Re: [cobalt-users] Need help w/Possible corrupted email account

[flash22@xxxxxxx]

On Sat, 1 Dec 2001, Mike Jones wrote:

> Hello group.  I've been learning from the list for three months now but this
> will be my first posted question.
> 
> I'm having trouble with my server, Raq 3.  I'm unable to access email from
> my main account.  None of the other users or v-sites have this problem.
> This is my account on the master domain on the server.
>     I think it started when I tried to move about 2000 messages back to the
> server from Outlook 2k using IMAP.  From that point, I can see the messages

2000 messages in a single spooled email config is INSANE, don't do that ;)

> through IMAP and PINE most of the time if I wait long enough but I can't
> delete any of them nor can I access them at all from Neomail or POP3.

I'm not surprised, it will probably take 3 days for neomail to index them

>     When I try with POP3 I get a time out failure.  When I try a second time
> it prompts me for username and password.  Then this error comes up.

uh huh

> 
> Error: There was a problem logging on to your mail server. Your User Name or
> Password was rejected. Server Response: -'ERR [IN-USE]
> /var/spool/mail/.mikej.pop lock busy! Is another session active? (11)'.
> (Account: 'bliptech.com', POP3 Server: 'bliptech.com'; Error Number:
> 0x800ccc92).

You didn't wait long enough for qpopper to finish, give up , and delete
the lock, you may have even crashed it, if it ran out of space

> 
>     When in PINE, I attempted to delete a message and it said it was not
> possible because the folder was marked read only.

It's still locked...

>     I've opened up a telnet session to the server and watched the active
> processes using TOP during all types of login.  In each case, when I attempt
> a login through POP3 a task called q.popper jumps up to 80-97% processor

That's the pop3 server going nuts trying to index 2000 messages...it will
take it a while..

> utilization.  Same when I attempt to delete a message through IMAP although
> it doesn't indicate q.popper.  Also when I attempt to access through
> neomail, q.popper and perl5 jump up and nearly pin the processor.

Now you are causing lock deadlocks, you really hate this poor server don't
you ;0

>     I'm trying various things to save the email that is there but haven't
> found an answer yet.  I've also verified that no other accounts have this
> problem.  I hope some one has an idea that might help.

Be patient, wait an hour, then open it with pine, and split it into
folders, if you are truely depserate, you may have to move the spool file
out of the spool and use an editor to cut it up into pieces...

If you try to read it via pop3 it's gonna take days to delete the messages
;)

Imap may or may not do something sensible here, i am not sure if the imap
server on the raq's uses a seperate index database or not..either wau, you
need to let the locks expire first or you are going to corrupt something,
keep in mind, it was never intended that people would jump back and forth
between pop3 and imap for the same account, strange things happen -

This is why people don't usually allow users to have this much mail left
on a server when using this kind of configuration...

[There is another way of storing mail that deals with very large message
counts, but it's not hot the raq's are setup, you are pushing it beyond
what it was intended to handle]

gsh