It's usually a function of the in.pop3d daemon not timing out the session and
deleting the file.  When someone downloads POP3 mail, when they login, a copy
of their /var/spool/mail/username file is made to /var/tmp/.pop/username and
they actually download from the "tmp" dir.  This way, when a new message comes
in, it does not create a file conflict (it's a "snapshot" of their file).

I have had your problem happen to me frequently (pop3 sees the temp file
already there and thinks that someone else is downloading from that mailbox).
What I did to resolve it was to put in a crontab event (login as root then do
a "crontab -e" command) and put in the following:

# Delete stale mail-download locks from invalidly disconnected pop3 sessions:
0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * *       find /var/tmp/.pop/* -mmin +5
2> /dev/null | xargs rm -f

(all of that should be on the same line)

What is does is this:

Every 5 minutes, every hour, every day, etc (I could have tried */5 I guess
instead of listing each 5 minute interval)
Find files in /var/pop/.tmp that have not been modified in the last 5 minutes
(someone downloading POP3 mail will keep modifying this file), and delete them
if they have been idle for over 5 minutes.  This is the "find /var/tmp/.pop/*
-mmin +5 | xargs rm -f" part of the command above.
The "2> /dev/null" was inserted to keep the root account from getting a mail
message every 5 minutes when there is no file to clean out at that cycle.

I hope this helps.
JR


Xu Li Hua wrote:

> Hi Friends:
> I have trouble in using Sendmail in Slackware Linux.
> My username often appreared in the /usr/tmp/.pop directory.
> Then I can't get my mail.
> Why it happens? How can I disable this function?
>
> Many thanks!
>
> Xu Lihua

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President
Roland Internet Services
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