Hi,

I have set up Courier IMAP and been running without problems for months. I had tried to set up Cyrus but ran into problems so used Courier instead. Can't remember the details!

Only today, my mailbox has started exhibiting faults. These are:

When using an IMAP mail client, it takes excessively long to move messages to folders before failing with "connection to [ip address] reset"

When using Squirrelmail (which connects to IMAP server on Localhost) I get "ERROR: Could not complete request. Query: CREATE INBOX.Sent" Readon Given: Cannot create this folder"

These problems only occur with my mailbox, all other mailboxes are fine.

Looking at /home/steve/Maildir, the contents of this folder seem to be missing a lot when compared with /home/xxx/Maildir.

I have not touched the configuration in the last week, and rebooting the server has made no difference.

Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Steve.

You don't say what distro you use. Do you happen to have SELinux running? It can cause this type of problem

Do apologise - it's Mandriva 2006 - linux 2.6.12-12mdksmp

Not that I am aware, just done a search of ps -ax and can't find any SELinux.

If it helps at all, I think the problem is in my Maildir folder - either with the permissions or it's just broken. Is there any form of tool I can run to "clean up" or "repair" my mailbox?

Having a look at ls -l -a /home/steve/Maildir it lists all the .Webfolders.Sent and suchlike folders in the same as the other /home/xxx/Maildir does... the permissions seem to be the same. However, when I use (is it Nautilius) the file browser on GNOME to look at /home/steve/Maildir these folders are not there. I do have "show hidden and backup" turned on, the other ..../Maildir folders show these folders.

Thanks for your help so far.

Regards,
Steve.

Can you post the output of ls -la

[root@siege Desktop]# cd /home/steve/Maildir
[root@siege Maildir]# ls -la
total 332
d-wx------ 29 steve 501 4096 Sep 26 18:46 ./
drwx------ 27 steve 501 4096 Oct 1 09:51 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 steve 501 4096 Aug 26 22:25 courierimaphieracl/
d-wx------ 2 steve 501 28672 Oct 1 01:04 courierimapkeywords/
-rw-r--r-- 1 steve users 420 Sep 26 18:46 courierimapsubscribed
-rw-r--r-- 1 steve users 2243 Oct 1 10:20 courierimapuiddb
drwx------ 2 steve 501 155648 Oct 1 10:20 cur/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 21 20:33 .Drafts/
drwx------ 5 root mail 4096 Aug 26 22:21 .junkmail/
drwx------ 6 steve 501 4096 Feb 9 2006 .Keep/
drwx------ 6 steve 501 4096 Feb 9 2006 .Keep.Accounts and Passwords/
drwx------ 6 steve 501 4096 Feb 9 2006 .Keep.Billing/
drwx------ 2 steve 501 36864 Oct 1 10:20 new/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 14 19:15 .Sent/
drwx------ 2 steve 501 4096 Oct 1 10:20 tmp/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 10 14:22 .Trash/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 26 18:42 .Vault/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 26 18:44 .Vault.Funny/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 26 18:42 .Vault.IT/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 26 18:43 .Vault.IT.Domain/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 26 18:44 .Vault.IT.Forums/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 26 18:46 .Vault.IT.Paypal/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 26 18:44 .Vault.IT.Software License/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 26 18:45 .Vault.IT.VoIP/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 26 18:44 .Vault.IT.WAN/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 26 18:47 .Vault.Motor/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 26 18:50 .Vault.Orders/
drwx------ 6 steve users 4096 Sep 26 18:46 .Vault.Orders.Amazon/
drwx------ 6 steve 501 4096 Mar 5 2006 .Webfolders.Drafts/
drwx------ 6 steve 501 4096 Mar 5 2006 .Webfolders.Sent/
drwx------ 6 steve 501 4096 Mar 5 2006 .Webfolders.Trash/
[root@siege Maildir]# cd /home/mum/Maildir
[root@siege Maildir]# ls -la
total 72
drwx------ 16 mum users 4096 Sep 18 20:44 ./
drwx------ 4 mum users 4096 Sep 30 18:39 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 mum users 4096 Sep 18 20:44 courierimaphieracl/
drwx------ 2 mum users 4096 Sep 30 23:19 courierimapkeywords/
-rw-r--r-- 1 mum users 153 Sep 18 20:44 courierimapsubscribed
-rw-r--r-- 1 mum users 1075 Sep 30 23:19 courierimapuiddb
drwx------ 2 mum users 4096 Sep 30 23:19 cur/
drwx------ 6 mum users 4096 Sep 10 16:47 .Drafts/
drwx------ 2 mum users 4096 Sep 30 23:19 new/
drwx------ 6 mum users 4096 Sep 10 16:47 .Sent/
drwx------ 2 mum users 4096 Sep 30 23:19 tmp/
drwx------ 6 mum users 4096 Sep 10 16:44 .Trash/
drwx------ 6 mum users 4096 Sep 18 20:44 .Web.Drafts/
drwx------ 6 mum users 4096 Sep 16 11:46 .Webfolders.Drafts/
drwx------ 6 mum users 4096 Sep 16 12:12 .Webfolders.Sent/
drwx------ 6 mum users 4096 Sep 16 11:49 .Webfolders.Trash/
drwx------ 6 mum users 4096 Sep 18 20:44 .Web.Sent/
drwx------ 6 mum users 4096 Sep 18 20:44 .Web.Trash/


I just noticed that the group I belong to is 501, this group doesn't exist any more as I have put all users in "users" I will chgrp this in a moment, but I dont think this will make much of a difference. Thanks again for your help so far!

Let us know how the 501 change works out

Unfortunately, changing the group recursively on Maildir to users did not make any difference. Do you think it would be beneficial at this stage to attempt Cyrus again, and migrate to this instead?

Just another thought... is anybody aware of a limit to how much mail a mailbox can reliably handle. I heard that Exchange throws toys out of the pram at 1Gig. I know I dont have *that* much mail in there but...

Do you have another mail client you could try?

Do the indiviual file permissions match those of other users?

Unfortunately, I'm running out of ideas a bit here

I have already tried Squirrelmail on the same server, and Mozilla Thunderbird and The Bat! on the Windows client, and Evolution on the Linux client. The mail clients exhibit similar faults (slow, timing out, acting as if folders are not really there.

Another interesting thing that may help, is if I use the web client to unsubscribe from the folders, it thinks they are not there. I dont know if that helps at all.

Yes. Unfortunately, I have compared a recursive ls -al, they are the same.

Thank you for all your help so far. Just in reference to your earlier question - am I running SELinux... is this a distro? If it is not, how do I find out definitively if I am running it or not?