Re: New problem with AT&T (Yahoo) mail

Emilio Perea <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have been using getmail for AT&T email for a few years without problems,
> but starting last evening we had this error:
> 
> att: operation error (IMAP error (EXAMINE command error: BAD ['[CLIENTBUG]
> EXAMINE Command is not valid in this state']))
> 
> I assume this is a problem with AT&T rather t han getmail, but thought to
> mention it here. This is the relevant rc file:

Your mail service appears to actually be provided by Yahoo rather than AT&T
itself, so it might be a wider problem.

It does *look* like a problem at the server end.  getmail is trying to EXAMINE
the mailbox, because you're not trying to delete anything and getmail can get
by with just read-only access.  But the server is complaining that the EXAMINE
command is not valid in this state (which should be logged-in, and which
should support EXAMINE just fine...).

It's kind of confusing.  You should report this to your AT&T support contact
and see if it can be properly fixed.  However, as a workaround in the
meantime, you can force getmail to open the mailbox read-write (with the
SELECT command) instead by setting an option like:

  [options]
  # Tell getmail to delete messages 9999 days after retrieval - 27 years
  delete_after = 9999

That won't actually delete messages unless you've been running getmail for
more than 27 years, which would be a neat trick.

Charles
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Charles Cazabon
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