[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       getmail
Subject:    Re: IMAP error when fetching 3548 messages
From:       "Charles Cazabon" <search-web-for-address () pyropus ! ca>
Date:       2009-08-07 21:59:09
Message-ID: 20090807215909.GA10487 () pyropus ! ca
[Download RAW message or body]

Dan Davison <davison@stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> I'm trying to retrieve a largeish number (2346) of messages. It starts
> off fine, but always fails eventually on some message. Exactly which
> message it fails on varies between attempts. It fails as follows:
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>   msg  542/2326 (4356 bytes) from <unknown> delivered to MDA_external command procmail (), deleted
>   msg  543/2326 (8360 bytes) from <unknown> delivered to MDA_external command procmail (), deleted
> getmailrc-stats: operation error (IMAP error (command: UID => socket error: EOF))

Okay, the server is failing and "hanging up" the connection -- that prevents
it from deleting the messages as your configuration requests (the server
doesn't actually delete anything until the end of the session).  That's quite
bad; you apparently have a very unreliable server you're pulling mail from.
Ideally, you'd get the postmaster of that machine to investigate and fix that
issue.

In the meantime, you should be able to work around this problem by adding
something like:

  max_messages_per_session = 25

into the [options] section.  This will limit how many messages getmail will
retrieve at a time; it will then disconnect (correctly) and delete those
messages from the mailbox; when you re-run getmail, it'll then get the next 25
messages, etc.  You could use a higher number; if, for example, you never have
problems until after message 300, you could safely use 250 or whatever.

Charles
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Cazabon
GPL'ed software available at:               http://pyropus.ca/software/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: getmail-unsubscribe@lists.pyropus.ca
For additional commands, e-mail: getmail-help@lists.pyropus.ca

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]