RE: [SM-USERS] IMAP Server timeouts and lost email

[Jason M. <ja...@st...>]

Charles Marcus said:
>> From: Chris L. Mason
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 7:58 AM
>>
>> I've been using Squirrelmail for a few weeks now,
>> and our users are quite happy with it, but we have
>> one major problem.  If a user has composed a long
>> email message, but the IMAP server has timed out,
>> then when then hit "Send", they get a "You must be
>> logged in" error.  The major problem is that the
>> email is never sent, and the user cannot back up
>> to save a copy!
>
> I am amazed that this still hasn't been fixed.  I stated my opinion that
> this qualified as a 'critical bug', because it created a situation for
> potential data loss.  I also suggested what I believed to be a simple
> fix - when the session timeout occurs, simply have the system save the
> message in the drafts folder before closing the session.  If I were a
> programmer, I'd have submitted a patch, but I'm just a lowly user.  This
> was one of the main reasons I allowed our hosting service to replace our
> SM installation with the new Horde/IMP 3.0.  I have been considerin
> re-visiting SM, but if this still isn't fixed, I guess I'll wait for
> 2.0.
>
> Charles
>

Ok, here is the deal :) First of all SquirrelMail does not use persistant
connections to the IMAP server so its not a problem with IMAP timing out.
The issue is in your PHP configuration. By default PHP will reap a session
after 24 minutes. To configure PHP and your user's preferences to avoid
this issue follow the instructions located here:

http://www.squirrelmail.org/wiki/AutoMagicLogout

My production server is setup this way and my users can stay logged in for
8 hours in a row without incident.


 \___ Jason Munro
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