[imp] IMP lock file

[Alain Fauconnet]

On Thu, Nov 09, 2000 at 11:17:17AM -0500, Chad Lieberman wrote:
> Does anyone know if IMP tries to open the mail spool twice or something?
> Why do I get the following error each time I check mail with IMP.  I've
> verified that it IS IMP  - there's no stale lock files.
> 
> -ERR[IN-USE] /var/spool/mail/.testuser.pop.  lock busy, Is another session
> active? (11)
> 
> I'm using IMP 2.2.3 & qpopper 3.1.
> 

Check the mailing list archives for  a  (long)  thread  of  discussion
whose subject was "window resizing". I have done an in-depth debugging
of one occurence of such a situation.

Basically, there are many cases where each of the frames in IMP  2.2.x
tries to open its own POP session with the server, causing  that  kind
of  error  when the sessions overlap. The bigger the mailbox, the more
likely it is to happen.

Either  use UW ipop3d (part of the UW IMAP package) which has built-in
retry on locking, or if you want to stick to Qpopper, I might send you
a  (moderately tested) patch that allows for configurable time-out and
retries on locking.

My  tests  have  also shown that using Qpopper's "server mode" if that
applies to your configuration greatly reduces the occurences.

It  is  my  understanding  that  IMP developers consider this a design
issue of IMP 2.2.x when using POP, and recommend either moving to IMAP
or upgrading to yet unstable 2.3.

Good luck,
_Alain_

-- 
Alain FAUCONNET
Sr. System Administrator
CS Internet Co. Ltd. (Shin Corp) - Thailand