On 21 Apr 2021, at 11:31, Michael Grant <mgr...@grant.org> wrote: >>>> We don't really fix issues with mbox files anymore, other than read >>>> issues.. Our focus is enabling people to move to other formats, such as >>>> maildir. I would strongly recommend you to consider using maildir instead >>>> of mbox. > > Ugh, so many people still have their mail in mbox that I find it hard to > believe this is "deprecated".
It's a terrible format and was developed when most people had mail that maybe took up several kilobytes of space. >>>> I would also recommend you use dovecot-lda in procmail to deliver mail, if >>>> you are not already doing so. > > I wasn't, so it took me a couple days to try this and wait for it to > happen again. It's still happening. I therefore think this probably > doesn't have anything todo with procmail. Procmail is old, creaky, has several known bugs, and is unmaintained. But also works perfectly well with Maildir, a vast improvement over mbox. > You'll get a lot of pushback if you do this! I'm not the only one > using it. Yeah, stirring gigabytes of mail in a single flat text file is a fantastic idea, I can see why some people are so hesitant to give it up. Honestly, it's bad. Don't use it. > mailx and the gnu mail tools use it and I don't know if I > can so easily migrate things to maildir format. GNU Mail certainly can. You will be hard pressed to find a mail client that doesn't. (I've never used mail, but I would be surprised if it was mbox only). From the command line I only use mutt anymore. > I think it could be a nightmare migrating to maildir. It is not. In fact, it is a facility that is basically built in to formail (that's procmail's formail) which I think is in the formail man page (But it's been a few years since I stopped using procmail). There is also a mb2md.py utility. <https://wiki.dovecot.org/Migration/MailFormat> > I seem to be or may be the only one on this server seeing the issue. > I am also a heavy imap user. mbox and IMAP together are a big bag of hurt. I switched from mbox back around 2000 specifically because of moving too IMAP. > Is there any way 2 separate IMAP clients talking to dovecot could > cause this? With mbox files? I would sure think so. You have two processes potentially accessing the same file. That is never good. > I'm really hoping that this is just some config issue. It is, just not the config issue you think it is. -- WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN --Feet of Clay