Re: [cobalt-users] POP3 lock problem - can't find .pop or .lock file

[Greg Hewitt-Long <cobaltusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:52 PM 1/15/2004, you wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Greg Hewitt-Long" <cobaltusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <cobalt-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 4:26 PM
> Subject: [cobalt-users] POP3 lock problem - can't find .pop or .lock file
>
>
> > I have an admin account on a server whose mail can't be collected at the
> > moment, the error message says:
> >
> > ERR [IN-USE] /var/spool/mail/.admin.pop lock busy!
> >
> > Well... there is not file by that name - and I can't a file by that name
> > anywhere on the server - anything else that might produce the same error?
>
> In /var/spool/mail/, use the command: ls -lA .*p (that's everything starting
> with a dot and ending with a p) and you should see it (and others for users
> currently reading their email).
>
> When you use your POP3 email client to access your mailbox, admin, the
> server copies the admin mailbox to .admin.pop (as a lock) and processes that
> to give your client the mail - admin is emptied at the same time (it is 0
> bytes long), ready to receive any new incoming mail.  If the transfer is
> interrupted for some reason, then the .pop file is left as a lock.
>
> I'm not exactly sure how safe it is to delete .admin.pop and wait for the
> data to be restored to mailbox admin, but to be sure you might rename
> .admin.pop to, say, admin.bkp (command: mv .admin.pop admin.bkp) and see if
> the data is later restored to mailbox admin. If that doesn't happen, you can
> restore it by using the command: cat admin.bkp>>admin (this retains any new
> email in admin, as well as the ownership and permissions of the file) -
> later, you can remove admin.bkp.


It's not there.  I can't move a file that isn't there.


> One of my users has been having problems with his transfers simply
> suspending midstream, and leaving the .pop file.  I've had to get around
> this problem by taking a copy of his mailbox (cp -p mailbox mailbox.bkp, or,
> cp -p .mailbox.pop mailbox.bkp) and the editing his mailbox to get rid of
> the difficult entry (using command mail -f mailbox), then using the same
> command on the backup and removing all but the difficult entry (for later
> attempts at retrieving it).


The mailbox is zero length at the moment - can't be much of difficult entry 
really... 0 bytes of nothing... ;{)

> I could go on (as I often do when answering a simple question), but that
> should suffice for the present.  You may already have solved your problem
> using earlier responses, while I've been rabbitting on!


It's possible, although the same machine is currently segmentation faulting 
while running a lot of commands, there may be other issues at the heart of 
this... possibly memory... I'm working on it... does anyone have a good 
source for cobalt compatible 512Mb and 256Mb DIMMS?

> Regards, Rob E.
>
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