Mail client hangs while checking email

[erinspice]

Hi. I have already successfully converted from mbox to maildir, and it fixed this problem for a little while, but now it's back. My mail client hangs for 5+ minutes when trying to check my email on a particular account, and then gives some error which I cannot remember right now. Other accounts on same server work fine. Restarting exim does not fix the problem, and neither does rebooting the server. I thought this was a file lock problem but have heard that this problem is not supposed to occur with maildir. Is that right? If not, how can I unlock the file? If so, what else could be causing this and how can I fix it?

 

[jpetersen]

Hi. I have already successfully converted from mbox to maildir, and it fixed this problem for a little while, but now it's back. My mail client hangs for 5+ minutes when trying to check my email on a particular account, and then gives some error which I cannot remember right now.

Knowing what the exact error message is would be the #1 most helpful thing for diagnosing the issue. Often times just googling the error will lead to the solution. That said, which client are you using, and have you tried reproducing the issue with an alternate client?

Other accounts on same server work fine. Restarting exim does not fix the problem, and neither does rebooting the server. I thought this was a file lock problem but have heard that this problem is not supposed to occur with maildir. Is that right?

That is correct. Under the mbox storage format, all email is written to one file, which is why the file must be locked (this prevents multiple processes from writing to the file at once, potentially corrupting the file).

With maildir, emails are written to their own separate files.

Some really good documentation on this can be found here:
http://www.qmail.org/qmail-manual-html/man5/maildir.html

If not, how can I unlock the file? If so, what else could be causing this and how can I fix it?

I'd do everything possible to try to reproduce the error message you saw previously, then search google and the cPanel forums. Changes are, someone else has had the exact same issue and the resolution has been posted. If not, post it here and I'm sure it won't be long before someone figures it out.

 

[markfrompf]

He's right. The best way to start would be to post the error message.

 

[erinspice]

I must have been remembering an unrelated error. I hit send/receive at 8:04 and its 8:17 by my time, and still hanging. No errors.

 

[katmai]

what we mean is errors in the exim_mainlog and paniclog files, and in the maillog file. all located in /var/log/