With interval set to 1 minute on /var/mail/USER, when a new message arrives, the mail icon changes to the "new mail" status. However, after reading the new message, it doesn't go back to the "no new messages" icon for quite a while. I have seen this range from 3 minutes to much longer. In my last test, it took 9 minutes.
Could you please explain in detail what mail client you're using and what software is used to deliver the mail to the box etc.
Hi. I read a mssage via IMAP in Thunderbird from our mail server. The mail on the mail server is in /var/mail/USER. /var/mail is NFS shared out to all of our clients from the mail server. The xfce system on my local desktop is using /var/mail/USER which is an NFS mounted mail area from the mail server. There were no problems with this setup when using the previous mailcheck panel utility in the previous Xfce version.
/var/mail/USER is a mbox or a maildir? Is there a reason for not using Mailwatch's IMAP support? I tend to think that your IMAP server (or NFS client - I don't know. I'm not too familiar with it) caches the mailbox status for a while so the updated status is not visible to Mailwatch. What IMAP server are you using?
mbox. We are trying to setup Xfce automatically for new users. Use of imap requires a username and password. The previous mailcheck component in Xfce worked fine. We are using uofw imap 2006h.
Okay, good. Could you troubleshoot a bit further? - Send a new mail to the box and wait until Mailwatch reports a new mail - `stat /var/mail/USER` and make note of change (and modify) times - Read the mail with Thunderbird and repeatedly stat the mailbox file until it's change (or modify) time updates. If there's a delay between the time of reading the mail and update of ctime you could try to close Thunderbird immediately after reading the mail to (possibly) force the server to flush the changes to disk. Also, you could try stat'ing the file via ssh to see if it's nfs that caches the information. Let me know if these make a difference.
I've done some experimentation and it seems that the problem is likely Thunderbird(?). If I close Thunderbird down, Mailwatch works for /var/mail. If I send a message, it lights up on the next minute interval, and after reading the message, the light goes away. This is annoying since I have Thunderbird running, but minimized, and don't know that I have an email until mailwatch catches it. :( I certainly don't want to close Thunderbird down every time I read a message, and I really don't recall having this issue with mailcheck, but I guess I was running a different version of Thunderbird at that time as well. I tried sending a message with Thunderbird closed (unix mail command). I see that the mailbox stat shows the appropriate modify/change time. I then tried to open Thunderbird. I read the message in Thunderbird. There is no change to the modify/change time. If I close Thunderbird, then mailwatch can catch it... The same thing happens if I don't use /var/mail, but IMAP. ARGH. I guess there isn't much you can do.
I agree that there's not much I can do. You might try to check Thunderbird to see if there's a preference to revert to the old non-caching behaviour. Resolving bug as invalid.