Email not deleting

[Annette]

This seems as good a place as any for this, since a search doesn't yield anything about this same issue. If anyone has seen this same type of activity, and can give some suggestions on the underlying cause, please let me know.

On one particular server for a client, there are a bunch of domains where mail is not being emptied from the inboxes when the users check their mail. I verified this on one test mailbox, and got the same problem: continual download of the same messages, over and over, without the system removing those messages. I wound up moving the inbox out of the way, sent a message to the box, and got it downloaded (and removed) without any problems. However, the client reports that today, the problem is back, and I've verified that as well.

Any ideas welcome.

Thanks.

 

[rpmws]

Never seen this . .well maybe but it was a freak thing. I bet it has something to do with a weird email they are getting that drives cppoper crazy .. maybe. Have you narrowed it down to see any thing where the contents of inbox has any pattern inside that might give a clue? .. I know you mae sure client wasn't &hanging& right? I have seen OE hang on a certain message and then quit and fall off. The clicnt winds up with all the emails up to that point until it gets to that bad one. The server never gets the delete request. So the next time you get the same ones again and again. Is this the same thing ? or does thr email client seem to finish the pop session OK or not?

 

[Annette]

I've seen it before, but in the cases I remember, it was definitely user error where they had checked the option to leave the mail on the server instead of leaving it defaulted to unchecked. This doesn't seem to be that type of issue, since of course I ran tests here knowing exactly what the settings were. The sessions seem to complete fine, and I checked a couple of mailboxes to ensure that they weren't just getting multiple copies of the same messages from their lists. It doesn't appear that the boxes have anything particularly special in them (attachments and whatnot).

There doesn't seem to be any recognizable pattern to the domains/accounts that it's affecting, which makes it even more bizarre. It is not affecting all of them. Based on the client's response, it seems that the very heavy mail users are affected by this more than a regular, lower-usage user, but that's a little hard to confirm. One thing I do know is that based on /var/maillog, there is a lot of POPping going on, and what I'm wondering is if maybe the box is locked pending delivery/retrieval and the process simply can't finish properly. I've set up a test mailbox on a domain having the problem and subscribing it to some high-traffic lists to see if I can recreate it on a new box.

 

[rpmws]

You know seems like I saw something like this on a high email traffic domain I host and if I remember right ..I think we figured out that a POP session was open as well as Neomail on teh same account. The client had a pop client checking at home every 2 minutes (with no one there to watch errors) and at work this same client was checking mail with Neomail. Possible??? maybe??

 

[Annette]

Interesting. I'll have to see if that's a variable to throw in. Thanks.

 

[TRAIN YARD SOFTWARE]

we have 1 client that has come up with this problem again. we walked them though outlook check box on phone, then it was checked and now it is also checked, so he says.

 

[Annette]

Neomail is not a factor (not in use), so I've crossed that off the list.

 

[Annette]

And just like that, the problem disappears. If anyone sees something pretty widespread like this, or has seen it in the past and resolved it somehow, please let me know. I'll file it away for future reference.

Thanks.