Locked out of my server (pop3)

["Dan and Karen Ellrick" <ellrick hiroshima-cdas or jp>]

I am having to subscribe from my home computer to ask this question because
of the very problem I need help on - I can't get my work mail at the moment.

Today I swapped out a new server (RH 6.1) that I set up almost exactly like
the one it was replacing (in most cases even copied over the config files)
the only major difference was that I used a newer version of postfix this
time, which required compiling instead of just grabbing an rpm.  Anyway, at
first things were going okay, I thought, but it seems that behind the scenes
two servers were bouncing mail back and forth to each other, due to a
postfix configuration problem.  I got that solved (although not with the
solution I'd hoped for - but I can pursue that with the postfix list), but
somehow in the process my email software stopped being able to pop3 my mail.
Outlook keeps giving me a dialog to type my user and password in (which I
normally never get) - if I try to log in, the dialog immediately comes back;
if I select Cancel I am left with an error message claiming that the server
is responding to its pop3 attempts with "-ERR Can't get lock. Mailbox in
use".  It also said it was error number 0x800ccc92, if that means anything
to anybody (I can't tell if the error number is from the server or from
Outlook itself).  As far as I know I am the only one at my workplace who has
this problem (I figure the others would have been storming my desk if it
happened to them).  It doesn't seem to be a problem on the client machine,
because a co-worker changed my account settings to pop his own mail and it
worked fine.  But darned if I can tell from the Linux end what is locked up.
On the console I can access the mail file (/var/spool/mail/k-ellrick), open
it, etc. with no problem.  At one point I tried "cp k-ellrick test; rm
k-ellrick; mv test k-ellrick", and my first pop attempt after that completed
with no errors, but it didn't get any mail, either (even though there is
definitely mail in the file).  Then I noticed that the new copy of the file
was owned by root (an oversight on my part), so I changed the owner back to
k-ellrick, and pop started giving the error again!  I tried rebooting both
my client and the mail server, to no avail.

I can ssh to my server from home, so I can check out things if you have any
ideas, and still communicate with the list.  But I have to go to work to try
pop again (a firewall prevents me from trying that from here), and until I
get this fixed I can't read your responses there (unless I want to sift
through my ever-growing mail file) - what a mess!  Any thoughts?

Karen Ellrick

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Dan and Karen Ellrick
Missionaries, Mission to Unreached Peoples
1-4-20 Ogawachimachi, Apt. 404
Nishiku, Hiroshima  733-0025  JAPAN
(from U.S. 011-81; in Japan 0) 82-293-2838
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