[Imap-uw] Simultaneous access to imap mailbox?

[Gregory Hicks]

> Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:50:06 -0400
> From: Ken Mandelberg <km at mathcs.emory.edu>
> To: imap-uw at u.washington.edu
> Subject: [Imap-uw] Simultaneous access to imap mailbox?
> 
> We run uwash imapd against a traditional unix /var/mail. There is a 
> mixture of imap clients (thunderbird, pine, Mac mail, squirrel, etc). We 
> are plagued with people leaving one client going (maybe at home) and 
> starting a different one at another location (say their office).

This could only happen if one client is using POP and the other one is
using IMAP.  Or both clients could be using POP and leaving mail on the
server.  The access location has nothing to do with the error.

I had this same error.  The fix - for a lot of users - was to force
everyone to use IMAP.  When you fire up another client, it sends the
"kiss of death" to the first client.

> This ends up with a variety of unpleasant results, mostly not getting 
> notified of new mail at the active location, or sometimes deleted 
> messages reappearing.

The not getting notified is caused by the active POP client.  It reads
the spool, changing it, and the second client never gets the "new mail"
notification.

> Is there a way to avoid the conflicts by a change on the server side, 
> perhaps by using a different message store?

Configure the clients to use IMAP.  The users, in this case, will only
have ONE client active - which is a Good Thing.

Regards,
Gregory Hicks

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Gregory Hicks                        | Principal Systems Engineer
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