Problems with idle pop3 connections locking mailboxes

[Michael Sims]

Michael Sims wrote:
> Rob Siemborski wrote:
>> I don't believe there is anything that will substantially change how
>> POP works if what you're seeing is a write() call that just blocks
>> forever, no.
>
> Thanks for the answer.  A few weeks ago our network manager installed
> a intrusion detection/content filtering device that inspects all
> traffic passing through our network.  The device acts as a
> transparent proxy, and apparently buffers the network traffic so that
> it can scan it for malware.  I'm hoping that this device has been the
> cause of these problems.  He's disabled scanning for POP3, so I'll
> keep an eye on it for the next few days.  For the benefits of the
> archives I'll followup if this was the solution.  Thanks again...

As promised, I'm following up to the list on the status of this problem, in case
anyone has an issue like this in the future.  It does appear to have been caused by
our intrusion detection device.  Our network manager configured this device to avoid
scanning POP3 connections and for the past two weeks I have not seen any more pop3
daemons stuck in the middle of a write().  I may be jinxing myself by saying that
the problem is resolved but it certainly appears to be so.

Thanks a lot to everyone who helped me with this.

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