HELP! Zimbra account not deleting mail off of server

[strafford]

Hi

I have a user account which has an external POP account. The account is setup to delete mail off the server, but it isn't. I continually downloads messages over and over again (he has more than 45,000 messages since he was polling every 60 seconds.

We had this happen on Friday, but it was only a few emails coming in over and over. Our ISP (who hosts this POP account) said the mail server was logging in twice within four seconds (back to back) but getting an error and not deleting the mail. At that point, I had the ISP delete the mail manually, and it seemed to be working fine at that point.

Now however, there appears to be something really wrong. Any ideas? There don't appear to be any errors in mailbox.log.

[strafford]

Update: user is actually getting an error:

Error: system failure: Unable to add incoming message, /opt/zimbra/store/incoming/1290956025429-11.msg does not exist.

The failed accounts will not update until the problem(s) have been resolved.

[strafford]

Update: when 'manually' downloading email (while logged in as this user, using the 'Get Mail' button) I get two errors back to back. The second overwrites the first, but I was able to screen grab the first. See attachment. (The second error is the one listed earlier).

[scohol]

We have a user experiencing the same problem.

Any known fix for this?

We should probably lodge it as a bug in bugzilla.

[mickier]

When I have seen this, it's actually just a connection/client problem. Here is a brief explaination of HOW it can happen;

Scenario that can set up the "problem"
User joe@foobar.com has 40 (or 400) messaes in their inbox, most messages are text email, very small, with no attachments, but message number 39 (or 389) is some cute little [worthless] email with 4 or 40 mb attached file.

What happens to "JOE"
Joe connects from someplace with a limited or slow internet connection, and starts downloading his emails. He happily watches the status zoom by - 1,2,3,4,23,25, all zoom by really fast. Suddenly at 39 (or at 389) the download seems to "HANG" - note it is really not hanging, but is now downloading a huge file, but he doesn't know it, he's just upset that his download "STOPPED".

What Joe does to TRIGGER THE PROBLEM;
In frustration, after 7 minutes of "nothing happening", he shuts down his pop client, and tries again. It quickly downloads the first 38 (or 388) messages, and hangs again...

If you happen to have an impatient user (or a stupid one), they can repeat this process 20 times over a few days, and their pop client now has 38 x 19 or 388x19 duplicate messages in their pop client.

This can also happen if there are many emails and an unstable internet connection.

Note: this is not a zimbra problem, but a handshaking problem between your pop server and your pop client. When the client requests "all new mail" the pop server starts to comply, when the connection fails, the pop client may not have confirmed receipt and marked the downloaded messages as having been received, so the pop server still thinks they are new....

To get over this issue, have your user log on through the web portal and delete emails with attached files (download them from there whatever) and you may find that your problem has "GONE AWAY"...

(we had a user who used to send "everyone" a 6mb ppt file every once in a while...(!))

[strafford]

mickier, I appreciate the reply, but that is not the case. These mailboxes auto. download email, so there is no user interaction. Also, we worked w/ the ISP that hosts the domain and POP accounts, and reviewed the mail.

[nucleide]

Hi,

I had the same problem today....

I notice that an email on the ISP, that cannot be delete for whaterver raison, prevent other email to be delete as well.. So zimbra try to redownload and deleted again,...

I fix that problem by login in the IPS webmail and delete manually the concerning email..... the email problem is usually the older email in the ISP box...

I hope it help you!

[strafford]

I am now very sure that it is the filters. Whenever a filter fails it stops the download process. Since the emails aren't deleted off the server, it starts all over again the next time the system pops the mail. Disabling the filter(s) in question fixes this problem.