#17 Ishmail wipes out mail folder...

[Anonymous]

I have had this happen around once every 3 months ever
since the 1.9... release -- on the following platforms:

Sparc Solaris 2.6 RedHat Linux 6.2
Sparc Solaris 2.7 RedHat Linux 7.0
Sparc Solaris 2.8 RedHat Linux 7.1
Solaris-x86 2.6 RedHat Linux 7.2
Solaris-x86 2.7 HP-UX 11.0

So I do not think it is a bug in a specific kernel,
system library, etc.

I use Ishmail across multiple systems, and usually
actually read from only one machine, mounting file
system across the net using nfs.

Periodically, using ishmail I will get a message box
telling me of a mal-formed mime message (my guess
is that probably the mime ending or beginning is
slightly hosed). The following problem only seems to
occur after one of the message boxes has come up,
but unfortunately it does NOT occur reproducably
after every one.

What occurs is the following: I am reading mail for
machine A from machine B, and after saving someting
ON MACHINE B, machine A's ishmail will do the message
box telling me that the "local mail file is different
from what it (ishmail) thinks it ought to be" and
rereads the mail file.

At this point the mail file is completely wiped out
and is of 0 length.

This has happened roughly once every 2 (or so) months
on probably each of 7 machines where I must (for
various reasons which cannot be change) get email.

The workaround solution I have come up with is a
script which keeps a gzipped copy of the current mail
file around and if the actual mail file drops to less
than 25% of the previous copy's size (backed up every
10 minutes), the backup copy is saved instead of being
overwritten. Not elegant but at least good insurance.

I wish I could give you a way to reproduce this --
if I am doing something really stupid here, I haven't
found it from reading the code (or the documentation),
although [obviously] most folks are not experiencing
this so not everyone is seeing it.

BTW, this primaily occurs on mail files of size 8-24
MB with 600 or more messages in them -- I don't think
I've seen it on any file smaller than about 4 MB and
400 messages (I run multiple mailing lists so my mail
boxes can get rather large).

As the features of ishmail are so complete, I would
be loathe to change mailers, so if there is anything
I can do to get you more info or to help track this
one down, I would be glad to do what I can.

(Sorry -- I'd log in, but our firewall is not letting
me do that today :-( )

Thanks