Very Computer

Just wondering if anyone might have any thoughts on a problem my
friend's having.  He's running a POP3 server.  When he tries to receive
mail using a client such as Outlook Express he gets the following "ERR
being read already".  Any suggestions as to what's causing this and
possible solutions would be appreciated.

Kevin

i'd suggest using other programs, simpler ones, to test out the server,
such as eudora or netscapes mail client.

H

Quote:> Just wondering if anyone might have any thoughts on a problem my
> friend's having.  He's running a POP3 server.  When he tries to receive
> mail using a client such as Outlook Express he gets the following "ERR
> being read already".  Any suggestions as to what's causing this and
> possible solutions would be appreciated.

> Kevin

Quote:> mail using a client such as Outlook Express he gets the following "ERR
> being read already".  Any suggestions as to what's causing this and

Sounds like the server couldn't lock the mailbox. Maybe there is a
stale lockfile lying around or something. Different pop server lock
in different ways.

Just a random thought... try running telnet <address of server> pop3.
That gives you a raw connect to the POP3 server. The scary thing is that
it has a semi friendly interface (or at least my ISP's one does) e.g. it
will tell you what the valid options are if you type in something
illegal.

Entropy
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Quote:>Just wondering if anyone might have any thoughts on a problem my
>friend's having.  He's running a POP3 server.  When he tries to receive
>mail using a client such as Outlook Express he gets the following "ERR
>being read already".  

If you're running 2.0.30, there is a bug in the way sendmail and pop
interact with each other wherein if mail is sent and checked
simultaneously (or even close to simultaneously) the lockfile that pop
generates to keep your email from getting screwed while it's being
checked doesn't get deleted.

When this happens, pop permanently thinks your email is being checked.

Outlook is wonderful for doing this repeatedly - it was a real pain in
my ass, because it sends and checks so quickly.

The solution? Head to /var/tmp/.pop and you should see the username of
the account you are having trouble with. Delete it. You're set.

I fixed it permanently by adding the following line to the root
crontab:

*/5 * * * * rm -f /var/tmp/.pop/*

This has cron go into that directory and delete everything in it every
5 minutes. Haven't had the problem since.

Regards,

Eric Seven

blackrose[at]31337records[dot]com
http://blackrose.phoenix.az.us

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lava, let'em go, because man, they're gone.
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More specify in what you can do, check /usr/tmp/.pop to see any lock file
and delete it.

Hmm.  I wonder if that could explain the problem I am having.  When
someone sends me intranet mail from Outlook and I try to get it,
Eudora finds out the number of messages I have, but hangs and
eventually times out with a "Got tired of waiting for server to
respond" error.  As near as I can tell, we are using sendmail for SMTP
and ipop3d run by inetd for POP3, but I do not have root access to
that Linux box.

Next time that happens I will check for a lingering lock file.

David Efflandt/Elgin, IL USA

Check the permissions on /var/tmp/.pop

Others did not have write permissions, which resulted in error
"being already read". Giving write permissions solved the problem for me!

regards
Frank