[Dovecot] Re: File isn't in mbox format - Couldn't open INBOX

[Tim Middleton]

Stephen K. Gielda wrote:
> I see it too.  You running procmail by any chance?  In our case it appears
> to be due to file locking, with procmail grabbing the mail spool while the

"Me too". I've tried every locking config option I can find (including good
old .lock files), and still seem to have this problem periodically. It
almost certainly is a locking problem, though I can't figure where. 

Many times when this happens with our users I find that they are using our
webmail (squirrelmail) client and are accessing their mail via imap *or*
pop3 client software at the same time (mozilla and outlook are two specific
ones i've confirmed this has happened with; though I don't think the client
should matter). 

I haven't actually been able to set up a situation that always leads to
corruption though. It only happens sometimes. So this is very frustrating.
I begin to suspect the moon may in some way be involved.

The best answer, of course, is Maildir! But alas... no resources to tackle
that job. For now I have a script that scans all the mboxes for corruption
every few hours and emails me if it finds it... which happens once or twice
a week on average (it's not a huge mail server). 

-- 
Tim Middleton | Vex.Net    | But the trouble was that my hysterical fit 
x at veX.net     | VexTech.ca | could not go on for ever. --Dost (NFTU)