* * * * *
                                        
                         “Why'd it have to be Outlook?”
                                        
For the past two weeks or so one of our customers (with a dedicated server)
has been having trouble either sending emails or receiving emails (or both!).
The customer in question uses Microsoft [DELETED-Lookout-DELETED] Outlook (of
course—sigh) so Smirk has been looking into the issue and couldn't for the
life of him get Outlook to work.

Thunderbird? [1]

Yes.

Webmail?

Yes.

Outlook?

Outlook not so good [2].

He spent so much time he decided to reinstall the server (there are some
other issues with the server—namely centered around the control panel
Ravencore [3]) and start over with a fresh slate.

I had just finished installing a new server when P asked if this was the
customer that had the security audit [4].

Oh.

Um.

It is. [5]

XXXX!

I then talked with Smirk to get an exact clarification of the problem and
it's a problem with one (1) email account. Just one. Everything else works
fine. So Smirk left it up to me—if I could fix the original server, fine. Or
if I could get the new server working, fine. Just get it working.

I did some tests on the original server and checked the logs.

> Sep 12 16:31:23 XXXXXXXXX dovecot: POP3(XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX): pop3_uidl_format setting is missing from config file
> 

pop3_uidl_format? What's that all about?

> # POP3 UIDL format to use. You can use following variables:
> #
> #  %v - Mailbox UIDVALIDITY
> #  %u - Mail UID
> #  %m - MD5 sum of the mailbox headers in hex (mbox only)
> #  %f - filename (maildir only)
> #
> # If you want UIDL compatibility with other POP3 servers, use:
> #  UW's ipop3d         : %08Xv%08Xu
> #  Courier version 0   : %f
> #  Courier version 1   : %u
> #  Courier version 2   : %v-%u
> #  Cyrus (<= 2.1.3)    : %u
> #  Cyrus (>= 2.1.4)    : %v.%u
> #  Older Dovecots      : %v.%u
> #
> # Note that Outlook 2003 seems to have problems with %v.%u format which was
> # Dovecot's default, so if you're building a new server it would be a good
> # idea to change this. %08Xu%08Xv should be pretty fail-safe.
> #
> # NOTE: Nowadays this is required to be set explicitly, since the old
> # default was bad but it couldn't be changed without breaking existing
> # installations. %08Xu%08Xv will be the new default, so use it for new
> # installations.
> #
> #pop3_uidl_format =
> 

Outlook.

Why'd it have to be [DELETED-snakes-DELETED] Outlook?

Needless to say, it worked after making the required configuration change
(and then it was getting it so that the control panel wouldn't wipe out said
configuration change)

[1] http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/
[2] http://8ball.ofb.net/
[3] http://www.ravencore.com/
[4] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2005/12/21.1
[5] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2006/02/02.1

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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