Background

During July 2015, we began the process of transitioning MF/PL servers from courier to dovecot. Courier and dovecot are both pop3/imap servers; they allow you to access email hosted by MF/PL. We embarked on this project because dovecot is a faster and more efficient program, and we believe it will improve email performance, particularly for members that have a lot of mail.

We've tried to make this process as unobtrusive as possible. However, there were a couple of unforseen hiccups. This page outlines the hiccups we encountered. It also explains what to do if you were affected.

My mail program is trying to download all of my mail again

Dovecot's documentation ​warns about scenarios where this might happen. A pop/imap server keeps some information about what messages you've downloaded, and what messages you haven't. Part of the transition involves converting this information from `courier format' to 'dovecot format'. We incorporated this conversion step into the upgrade. However, during one upgrade (chavez), we made the mistake of allowing dovecot to start before the conversion was complete. This allowed some members to check email before their mailboxes had been converted; and their mail clients downloaded all messages from the server.

To prevent this from happening again, we modified the upgrade process so that dovecot and courier are stopped while the conversion takes place.

Wait -- All my folders disappeared

Mail programs have a list of folders that they "subscribe" to -- folders that live on the server, and are made accessible through your mail client. Your mail isn't gone; only the subscriptions have disappeared. To bring your folders back, just re-subscribe.