Expunged mail files left 'on disk'?

[Karl Pielorz]

--On 9 July 2013 19:44:19 +1000 Bron Gondwana <brong at fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Back on list - one issue that can cause cleanups to fail on 2.4.x is an
> ongoing connection to the mailbox.  If another process is holding the
> mailbox name lock, then the cleanup is left for that process to finish
> instead.  24x7 connections by an IMAP client can trigger it.

Indeed - this was our issue. Even though the system is set to immediately 
delete expunged messages - this was never actually 'happening' due to the 
proliferation of remote devices, and clients constantly connected.

Shutting down all the clients to at least one of the mailboxes allowed the 
system to cull all the expunged files still on disk.

As a workaround we're considering restarting the server daily/weekly out of 
hours and running cyr_expire as soon as it comes up. Unfortunately some of 
our mailboxes see a lot of 'churn' traffic - which means even in a few 
short weeks we had thousands of files that needed clearing up...

Thanks for your time / replies,

-Karl