[imapfilter-devel] Error: attempt to index field 'INBOX'

[Alejandro Jakubi]

David,

> Just to be clear here.  It is NOT a problem with PINE.  It is a problem
> of your IMAP SERVER.  Any other IMAP client you might choose to use,
> would display the same problem (which is that the second client to
> connect gets read-only access to the folder).

The fact that I observe is: if imapfilter happens to filter while Pine is
open, Pine produces the error message and closes the INBOX, while imapfilter
does his job unperturbed.

This behavior seems consistent with what I read in the section "Folder
Locking" of the Pine technotes document:

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

===
If a folder is modified by some other program while Pine has it open, Pine
will give up on that mail file, concluding it's best not to do any further
reads or writes. This can happen if another mailer that doesn't observe Pine's
user-contention locks (e.g. elm or mail) is run while Pine has the mail folder
open. Pine checkpoints files every few minutes, so little data can be lost in
these situations.
===

So, does any other IMAP client behave the same?

> You might think I am being needlessly pedantic here, but I think it is
> important, when trying to solve problems, to know exactly where the
> problem is.  Otherwise you will keep trying to solve problems in the
> wrong place.

No, just that I do not find clear whether there is a single or many places.
But, whatever the fraction of the trouble lays on the IMAP/mail server, as
you say, I can do nothing about it. Only mitigate the problem elsewhere.

On this side, I have met an unexpected problem with imapfilter running in
background, using daemon_mode(): if I set p.ej. 600 (10 min) up to 1800 as a
temporal parameter, it works fine, but with 2400 or 3600 (1 h) it makes the
initial filtering, and when it is about to repeat it, the daemon dies.

Is this a feature or a bug?

I would prefer periods longer than 1h (probably 4 to 6 hs). Should I use cron
instead?

Alejandro