dovecot - Nov 2010 - squirrelmail inbox empty

I am running Dovecot + Postfix +Squirrelmail on Debian Lenny.Fetchmail 
pulls the mail, dovecot spreads it around.
I had squirrelmail setup & I tested it from within my router ( internal 
LAN).
yesterday I had to go babysit my grand daughter, and I setup port 
forward for IMAP port 143, and I can use squirrelmail through firefox on 
my laptop.
All the other folders have all the mail from the time I left til now. 
Yesterday I was reading inbpox mail, deleted a few junks, etc, and 
suspended my laptop. When I came back my inbox was empty, and I've never 
seen any more messages in it. I know I should have LOTS of older+new 
messages that don't get filtered. Unfortunately ssh doesn't seem to work
from this linux side, it does from the windos side ( ssh keys?), so I 
can't get in to look at the logs..
I already removed ( I think ) all the inbox index files... & restarted, 
but no joy. I am not sure if it is getting filtered from the ibox, or if 
I just can't see it. I am not familiar with how squirrelmail works with 
local IMAP folders, so I am unsure where to look or what logs to browse. 
I will be home later today.

suggestions clues or otherwise??


-- Paul Cartwright

Paul Cartwright put forth on 11/12/2010 9:13 AM:
> Yesterday I was reading inbpox mail, deleted a few junks, etc, and
> suspended my laptop. 
This may come as a shock or surprise to you Paul, but you should never
suspend a laptop while you have a network socket open to a remote host,
especially if it's an encrypted (SSL) connection.  Always log out first.

Given the problem you describe, I'd suggest closing your browser,
launching it again, connect to your SM page, and login again.  If that
doesn't fix the problem, clear your browser cache.  If that still
doesn't solve your problem, reboot the laptop.  If that still doesn't
solve your problem, check the server logs when you get home.

Unless someone sniffed your credentials (unlikely) and logged in to your
now open IMAP 143 port and deleted all you mail, then it should still be
there.

BTW, why did you punch a hole through the router for TCP 143?  That's
not needed for webmail access (SM).  Opening TCP 143 (better would be
993) is only needed if you want to connect Thunderbird directly to
Dovecot while at a remote location.  And as I said, you should only use
an encrypted connection for this (TCP 993 with IMAPS).

-- 
Stan