Re: AW: AW: [EXT] Doveadm and iterate query

On 20/07/2026 11:38, 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
> Hi,
>
> did you get a feedback from someone of the dovecot developer? Since your request is 4 month ago.
> So this sounds like my used workarround seem to be the best we can do at the moment, as Philip did the same.
> Do you have experiences if this works with about 40k users or more too? (doveadm user '*', cache this and then execute doveadm -u for each user)
>
> Oliver
>
>
> __________

Hi Oliver

so far I haven't seen any follow up from the development team.

In my experience doveadm user '*' also runs into the same trouble for 
large numbers of users. I got issues with even 20K users on 2.4.x.

Where the users are in a mysql database, you could query the db directly 
to get the usernames and then execute doveadm -u for each user.

John


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