dovecot - May 2008 - Couldn't init INBOX: Can't sync mailbox: Messages keep getting expunged

Upon upgrading from 1.0.2 to 1.1rc4 I see this error for many of our users:

  Getting size of message UID=1 failed
  Couldn't init INBOX: Can't sync mailbox: Messages keep getting
expunged

Logging in with IMAP I would see a bunch of messages with no subject or 
time and blank bodies (usine horde/imp).

Removing dovecot.index.log, dovecot.index.log.2, or dovecot-uidlist 
fixes the problem for the account (I chose dovecot.index.log). I imagine 
that forces a rebuild of the indexes. Removing other files in the 
directory didn't seem to make a difference, including dovecot.index or 
some arbitrary non-dovecot file.

Is there a more conventional way around this problem?

On Fri, 2008-05-02 at 18:13 -0700, David Jonas wrote:
> Upon upgrading from 1.0.2 to 1.1rc4 I see this error for many of our users:
> 
>   Getting size of message UID=1 failed
>   Couldn't init INBOX: Can't sync mailbox: Messages keep getting
expunged
> 
> Logging in with IMAP I would see a bunch of messages with no subject or 
> time and blank bodies (usine horde/imp).
> 
> Removing dovecot.index.log, dovecot.index.log.2, or dovecot-uidlist 
> fixes the problem for the account (I chose dovecot.index.log). I imagine 
> that forces a rebuild of the indexes. Removing other files in the 
> directory didn't seem to make a difference, including dovecot.index or 
> some arbitrary non-dovecot file.
> 
> Is there a more conventional way around this problem?
If you can show me a way to reproduce the problem I can fix it. I've no
idea why it could happen constantly.

The main problem anyway is that getting a message's virtual size fails
because the message appears to have been expunged. So Dovecot
re-synchronizes the mailbox, which should get rid of the expunged
messages. But again it fails the same way, so Dovecot gives up and fails
with the error message.

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Timo Sirainen wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-05-02 at 18:13 -0700, David Jonas wrote:
>   
>> Upon upgrading from 1.0.2 to 1.1rc4 I see this error for many of our
users:
>>
>>   Getting size of message UID=1 failed
>>   Couldn't init INBOX: Can't sync mailbox: Messages keep
getting expunged
>>
>> Logging in with IMAP I would see a bunch of messages with no subject or
>> time and blank bodies (usine horde/imp).
>>
>> Removing dovecot.index.log, dovecot.index.log.2, or dovecot-uidlist 
>> fixes the problem for the account (I chose dovecot.index.log). I
imagine
>> that forces a rebuild of the indexes. Removing other files in the 
>> directory didn't seem to make a difference, including dovecot.index
or
>> some arbitrary non-dovecot file.
>>
>> Is there a more conventional way around this problem?
>>     
>
> If you can show me a way to reproduce the problem I can fix it. I've no
> idea why it could happen constantly.
>
> The main problem anyway is that getting a message's virtual size fails
> because the message appears to have been expunged. So Dovecot
> re-synchronizes the mailbox, which should get rid of the expunged
> messages. But again it fails the same way, so Dovecot gives up and fails
> with the error message.
>
>   
This is just a me-to, but I just upgraded from 1.0.8 (ish) to latest 1.1 
and seeing the same problem with some users.  The problem seems to 
persist continuously, but if the customer logs in via imap (webmail in 
our case) it apparently clears?

(Well all I can see from here is a bunch of errors in the log files, 
then some imap logins, then no more errors - I haven't experienced this 
from the users point of view, nor do I know what the user sees in the 
webmail view)


: Getting size of message UID=1154 failed
: Couldn't init INBOX: Can't sync mailbox: Messages keep getting
expunged
: Mailbox init failed bytes=0/38, top=0/0, retr=0/0, del=0/0, size=0

Customer only has one email in their inbox right now and likely only had 
a couple before

I have also had one report from a customer who thought he had 600 
messages to download (based on the feedback from OE), but his inbox 
would only have had a couple of messages in it - not sure that this is 
related though...

Grateful for any thoughts?

Ed W