Email issues when importing from cPanel

ArashiInteractive

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Joined
May 25, 2021
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27
Yesterday I moved a test account from my current WHM/cPanel server to DirectAdmin via two methods. In each case, while email accounts and messages did come across, when checking the account in an email client such as Thunderbird, any folders other than the Inbox are inaccessible. However, when logging into Roundcube everything is there and is accessible.

For instance, if I sent an email from Thunderbird, the message will go then I'll receive an error that Inbox.Sent doesn't exist, so the message can't be copied to the sent items folder. Clicking through any other folders for the email account produces a similar error - Inbox.<folderName> doesn't exist.

Steps I've taken:
The first time I tried this, I setup a new account with the same domain name on DirectAdmin. Once this was done, I created an email address using the same name and password as on cPanel. For this attempt, I used imapsync to copy the emails across. After this, I updated all DNS records correctly to point the test account to DirectAdmin. I was immediately able to send and receive emails, and access all messages in the Inbox; however any other folder would give the error as above.

For my second attempt, I deleted the user and account on DirectAdmin. Went back to my cPanel server, ran a full backup of the account, then used /scripts/pkgacct to convert the backup into a cpmove file. Used rsync to copy the new cpmove file into /home/admin/admin_backups on DirectAdmin then went to Admin Tools > Admin Backup/Transfer > Restore > selected the correct folder, IP address, and file and ran the restore. The backup/restore completed with the following error:

Domain domain.com CreatedDomain Created Successfully

E-Mail: Unable to add forwarder *
Catch all is now set to :fail:

Ftp: Invalid path: /etc/apache2/logs/domlogs/domain: belowHomePath:domain: /etc/apache2/logs/domlogs/domain does not start with /home/domain


Even with the error, the web files came across correctly, however the same issue persists with email. Logging into Roundcube gives full access to all folders; using an email client only lets me access the Inbox.

For the second attempt, the version of the cPanel to DirectAdmin conversion script is 0.0.52
Should it help, DirectAdmin is version 1.62.4 running on Ubuntu 20.04.02 LTS

Hoping that this is a common problem with an easy fix? My clients value their email far more than they do their websites, so if this can't be fixed I'll need to look to another solution.

Thank you for your time.
 
Hello.
As for the mail, that seems an email client issue to me. If you can find and access all folders via Roundcube, then the correct email folders are present on the DA server.
You could check this via SSH by accessing the imap folder of the e-mail. For example if the e-mail adres is [email protected] and the useraccount is testfoo then you go to:
/home/testfoo/imap/domain.com/foo

In there all imap folders of that email address should exist like cur, .INBOX.Drafts (mind the dots), .INBOX.Sent, new .Sent and so on.
If they are all present and owner is testfoo:mail then you're good on the server. Example:
drwxrwx--- 5 testfoo mail 4.0K 2019-09-14 23:56 .INBOX.Drafts

There should also be a bunch of Dovecot files like this:
Code:
-rw-rw----  1 testfoo mail  336 2021-06-16 02:19 dovecot.index
-rw-rw----  1 testfoo mail 1.2K 2021-07-06 14:13 dovecot.index.cache
-rw-rw----  1 testfoo mail 6.1K 2021-07-06 14:13 dovecot.index.log
about 7 or 8 files.

If they are present, then you might want to consider to remove the account from Thunderbird and create it newly again.
Or leave the old account but disable pickup mail for it, and create a new account with the server settings of the DA server and see what happens.

Ftp: Invalid path: /etc/apache2/logs/domlogs/domain: belowHomePath:domain: /etc/apache2/logs/domlogs/domain does not start with /home/domain

This might be an import error in the script. Logfiles for domains in DA are resided at /var/log/httpd/domains and .tar.gz files of the logs at /home/testfoo/domains/domain.com/logs
 
Turns out it was a matter of turning it off, then on again. I had to quit Thunderbird, then restart. For email accounts with several folders, I found I had to click on each one to trigger Thunderbird to check/download the contents.

Imapsync ftw!
 
cant this be changed - this is a major issue if folders ( sometimes some are visible sometimes only the standrad ones are ) suddenly are not subscribed anymore.
customers fear data loss!
also if ( like i had ) a customer has like 400 Folders it took me 15 minutes to enable all of them again so the are visible again.

also sent emails are not in the same location anymore stored as they were on the cpanel server. this means a lot of customer support.

Email Catch all settings are also NOT copied over - its just disabled ! This have to be done manually.

Lots of complaints - lots of work - unhappy customers
( I am transfering 500+ accounts )

Please response even if this thread is old.
 
This thread isn't that old. But if you encounter so many issues, it's best to send in a ticket so things might be improved with the conversion script.
Like that the catchall setting is checked on conversion for example.
 
As the OP of this thread, I can definitely say the vast majority of my issues came down to lack of testing on my part, which lead to not properly setting expectations of my clients. cPanel and DA are different control panels, which naturally means some things will work differently - could the import script be improved? Absolutely.

However, there are many ways around using the script (after my first attempt, I stopped using it entirely). If you're having this many issues, I'd very much recommend stopping your migration until such time as you're able to open a ticket with DA to see what can be done on their end, and do additional testing on yours with alternative methods.

After some painful learnings, I've become quite happy with DA. Couldn't imagine going back to cPanel after these past few months.
 
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