kmail lock file problems

[Gene Heskett]

> On Thursday 15 July 2010, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > Greetings all;
> > 
> > A fresh pclinuxos-2010-7 install here, which is apt based.  This
> > includes kde-4.4.5.  PCLinuxOS doesn't have a mailing list, just
> > a forum, and in about 24 hours, 2 posts on 2 subjects have not
> > generated an answer on their forum.  So here I am, hat in hand.
> > 
> > I have a wierd message in the bottom of the kmail frame when it
> > tries to access the local mail-file /var/spool/mail/gene.
> > 
> > Transmission failed: Could not lock /var/spool/mail/gene.
> > 
> > This file is being fed from a chain starting with fetchmail, using
> > procmail as the MDA, going through spamassassin for most msgs
> > before the message gets appended to the above file.
> > 
> > kmail thinks procmail is using a /dev/null for lockfile, so that
> > is the first puzzle, and I can change it all I want but the next
> > time I look, its /dev/null again.  That may be problem #1, but I
> > don't have any lockfiles setup in my procmail recipes, and
> > haven't needed them in the 5 or 6 years I have been doing my mail
> > fetching this way.
> > 
> > I found that if _I_ touched /var/spool/mail/gene.lock, it will
> > work, but then deletes it after it parses the mail file once.
> > Then the next time kmail goes to get the mail, it fails,
> > reporting the above error again.
> > 
> > I even put a pre-command in the profile to have kmail touch the
> > lock file, and that at least puts the gene.lock lockfile in
> > place, but it doesn't make any diff to kmail, same error message.
> > 
> >  However, that does prevent procmail from appending to the
> > 
> > mail-file.  So as soon as I deleted it, the file grew 20k.
> > 
> > Is this a known kmail-1.13-5 bug?  It sure is a PIMA. :-\
> > 
> > Thanks folks.
> > 
> > Cheers, Gene (I have got to get my sig generator working)
> 
> Due to time constraints I didn't completely and thoroughly read your
> whole email.
> 
> I personally have postfix do the delivering into /var/spool/mail, so
> my solution may not be applicable for your procmail solution.
> However, you may want to check ~/.xsession-error or whatever
> PCLinuxOS uses for error messages, as they will provide a useful hint
> IIRC. Alternatively you might use the FCNTL method, which works for
> me...
> 

And FCNTL works, thanks a bunch, Reinhold.

>   --Reinhold

Now I need to get my sig generator working.