Lisa,
We have found that killing the pop process for the user and THEN
removing the .pop and .lock files will allow qpopper to cleanup the temp
drop so that the user does not lose mail in the process.
The pop lock itself is probably just a result of a poor connection with
a reconnect & retry, etc. We see this frequently with dialup users in a
rural area on 50 yr old phone lines. If this is the case, usually
forcing the modem to V.34 does more good to fix the issue.
Ken A
Pacific.Net
Lisa Casey wrote:
Hi,
I'm using Qpopper 4.0.4 with Sendmail 8.12.6 and are using the mbox type
of mail delivery as opposed to maildir. And yes, I've been told about
the advantages of maildir over mbox.
We have one user (among several hundred mail accounts on this box) who
is having a persistent pop lock problem. Our usual advice: "Wait 20
minutes before you try to pick up mail again" doesn't help in her case
because her pop lock just doesn't go away. When it happens, I've seen
the pop lock hang around for hours. I have had to resort to removing it
so as to allow this user to be able to pop her mail again.
Then a few days later she gets a persistent pop lock again.
I have verified (to the best of my ability) that she isn't continuing to
pop mail during this time (does continuing to attempt to pop mail while
there is a pop lock cause the pop lock to stick around longer? I've
wondered about that).
This particular user sometimes pops mail using Outlook Express, and
sometimes accesses her mailbox while she is at work using our Webmail
interface. But I don't see why that would cause a problem for this one
user as we have quite a few users who use Outlook Express at times and
web mail at times.
At present, her mailbox is completely weird (I've not seen a pop lock
quite like this before:
-rw-rw---- 1 beddy mail 219495 Feb 7 13:53 beddy
-rw------- 1 beddy mail 17 Feb 7 21:45 beddy.lock
-rw-rw---- 1 beddy mail 0 Feb 7 21:45 .beddy.pop
In the past, removing .beddy.pop has restored her ability to pop mail
again (for awhile) although, of course, she lost the mail that was tied
up in that file, but I sauspect now that her mailbox (the beddy file)
has become corrupted somehow, because if I now remove beddy.lock and
.beddy.pop, these files get recreated as soon as she attempts to pop
mail again.
What might cause this? Any solutions?
Thanks,
Lisa Casey
