if o.startswith('[UNAVAILABLE]'): AttributeError: 'error' object has no attribute 'startswith'

trying to get from my university account I get this error:


  rx@mirabelle ~ $ getmail -r ~/cfg/getmail/kent 
  getmail version 5.7
  Copyright (C) 1998-2012 Charles Cazabon.  Licensed under the GNU GPL version 2.
  SimpleIMAPSSLRetriever:[email protected]:993:

  Exception: please read docs/BUGS and include the following information in any bug report:

    getmail version 5.7
    Python version 2.7.15+ (default, Aug 31 2018, 11:56:52) 
  [GCC 8.2.0]

  Unhandled exception follows:
      File "/usr/bin/getmail", line 898, in main
      success = go(configs, options.idle)
      File "/usr/bin/getmail", line 157, in go
      retriever.initialize(options)
      File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/getmailcore/_retrieverbases.py", line 1709, in initialize
      if o.startswith('[UNAVAILABLE]'):
    AttributeError: 'error' object has no attribute 'startswith'

  Please also include configuration information from running getmail
  with your normal options plus "--dump".
  rx@mirabelle ~ $


my password is definitely fine (in ~/cfg/getmail/kent): I can get mail
w/ fetchmail, isync, and I haven't otherwise changed my
~/cfg/getmail/kent script, which used to work fine.

But I can see that there were some recent changes to UNAVAILABLE handling:

  https://marc.info/?l=getmail&m=154144788512000&w=2

apparently these have broken some bits.

Thanks,
-A