$_userdelivery defer (-9): failed to lock

[joana]

I've got many complaints from users about emails they send and it takes time to get to their mail box.. sometime it takes hours to recieve an email..

exim_mainlog shows
$_userdelivery defer (-9): failed to lock mailbox /home/user/mail/user/inbox (lock file)

What does that mean? anyway to fix it?

 

[JustinK]

This seems to have started up on out of our servers as well and I can't seem to figure out how to stop it. Permissions all appear to be correct... Did you happen to find a fix for yours?

 

[joana]

[quote:acc337aa67][i:acc337aa67]Originally posted by JustinK[/i:acc337aa67]

Did you happen to find a fix for yours?[/quote:acc337aa67]

No, nothing ..

 

[JustinK]

Our problem with it may be with the software the user was using to check e-mail (JBMail). When the mail program was open it kept a connection open with the server, thus keeping the inbox.lock file in place and not allowing the new mail to get put anywhere other than the mail queue.

It's still just a theory though. I recommended the client try MailWasher instead and we'll see how that goes.

 

[morris]

Terrible

There are terrible problems with this. Nothing to do with JBMail. I have accounts with 3 hosts with Cpanel/Exim and it seems that it is a random problem, not always with every pop and is getting worse. I simply cannot track why sometimes the emails delayed and why sometimes immediate. There MUST be a reason.

 

[bdraco]

run /scripts/mailperm to make sure all permisions and ownerships are correct.

 

[JustinK]

Will try the mail permissions, but so far everything looks correct. Also, it wasn't JBMail causing the issue. It seems the lock file just doesn't want to disappear immediately.

 

[Wallaby]

FWIW /scripts/mailperm seemed to fix this exact problem for us.