Hi, Roelof Otten> A few questions. Roelof Otten> Is everyone of them using TB? And if so, do all copies of TB show the Roelof Otten> same behaviour? In the latter case you could try to ask the ISP about Roelof Otten> changes in the server.
They all use TB and the ISP maintains the problem isn't on their side (which I believe). It seems to be a misconfiguration somewhere in the office... I can't access it for the moment, but will keep investigating. Roelof Otten> Does TB every time download all messages, or did it only once and Roelof Otten> afterwards only when you killed the dupes. That might point to a Roelof Otten> change on the server side. It does randomly download the messages, killing the dupes only accentuates the problem. It wasn't doing so before, so I smell misconfiguration on at least one station. Roelof Otten> A solution for the current situation would be to let the four of them Roelof Otten> download their mail with the last of them to delete it immediately on Roelof Otten> the server. Unless their flow is real high, this action shouldn't Roelof Otten> cause more than one or two messages not to be distributed to the four Roelof Otten> of them (but only to the last). It can't be done, the four work separately and I can't impose *any* particular procedure. It has to all automagic... Roelof Otten> Since you've been working this way for months, the idea behind it is Roelof Otten> sound. However with a real high flow the storage on the server or the Roelof Otten> buffer that TB uses might overrun and cause something like this. The mailbox in question gets between 100 and 250 e-mails/day. Their net connection is too slow (adsl 512/128) for using IMAP, which would solve the problems altogether. Roelof Otten> Possible solutions: Roelof Otten> 1) Kill messages after a week Doesn't change a thing. Roelof Otten> 2) If your four are on a LAN and use TB, you could configure one copy Roelof Otten> of TB as server to collect and send the mail. Look at the TB help Roelof Otten> file for: "The Bat! Networking Course" to get more info on this Roelof Otten> subject. Now TB can delete mail on the server. Sounds like a solution to me. I hadn't noticed it was possible! It should solve the problem since there won't be no sharing on the server level. Should make it a bit faster too. Roelof Otten> 3) Install a real server on your LAN, this enables everyone to mail Roelof Otten> among themselves and with my server (I'm using Mailtraq) it's easy Roelof Otten> to distribute the mail to all four of them. Or if you'd like to Roelof Otten> spread the workload, to send every message only to one of them. Roelof Otten> And I expect the same functionality in other servers like Mercury Roelof Otten> or MDaemon. Yes, it'd be the best thing to do, but the client, strangely, is against the idea. Go figure why... <sigh> Roelof Otten> In my message I presumed four copies of TB, I'm not sure whether Roelof Otten> that's correct, but you didn't give lots of info. ;-) My bad :) Roelof Otten> To do more possible error hunting: Roelof Otten> 1) Four copies of the same version of TB? Site-wide license, shouldn't be a problem! Roelof Otten> 2) Do all copies experience the same problem? Trying to find out, but the users have a hard time understanding the question (PEBKAC). Roelof Otten> 3) Do other mua's have the same problem? Care to enlighten me as to the meaning of "mua"? Roelof Otten> 4) How often did the problem occur (without killing dupes, that only Roelof Otten> repeats the whole problem): once, once a month, once a half year, Roelof Otten> once per 65536 messages. Several times a week. Roelof Otten> 5) Was their a setup/version change before TB started to behave Roelof Otten> erroneously? (This includes other software, OS, hardware, ISP, Roelof Otten> internet connection) Nope, nothing changed. Roelof Otten> 6) Did something else change with the computers or the people that use Roelof Otten> them? (One of them taking the kids to office could prove Roelof Otten> disastrous. <g>) If they did, they wouldn't tell... And the thing is I'm no longer officially taking care of them, just trying to find a solution for the new guy who never used TB. Thanks immensely for your help! Dave ________________________________________________ Current version is 1.61 | "Using TBUDL" information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
