Subject: Re: Pine Folder Locks

From: Lynn Clark <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 15:54:21 -0600

David,

Thanks for the information about alternate folder formats as a possible
solution to a folder lock problem with pine.  We'll definitely look into
them.

Also, my apologies to all for posting my original question 3 (!) times.
This was my first posting to the usenet using Netscape's news
reader/editor/poster and it obviously did something I didn't expect. <g>

-----------------------------------------
Lynn Clark       Consumer Health Services
[email-masked]  [email-masked]

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From: Lynn Clark <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 11:56:48 -0600

Well, we got imap4(beta) and pine 3.95 working the other day.  However, 
we noticed an odd bit of behavior as we were testing it and are 
wondering if what we were trying to do is beyond what pine/imap are 
supposed to be able to do.  Here's the scenario:

If we start pine on one machine, everything is fine.  Then, with this 
instance of pine running, we start pine on another machine as the same 
user.  After a short period of time, the first instance of pine 
relinquishes the folder lock to the second instance running on the other 
machine.  However, if the second instance on the other machine is shut 
down, the first instance never gets the folder lock back, so it can no 
longer process mail unless it, too, is shut down and restarted.  In 
fact, regardless of whether the second instance is shut down or not, the 
first instance apparently can not recover the folder lock.

Our question is, should pine/imap be able to "pass the folder lock" back 
and forth as we thought, or are we pushing it too far?  And, if it 
should be able to do this, what do we need to change/set in order for it 
to work?
--------------
Lynn Clark
[email-masked]
--------------

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From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 13:18:11 -0700

There is no mechanism in the IMAP protocol to pass locks between
sessions.  The specific behavior you are seeing is an artifact of the
old Unix (bezerk) mailbox format.  It is not possible to get a lock
back without reopening a folder, but Pine doesn't usually close and
reopen the INBOX, which causes the problems you see. 

This problem caqn be averted by using one of the more robust folder
formats supported by Pine and imapd.  If you are using Pine to access
folders as local files, your best bet is probably Tenex format.  If
access is strictly via IMAP, you might also investigate the newer MBX
or MX folder formats.  For details on Tenex, see

	http://www.washington.edu/pine/tech-notes/low-level.html#format

To set up mail delivery directly to an alternate format, see the tmail
program, available in

	ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/mail/imap-utils.tar.Z