Re: Qpopper continually fails to POP mail from large mbox

I have seen the problem you originally stated,
> Jul 18 08:36:47 seibercom qpopper[894]: gerard at 192.168.0.3  
> (192.168.0.3): -ERR POP EOF or I/O Error
> Jul 18 08:36:47 seibercom qpopper[894]: Stats: gerard 0 0 143  
> 30288106 192.168.0.3 192.168.0.3
> Jul 18 08:36:50 seibercom qpopper[894]: I/O error flushing output  
> to client gerard at 192.168.0.3 [192.168.0.3]: Operation not  
> permitted (1)
and it was with large mailboxes that were being checked during a  
power failure. After power was returned and server restarted, the  
client could not check mail and showed the same log entry as you have  
shown. It is as if those boxes were suddenly corrupted. What is  
different here is what you are calling a large mailbox. I ask one  
client if she would please clean out her mailbox yesterday because it  
was at 246 MB. My supervisor continually maintains a mailbox of well  
over 100 MB. Granted I only have 24 clients but to me a 30 MB mailbox  
is small.

Yes, I know Imap. My clients think Imap is an attachment to an iPod.  
And most of them want a message to show as new on each computer they  
download it to, Qpopper was the only POP3 program that I could make  
do that.

Jim


On Jul 19, 2006, at 9:46 AM, Gerard wrote:

> Alan Brown <[email protected]>
>
>> On Tue, 18 Jul 2006, Gerard wrote:
>>
>>> 1) Use fetchmail to harvest mail from main mail server - but  
>>> leave the
>>> mail on the main server.
>>
>> POP isn't designed for this, leaving mail on server is a kludge at  
>> best.
>>
>> Use Imap.
>>
>>> 2) Attempt to POP the mail off my server
>>>    a) If the mbox reaches a certain threshold, the downloading of  
>>> mail
>>>       will fail.
>>
>> Timeouts on the client.
>>
>>> 3) Attempt to download the mail left on the main server
>>>    a) Success
>>
>> Longer client timeouts.
>>
>>> I have seen this problem mentioned many time. I have been advised to
>>> dump my present mail system and install an 'imap' system with  
>>> 'dovecot'
>>> to handle mail delivery. Even the fetchmail manuals describe a  
>>> problem
>>> with qpopper and a large mbox(s).
>>>
>>> If you know of a solution, I would appreciate hearing about it.
>>
>> Use Imap.
>>
>> Qpopper is good at what it does, but there are fundamental client
>> restrictions which make it patently unsuitable for the job if more  
>> than
>> one client ever accesses the mailbox and/or if mail is regularly  
>> left on
>> the server.
>>
>> AB
>
> For what its worth, I just had a mbox size of 12M on one account. Not
> extremely large by any standards. Using 'qpopper' the download  
> failed as
> it usually does with a large mbox size near or over 10M. I immediately
> changed to 'popa3d' in the inetd.conf file and restarted it. Now,  
> when I
> attempted to download the email messages it proceeded without  
> incident.
>
> I firmly believe that there is an inherent flaw in qpopper that has  
> gone
> unfixed for quite some time. It does not effect everyone, or perhaps
> every OS, but it is there. Unfortunately, the developers do not seem
> interested in getting to the root of the problem. A simple Google  
> search
> will turn up others who have experienced the exact same sort of  
> problem
> that I have. It is even mentioned in the 'fetchmail' manual.
>
> In any case, my system is now working. I will shortly be changing over
> to a postfix/courier-imap system so these sort of problems will never
> happen again anyway.
>
> Thanks for everyone's help.
>
>
> -- 
> Gerard Seibert
> [email protected]
>
>
>      Why does the bride always wear white?
>
>      Because it is good for the dishwasher to match the stove and
>      refrigerator.
>