inbox.lock in one account

[casey]

One of my users keeps getting a file created in his inbox called "inbox.lock". When this file is created, mail stops being delivered to his account and gets stuck in the queue. He is also unable to send or receive e-mail when this file is in there. E-mail starts working again only when I delete the inbox.lock file. But a few minutes later it comes back.

The only thing I can think of is that the user's inbox is rather large (17MB). Is this the problem? If he downloads all his e-mail with Outlook, will that solve everything?

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number: 25261

WHM 8.4.0 cPanel 8.4.0-E85

[JC]

This normally happens on users accessing with dialup connections.
If the connection drops during receive, his inbox.lock remains open for 5 to 10 minutes and then resets.
Only then will he be able to receive again.
In this situation, Outlook keeps asking for his password and although he types it in correctly, he gets nothing.
He'll just have to wait and try again later with a better connection

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[casey]

Originally posted by JC
This normally happens on users accessing with dialup connections.
If the connection drops during receive, his inbox.lock remains open for 5 to 10 minutes and then resets.
Only then will he be able to receive again.
In this situation, Outlook keeps asking for his password and although he types it in correctly, he gets nothing.
He'll just have to wait and try again later with a better connection

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Normally is the key word here. He isn't accessing his e-mail with Outlook. He's accessing his e-mail with Squirrelmail. The lock appears everytime a new message comes. This is a highly active account, so I can see it happen. I delete the inbox.lock file, and as soon as a new message comes the lock is back.

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[rs-freddo]

I have one account with this problem too - any resolution?

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[casey]

Mine appears to have gone away on its own. Due to the vagueness of my customer's e-mail, I can't really tell whether it was due to his internet connection or not.

Most people have told me that it is due to the person getting disconnected while trying to download mail via a pop e-mail client. The only way to fix it is to delete the inbox.lock file.

Since mine has gone away, I have not tried the following solution, but it was offered to me at forum.cpanelhosts.com

cat inbox > inbox.new
rm inbox
mv inbox.new inbox

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[rs-freddo]

I found the solution.

The problem is caused by processes. Do a ps aux and you'll see lots of processes with the domain username, some imap, some cpop.

Kill them all (kill -9 processNumber). Then delete the inbox.lock file.

This fixes the problem.

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[jameshsi]

Originally posted by casey
Mine appears to have gone away on its own. Due to the vagueness of my customer's e-mail, I can't really tell whether it was due to his internet connection or not.

Most people have told me that it is due to the person getting disconnected while trying to download mail via a pop e-mail client. The only way to fix it is to delete the inbox.lock file.

Since mine has gone away, I have not tried the following solution, but it was offered to me at forum.cpanelhosts.com

cat inbox > inbox.new
rm inbox
mv inbox.new inbox

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I am using this solution to solve the problem too.
But I feel it is very unconfortable when I have to manuly do it in Shell for a clients get locked.
Is there any way to improve ?

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[casey]

Originally posted by jameshsi
I am using this solution to solve the problem too.
But I feel it is very unconfortable when I have to manuly do it in Shell for a clients get locked.
Is there any way to improve ?

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If you trust your user to read carefully, you can have him delete the file on his own with the file manager or via ftp. The file to delete is inbox.lock. Make sure that he understands that he is only to delete that file. Otherwise he may lose all his e-mails.

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[rs-freddo]

I found that just deleting inbox.lock did not solve the problem - anew one was created each time mail was delivered. Deleting the processes solved the problem permanently. You need to do both.

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[casey]

Originally posted by rs-freddo
I found that just deleting inbox.lock did not solve the problem - anew one was created each time mail was delivered. Deleting the processes solved the problem permanently. You need to do both.

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What processes? I didn't even notice. For some reason, after I deleted the file a few times it stopped.

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[rs-freddo]

Maybe you upgraded? Starting and stopping cpop and/or imap would probably get rid of the processes. Just deleting the lock did not work for me.

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[casey]

Originally posted by rs-freddo
Maybe you upgraded? Starting and stopping cpop and/or imap would probably get rid of the processes. Just deleting the lock did not work for me.

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I restarted cppop.

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[maki]

tried /scripts/mailperm ?

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[casey]

Originally posted by maki
tried /scripts/mailperm ?

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Yep. Didn't help.

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[AceWeb]

This can also happen if the inbox file is being access from more than one place at the same time (from outlook and Squirrel Mail, for example).

Some of my client had this happen when they left their oulook on at home, and they checked their e-mail from some place using Squirrel Mail - if outlook and Squirrel will access it at the same time, this can also happen.

To fix the issue, run: /scripts/fixpop

you will need to know the e-mail account that has the problem and you will need to type in the password for that e-mail account.

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