Re: AW: [EXT] Doveadm and iterate query

On 17/07/2026 16:23, MK via dovecot wrote:
>> Hi!
>>
>> I have a problem with Dovecot on Debian 13:
>>
>> Dovecot 2.4.1, Debian Trixie
>>
>>   > doveadm mailbox path -A INBOX >/dev/null
>> doveadm(email@domain): Error: auth-master: userdb list: User listing
>> returned failure
>> doveadm: Error: cmd mailbox path: Failed to iterate through some users
>>
>> userdb sql {
>> iterate_query = SELECT `email` AS `user` FROM `users`
>> }
>>
>> In syslog file:
>> dovecot: auth: Error: auth-worker: Aborted LIST request for *: Shutting down
>>
>> I have over 30k users in sql DB, doveadm with -A option is dying few
>> second after start with this error, printing about 10% of users.
>> I need much more time (FE command "doveadm expunge -A mailbox Spam
>> savedbefore 3w" could run over 30 minutes).
>>
>> What I'm doing wrong?
>>
> I had the same problem with `doveadm -A` commands after upgrading from Debian 12 to Debian 13 including dovecot upgrade from 2.3.19 to 2.4.1.
> My current theory is that changes in how SQL is integrated in 2.4 are causing the iterate query session to time out during something you do with doveadm and -A option and a larger amout of users.
> I wrote about this last week, you can find it under the title "doveadm backup / purge problems since migration from 2.3 to 2.4".
> My current workarround is a script that generates a user list via doveadm user '*' , cached this and then execute the doveadm command you need for each user in this list. Works for me with arround 4k user.
>
> Since this is the second time I heard of that is here anyone else who had the same problem?
> I thought it might be a problem on my end, but it seems to be an issue with Dovecot 2.4 since I'm clearly not the only one who is affected.
> Maybe someone from the dovecot Team has heared about it? Would be nice if this can be fixed and I can use -A option since before.
>
> Oliver
>
>
>
Hi

it appears to be a bug in dovecot 2.4.x when iterating thousands of users.

See 
https://dovecot.org/mailman3/archives/list/[email protected]/message/P5QBZAYXNAMNYHYA3BRLN4J3GUKX26WP/

The fix I posted there did bypass the issue during a test I did. I am 
not sure it could be treated as a definitive fix. Another workaround is 
to iterate outside dovecot.

John


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