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Re: Using procmail to store into IMAP folders

2004-04-10 03:25:27
Nancy McGough writes:

  Nancy> On 9 Apr 2004 Johan Parin (Johan(_dot_)Parin(_at_)abc(_dot_)se) wrote:
  >> I'm running procmail on my ISP's mail server to filter incoming
  >> mail into several IMAP folders. I have noticed that the IMAP
  >> folders are stored as traditional mbox files, except there is a
  >> special message first (with subject "IMAP4 Server Data-DO NOT
  >> DELETE"). So I have been storing messages by just using a simple
  >> rule like this:
  >> 
  >> :0:
  >> * <some filtering rule>
  >> $HOME/Mail/<some mailbox>
  >> 
  >> which will just append the message to the mailbox file.
  >> 
  >> But I'm suspecting this is unsafe - what if the server is
  >> maintaining some other data structure apart from the mailbox,
  >> which will not be updated when I do this operation? Also this
  >> assumes procmail and the IMAP server uses the same file locking
  >> mechanism. Should I be using some simple command line IMAP client
  >> to do the filing instead? If so, any suggestions?

  Nancy> I've been doing what you're do for years (10 years now
  Nancy> actually) with no problem.

  >> I'm asking this now because I'm having sever problems with *lost
  >> messages* when using Mozilla with Junk Control as mail
  >> client. Since noone else has reported a similar problem I assume
  >> it must be something specifc with my situation, perhaps corrupted
  >> IMAP folders. Also, I have used Gnus and Outlook, and both
  >> complains on bad UID numbers.

  Nancy> Are you using Mozilla, Gnus, and Outlook to access the
  Nancy> mailboxes via IMAP or via local file system calls. If you are
  Nancy> using IMAP, you should not be having a problem. But if you
  Nancy> are using local file system cals, I'm not surprised you're
  Nancy> have problems. My suggestions is to only access your
  Nancy> mailboxes via IMAP and see if that solves the problem.

I *only* access the mailboxes via IMAP from Mozilla, Gnus and
Outlook. But, as I described above I (just like you apparantly) access
the mailboxes via local file system calls from _procmail_.

The server is not UW-IMAP, it is "Solstice (tm) Internet Mail Server
(tm)", which is apparantly an early branch from UW-IMAP.

The following is a kind of message I sometimes get from Outlook:

"Your IMAP server has reported a UID which does not compuly with the
IMAP standard. This typically indicates a server bug. Your program
may not function properly after this.

MsgSeqNum 7, New UID 1311. Prev UID: 1342, Next UID: 0.
 Protocol: IMAP
 Server: mail.abc.se
 Port: 143"

Gnus sometimes reports similar problems with bad UIDs.

I have recently noticed that I sometimes get messages with CRLF
linebreaks in them, instead of just LF. This seems to cause Gnus to
hang while fetching messages. I *think* this also coincides with the
bad UID messages from Outlook.

Now, I don't know if the unusual linebreaks are actually legal, if
they would be "fixed" by using an IMAP client to store the messages,
or if they are the cause for my problems. But at least there seems to
be some connection.


--
Johan


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