes.
Could you have a look at
http://wiki.dovecot.org/MailboxFormat/mbox
http://wiki.dovecot.org/MboxLockingHTH, Axel
On Tue, 2009-07-07 at 10:02 +0200, Federico Bianchi wrote:
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).
That's strange. Normally an IMAP process shouldn't be holding any locks at all. Can you check if there are any *.lock files that get deleted when killing the imap process?
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.
No.
pop3_lock_session(pop3): yes
This means that during the whole POP3 session Dovecot locks the mailbox by creating dovecot-uidlist.lock. If it can't, it gives the "mailbox is in use" error. So I could understand if there was a long-running pop3 process holding the lock, but imap processes really shouldn't be doing that..
On Tue, 7 Jul 2009, Timo Sirainen wrote:
On Tue, 2009-07-07 at 10:02 +0200, Federico Bianchi wrote:
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).
That's strange. Normally an IMAP process shouldn't be holding any locks at all. Can you check if there are any *.lock files that get deleted when killing the imap process?
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.
No.
pop3_lock_session(pop3): yes
This means that during the whole POP3 session Dovecot locks the mailbox by creating dovecot-uidlist.lock. If it can't, it gives the "mailbox is in use" error. So I could understand if there was a long-running pop3 process holding the lock, but imap processes really shouldn't be doing that..
In fact - that's what puzzled me.
To have a simpler test case, this afternoon I upgraded Dovecot to the latest release leaving only the mbox storage (we are planning to convert to maildir in September) and, even if I don't think there is any relation with our issue, set that server MTA (Exim 4.69) to use both fcntl and dot lock files.
The user who got the bizarre situation should be back in a few days; should the problem be still there, I'll sure tell you all.
Thanks a lot again; regards
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>
===================================================
!DISCLAIMER!: my e-mail reflects _my_own_ opinions!
===================================================
participants (3)
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Axel Luttgens
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Federico Bianchi
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Timo Sirainen