fetchmail + mutt + maildir => lost messages

[Johannes Hofmann]

Matthew Dillon <dillon at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> :
> :Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> :> On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 05:32:09PM +0000, Johannes Hofmann wrote:
> :>> This has probably nothing to do with DragonFly, but for the second
> :>> time now I have lost all emails in my maildir-based inbox. 
> :>> Last time it happend was about 3 months ago, so this is nothing new.
> :>> Both times I was using mutt (browsing/moving mails), while fetchmail 
> :>> was getting new mail, which is delivered using qmail-inject.
> :>> Both times fsck did not show any problems.
> :>> Is anyone else seeing this?
> :> 
> :> Are you using soft updates and had a power outage?
> :> 
> :
> :Yes I'am using soft updates, but I had no power outage. The messages were
> :just lost while mutt was running. The first time it happend, I thought I
> :might have pressed some weird keys that caused mutt to delete the messages,
> :but afterwards I have remapped all delete functions to only move the mail
> :to a "deleted" folder. But now the messages are gone again and they are not
> :in the "deleted" folder. The only explanation I can think of is that 
> :there is some subtlety with the maildir handling. I found something
> :about maildir file name collisions at 
> :http://www-dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de/~ma/qmail-bugs.html
> :but I don't think it explains the loss of a whole bunch of messages.
> :
> :  Johannes
> 
>    maildir as in one message per file?  Or mbox-format with multiple messages
>    per file ?

maildir as in one message per file. 

> 
>    If it is one message per file and you are losing bunches of them then it is
>    indeed very odd.
>

Yes it's odd, but it might just be a bug in qmail-inject, mutt, or me  
accidentally hitting wrong keys in mutt...
I am thinking of using the latest journalling work, to log the filesystem
operations on the maildir folders. Unfortunately it only happend twice in
the last three months...
  
 Johannes