Some mail messages showing up in POP, not in IMAP

A

arjena

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May 26, 2013
Messages
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Don't know if this is a server side thing, but I also don't know what else could be the cause of this problem.
I experience some strange behavior in my mail. All my computers, iPhone and iPad use IMAP for mail. Except for one, a small, always on mac-mini-server that is set to POP. This is a fail safe in case someone deletes mail from his/her IMAP account. Not important.
The strange thing is that I know of some mail being send to my account at certain times (i.e. an Arduino restarting). These mails never show up on my computers doing IMAP, but they do show up on the POP-machine.
Even weirder is it that on my laptop running Mountain Lion I get a notification about his mail being received, but when I switch to Mail.app the message is nowhere to be found. It's not in the trash, it's not in the spam, it's simply not there. I tried sending a mail to the account the notification goes to, this arrives without problems. It's not just this notification, there are other mails lost too. I have not yet discovered a pattern but of course I am worried I'll miss important mails.
I can't find any settings in DA concerning different behavior in POP or IMAP.
Anybody got any clue as to what could cause this?
 
Once you pull the mail off with pop it wont be on the server anymore.
 
Thanks for replying, but nope, my 'pop-computer' is set to leave the messages on the server. So this is not the cause. If it was I would miss a whole lot more mail, not just some of it.
Btw, it seems that it's limited to a specific sender that is also on the same VPS. Not sure yet, I don't have the time to compare mail folders every day, but I know for sure at least all mail from this specific sender does not show up in IMAP, but is always in the pop mailbox.
What strikes me as the weirdest is that when I'm working on my laptop (OSX Mountain lion) while a mail arrives from this sender I get a notification, but when I switch to mail.app it's not there. So it appears the mail is not completely ignored.
 
What version is your exim install?

Code: 
exim --version

Also check the top 10 lines of /etc/exim.conf to see what version the config is.

Also is the rest of your software up to date?

Code: 
cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild
./build update
./build clean
./build update_versions
 
This is the reply from "exim --version":

Exim version 4.80 #3 built 23-Oct-2012 11:44:03
Copyright (c) University of Cambridge, 1995 - 2012
(c) The Exim Maintainers and contributors in ACKNOWLEDGMENTS file, 2007 - 2012
Berkeley DB: Berkeley DB 4.7.25: (April 4, 2012)
Support for: crypteq IPv6 Perl OpenSSL move_frozen_messages Content_Scanning DKIM Old_Demime
Lookups (built-in): lsearch wildlsearch nwildlsearch iplsearch cdb dbm dbmjz dbmnz
Authenticators: cram_md5 cyrus_sasl dovecot plaintext spa
Routers: accept dnslookup ipliteral manualroute queryprogram redirect
Transports: appendfile/maildir/mailstore/mbx autoreply lmtp pipe smtp
Fixed never_users: 0
Size of off_t: 8
Configuration file is /etc/exim.conf

And these are the first lines from the config. Don't know if this is what you asked for, let me know if not:

######################################################################
# SpamBlocker.exim.conf.2.1.1-release #
# 04-Jun-2007 #
# Runtime configuration file for DirectAdmin/Exim 4.24 and above #
# Requires exim.pl dated 20-Apr-2007 17:09 or later #
######### IMPORTANT ########## IMPORTANT ########## IMPORTANT ########
# WARNING! Be sure to back up your previous exim.conf file before #
# attempting to use this exim.conf file. #
# #
# Do may not use this exim.conf Exim configuration file unless you #
# make the required modifications to your Exim configuration #
# following the instructions in the README file included in this #
# distribution. #
# #
# This is version "2.0 of the SpamBlocker exim.conf file as #
# distributed by NoBaloney Internet Services for DirectAdmin based #
# servers.

Hope this helps,

Thanks,

Arjen
 
Presuming you're running DirectAdmin, Exim, and Dovecot...

Dovecot is your local email delivery agent, and it uses ONE mailbox for both IMAP and POP3 email. You should double-check to make sure your POP client is really leaving email on the server (not just announcing that it does). You can do that by downloading through POP from that client, and then try downloading from the POP client on another system just to make sure.

You can also test by looking at the server itself, to see if the mail is or isn't still in the mailbox, after being downloaed by your POP client.

Jeff
 
If it is deleting an email, you should see something similar in your log file:

Oct 22 13:37:55 discostu dovecot[24635]: pop3([email protected]): Disconnected: Logged out top=0/0, retr=1/35270, del=1/1, size=35252

The del=X/Y means that it deleted X emails and there were Y emails in the box before the delete was sent. If you are seeing a 0 for the X then you are indeed leaving the email on the server.
 
It's not deleting any mail. I set up a second pop machine and the messages show up there too. But still not on my imap machines...
 
Could be a corrupt index file. Try removing/renaming the dovecot index files in that mailbox, they will be named something like dovecot.index* , they will be recreated the next time a client opens that folder.
 
Removed, well, renamed the dovecut index file for that account. No change. When I send a mail from the offending account to this account it appears for a very brief moment in the mailbox on my imap computer, only to disappear within a fraction of a second. It's not in the trash or anywhere else... It's also not in the mailbox when I check it with webmail (Squirrelmail).
It's also not in the trash/deleted folder. My pop-computer however has put the messages in it's inbox...
 
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