[Dovecot] Dovecot doesn't show any e-mails, while there are a lot in the maildir

[Attila Nagy]

Hi,

I've recently seen the following issue. A user logs in with pop3, and 
sees zero e-mails. The maildir contains emails both in cur and new.
The mail delivery is done with qmail, and this user have had no logins 
before, so it has only the inbox, trash and sent (while dovecot is 
configured to create drafts and spam folders too). Because of this, the 
user doesn't have any dovecot indexes either.

So, he logs in, and sees nothing. The strange thing is Dovecot doesn't 
create any of the above directories nor indexes. After moving the 
mailbox to another server, the user can log in, the additional folders 
get created and also the indexes appear. pop3 shows the correct amount 
of emails.
Moving the mailbox back to the original server shows the same issue: no 
emails at all.
Restarting dovecot on the original server resolves the issue.
This is a pretty loaded machine, so I couldn't trace the processes. I 
know that this isn't too much, but that's what I have.

The only thing I could identify in the error log is:
Feb 17 12:45:58 pop3(varszr at asdfg): Warning: Created dotlock file's
  timestamp is different than current time (1297943148 vs 1297943086): 
/home/varszr at asdfg/Maildir/subscriptions

Which may happened due to a restart and maybe a clock setting. But that 
was yesterday.

Any ideas?

# 2.0.8: /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
# OS: FreeBSD 8.2-PRERELEASE amd64
auth_cache_negative_ttl = 0
auth_cache_size = 100 M
auth_cache_ttl = 1 days
disable_plaintext_auth = no
info_log_path = syslog
log_path = /var/log/dovecot-errors.log
mail_fsync = never
mail_gid = 999
mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir
mail_plugins = " quota"
mail_uid = 999
managesieve_notify_capability = mailto
managesieve_sieve_capability = fileinto reject envelope 
encoded-character vacation subaddress comparator-i;ascii-numeric 
relational regex imap4flags copy include variables body enotify 
environment mailbox date
passdb {
   args = /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf.ext
   driver = ldap
}
plugin {
   autocreate = INBOX.Trash
   autocreate2 = INBOX.Drafts
   autocreate3 = INBOX.Sent
   autocreate4 = INBOX.Spam
   autosubscribe = INBOX.Trash
   autosubscribe2 = INBOX.Drafts
   autosubscribe3 = INBOX.Sent
   autosubscribe4 = INBOX.Spam
   mail_log_events = delete mailbox_delete
   mail_log_fields = uid box msgid size flags vsize from subject
   quota = maildir:User quota
}
protocols = pop3 imap lmtp
service anvil {
   client_limit = 8192
}
service auth {
   client_limit = 8192
   unix_listener auth-userdb {
     mode = 0600
     user = qmailldap
   }
}
service imap-login {
   client_limit = 1000
   process_limit = 100
   process_min_avail = 8
   service_count = 0
}
service imap {
   client_limit = 1
   process_limit = 2048
   process_min_avail = 16
   service_count = 0
}
service lmtp {
   inet_listener lmtp {
     port = 24
   }
   user = qmailldap
}
service pop3-login {
   client_limit = 1000
   process_limit = 100
   process_min_avail = 8
   service_count = 0
}
service pop3 {
   client_limit = 1
   process_limit = 2048
   process_min_avail = 32
   service_count = 0
}
ssl = no
userdb {
   driver = prefetch
}
userdb {
   args = /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf.ext
   driver = ldap
}
protocol lmtp {
   mail_plugins = " quota mail_log notify"
}
protocol imap {
   mail_max_userip_connections = 1024
   mail_plugins = " quota imap_quota autocreate mail_log notify"
}
protocol pop3 {
   mail_max_userip_connections = 1024
   mail_plugins = " quota autocreate"
}