[Dovecot] ?? Error: child 1064 (imap) killed with signal 4

[Benton Haynes]

Hi Timo,

Thanks for the instruction as to how to debug this.

> You could try running imap manually with gdb:

>    gdb /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/imap
>    r

I've not used gdb before.  Reading MAN page, and some instructions online, I
tried to launch as you had instructed, but it died off.

gdb --quiet /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/imap
 Reading symbols for shared libraries ..... done
(gdb) r
 Starting program: /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/imap
 Reading symbols for shared libraries .++ done
 imap(root): Error: Ambiguous mail location setting, don't know what to do
with it: /var/mail/root (try prefixing it with mbox: or maildir:)
 imap(root): Fatal: Failed to create storage with data: /var/mail/root

 Program exited with code 0131.
(gdb) q


Next, I instead tried to launch imap manually from the command line, with
the goal of then 'attach'-ing the PID in gdb, but it also fails.


 /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/imap
 imap(root): Error: Ambiguous mail location setting, don't know what to do
with it: /var/mail/root (try prefixing it with mbox: or maildir:)
 imap(root): Fatal: Failed to create storage with data: /var/mail/root

Since dovecot starts ok when I do

 /usr/local/sbin/dovecot -c /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf

I thought it might need the configuration file, too.

But, the same error happens.

 /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/imap -c /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
 imap(root): Error: Ambiguous mail location setting, don't know what to do
with it: /var/mail/root (try prefixing it with mbox: or maildir:)
 imap(root): Fatal: Failed to create storage with data: /var/mail/root

Any further pointers?  Thanks for being patient.

-- Ben