Topic: IMAP email Inbox subfolder disappeared

[girimia]

Hello,

An email server user are organized emails in IMAP Inbox subfolders. One of these folders disappeared from /home/e-smith/files/users/user_name/Maildir.Namefolder location.

It found nowhere else, although it exists in Outlook Inbox.
It can recover from this folder somewhere from the server?

Where can I see what happened?

I have a back-up server performing the DAR.
I can recover from this folder without restoring all the server?

Thank you!

[Stefano]

well, I bet 30c that it was deleted by an user..

be aware that esch email client has its own folders, meaning that the trash folder in outlook maybe not be the same trash folder in TB..

I suggest you to use TB, subscribe all the folders and check again..

if you have to restore it, AFAIK you can restore selectively at folder/subfolder level

[girimia]

Hello Stefano,

I restored deleted emails folders from back-up, but emails are not displayed yet.
Indexing is required?
How can I do this?

Thank you!

[Daniel B.]

You may need to subscribe again to the folder (depending on the client, it can display every folders, or just subscribed ones)

[girimia]

I subscribed folders again in Outlook.
The folder is still empty.
It is the same in Horde.
I renamed Dovecot files to old.dovecot.index,  old.dovecot.index.cache and old.dovecot.index.log.
I rebooted the server but does not restore Dovecot index files in this folder.

[Daniel B.]

Then, there's most likely a problem with either the folder or its content. You said it was /home/e-smith/files/users/user_name/Maildir.Namefolder I assumed it was a typo. Can you confirm the folder is /home/e-smith/files/users/user_name/Maildir/.Namefolder and that it contains 3 sub folders (cur, new and tmp), and that you can see files in the cur folder ?

[Daniel B.]

If it was an INBOX subfolder, it should even be something like /home/e-smith/files/user_name/Maildir/.INBOX.Foldername

[girimia]

 Yes, I confirm the folder is /home/e-smith/files/users/user_name/Maildir/.INBOX.Foldername and that it contains 3 sub folders (cur, new and tmp), and that I can see files in the cur folder.

[Daniel B.]

Anything intersting in /var/log/dovecot/current ? Have you checked the ownership and permissions are correct ?

[girimia]

/var/log/Dovecot/current
This log file does not exist at this location.

[Daniel B.]

Thats rather surprising, unless you're not running SME Server 9.X

[girimia]

Ah, sorry. You are right. It is SME Server 8.x.
But problem remains.

[Daniel B.]

So you can check in /var/log/imap/current and/or /var/log/imaps/current instead

[girimia]

I checked. The cur directory and Dovecot index file returns the error "Permission denied" in /var/log/imap/current.

[Daniel B.]

So there's either an ownership, or permission problem, on the folder you have restored

[girimia]

I have configured correctly the  owner and permissions and everything works.
Thank you very much!

[brianr]

So there's either an ownership, or permission problem, on the folder you have restored

All mail folders have to be username:username

Suggest you do

chmod -R username:username <maildir folder>/*

Sorry - just seen the above, glad you got it sorted...