Nested "INBOX" folders - hard to delete

[David Mayo]

Jukka Huhta wrote:

> We have several users with folders like this:
> 
> user.username.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX....INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.Deleted Messages
> (total of 76 INBOXes or something).
> 
> No doubt the folders are generated by a bug in Apple Mail, but how to
> get rid of them?  Users can't do that by themselves, and no MUA I've
> tried is able to handle the folders either.  I wonder what Cyrus
> thinks of them, probably doesn't like too long names or something.
> 
> Cyradm is just giving an error from Cyrus:
> cyradm> dm user.username.INBOX.*
> Deleting mailbox user.username.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.Deleted Messages...Invalid mailbox name
> 
> I'd really like to fix the problem without shutting any Cyrus
> instances down and manually dumping, editing and undumping the mailbox
> list.

We have also seen this problem. We fixed it by running:

cyradm> sam user.username.INBOX.* cyrus c
cyradm> dm user.username.INBOX.*

If you are running delayed deletes for mailboxes, you will need to then 
delete all the subsequent DELETED mailboxes that get generated.

This problem actually generated a few errors[1] and prevented us from 
running the "quota" command on the IMAP server[2] until the mailbox was 
deleted.

Regards,


Dave.

David Mayo
Networks/Systems Administrator
University of Bath Computing Services, UK

[1]
Mar 18 03:54:05 imapserver.bath.ac.uk imap[27395]: [ID 240394 
mail.error] IOERROR: opening quota file 
/opt/etc/imapd/quota/x/user.xxxxx.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.Deleted 
Messages: File name too long

Mar 18 03:54:05 imapserver.bath.ac.uk imap[27395]: [ID 335833 
mail.error] DBERROR: error fetching 
user.xxxxx.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.INBOX.Deleted 
Messages: cyrusdb error

[2]
$ quota
failed building quota list for '*': System I/O error: %m