Re: Retrieve all messages from AOL

Compilebunny <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > Okay.  That is a bug at the server end, as the message says.
> 
> Unfortunately, I can't call AOL and tell them to fix their systems.

Unfortunately, no MUA can work around a broken server.  getmail can try to
make things a little better than you're currently experiencing, however.

> http://www.empericalvagabond.com/getmail/getmail-pop3.results
> http://www.empericalvagabond.com/getmail/pop3stderr.txt

Okay, as you said, it got 3000 messages that time, instead of 2000.  However,
at this point, the network connection is force-closed by the mailserver.  The
round numbers this happens at imply with virtual certainty that you're hitting
a configured limit at their end, and the server then terminates your
connection for going over the limit.

> 2. getmail --dump [...]

Okay.  You do have getmail configured correctly for retrieving only new
messages and leaving them on the server.  The reason it retrieves them again
is because the session is not being ended successfully.  getmail only
considers a message successfully retrieved and delivered if the session ends
cleanly.

What you should do is set max_messages_per_session to something reasonable -
say, a few hundred messages.  getmail will retrieve that many messages, then
exit and update its state.  You keep re-running it until it has worked its way
through the entire message store.

This *may* fix the "offered message but failed to provide it" errors as well,
but there isn't enough information here to be sure of that.  Knowing AOL, I
wouldn't bet on it.

> The software recommends that I use the BrokenUIDL version of the POP3
> handler. However, the BrokenUIDL adaptation cannot identify which messages
> have already been downloaded, and thus would end up getting the first
> 2000-3000 messages over and over again.
> 
> What do you think?

The failure to "know" messages have been retrieved is not due to the fact that
the server appears broken; it's because of the deliberate connection
termination by the server.  Make the above changes and report back with the
state of the problem, if any.

Charles
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Charles Cazabon
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