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When encountering locked files, the user has either left open a Pine session on
another terminal, or is using an offline mail
client (Thunderbird, Outlook Express, etc.) and is trying to
read mail while the other program has
control over the mail files.
If in the current Pine session the
"readonly" message shows, the user needs to get out of Pine and
determine if the culprit is actually another mail session
or simply the lock file from a previous mail session
which was not properly removed.
Note: You have to be careful when
doing this; removing a lock file for an active mail
session could cause mail file(s) to get corrupted,
possibly losing some mail items in the process!
The first step is to determine if a lock file exists. Type
- cd /mail/$user and hit enter.
- ls -al and hit enter.
A
lock file from a Pine session begins with a dot (".") and
is followed by seven characters.
.6700300
A lock file from an offline mail client is a longer string,
usually containing the word "lock" as well as the word
"imap" (part of the host name of the IMAP server which the
mail connection came in through.
mbox.lock.954921580.25647.imap0.glue.umd.edu
Note: There is no leading dot (".") on this latter type of
lock file.
-
If you discover one (or more) of these types of
files, the next thing to determine is whether it's from a
current or old (defunct) mail session.
-
The Previous/Last command 'ls -al' displays the date and timestamp
for the files listed in the directory. If the timestamp is older than
when you started your current mail session or 24 hours previous to the
current time, then it is old and can be deleted.
If the timestamp is after your current mail session then it is most
likely still active. If you are not in a mail session then you should
not have any lock files in the mail/username folder.
-
If you have determined that the lock files are from an old
session, then follow these steps:
- Note: If you don't know which directory you are
supposed to be in, then type cd /mail/$user
To remove the lock files, you can use the wildcard "*". Type
rm mbox.lock.*
- To remove the pine lock files. Type rm .lockfile
name. In this example, you can use the wildcard "*".
rm .6*
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