DBERROR db3: lockers

[Lawrence Greenfield]

   Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 09:35:30 -0400
   From: Scott Russell <lnxgeek at us.ibm.com>
[...]
   While testing Cyrus IMAPd 2.1.9 I noticed these errors in my logs:

     Sep 11 17:23:55 ogg lmtpd[773]: DBERROR db3: 16 lockers
     Sep 11 17:23:55 ogg lmtpd[1409]: DBERROR db3: 17 lockers
     Sep 11 17:23:56 ogg lmtpd[1508]: DBERROR db3: 9 lockers
     Sep 11 17:23:56 ogg lmtpd[776]: DBERROR db3: 9 lockers
     ...
     Sep 12 09:54:33 ogg ctl_deliver[5430]: DBERROR db3: 5 lockers

   I've seen some discussion about them on the list and figured I would
   report my case as well. I didn't notice them when I was load testing
   but found them today during a log review. So far I cannot replicate
   them again. Any suggestions as to what to do or check are welcome. 

Nothing is wrong. These messages are logged whenever Berkeley db
encounters lock contention, but isn't necessarily a problem by
themselves. This is especially likely when you have an empty or small
duplicate delivery database and are receiving a large volume of
e-mail.

Berkeley db 4.0 has a bug where the number of lockers isn't
decremented properly, causing this number to be unreliable.

Larry