At one of my client sites running qmail, I run into a peculiar
problem that occurs about twice per month and I was wondering
if anyone else has encountered these sorts of things. This problem
has happened with several different users at one time or another
at my client's site.
qmail-1.03-10 is installed with the msglog patch so duplicates
of incoming and outgoing email are kept on my client's server for
tape archiving.
All of the end users on his LAN are using Windows 95 with
MicroSoft Outlook 97 for an email client connecting to the
qmail pop-3 server. All of the users have their client software
set to NOT leave email on the server.
qmail with the exception of this intermittent problem is
very stable and I am very pleased with its performance. I'm
inclined to suspect this problem might be one in of the following;
My first choice would be MS Outlook email client, secondly
something I have set up incorrectly somewhere, then lastly and
unlikely, the msglog patch. I would doubt its qmail itself that
is causing this intermittent problem so I have left it out of my
choices of possibilities.
*Symptoms of the problem itself*
About twice or so per month a user (no one in particular) will have
several emails in their $HOME/Maildir/new directory.
Their Win95 workstation will attempt to connect to the pop-3
qmail server and they will get a failed download of the emails.
All of the messages that _were_ in their $HOME/Maildir/new
will be _moved_ from $HOME/Maildir/new to their $HOME/Maildir/cur
and all of the messages will have a ;2 appended to the end of
the message file name. Their download of email messages will abort.
In subsequent attempts by the user to collect email messages from the
qmail pop-3 server the user's email client will fail and no email messages
will be downloaded.
*A temporary fix*
However, if the _oldest_ email in the user's $HOME/Maildir/cur
is deleted or removed from the directory, and the ;2 suffix is
removed from the messages and they are _moved_ back into the user's
$HOME/Maildir/new directory, their email client will download the
emails without any problems as if nothing had happened.
*My question*
My question is, has anyone else encountered the same intermittent
problem I have been encountering ? If so, I am curious as to what
is causing it and also, how could I prevent it ?
Regards,
Harley Silver
