Restored mail folders conflict with renamed original ones

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 13:43:07 -0800 

Hello,
We are running Dovecot 2.3.18 (together with Postfix) on CentOS 7. It uses a Maildir structure. 


We have a user who has organized his mailbox as shows up at the end of 
this mail. The user had forgotten that he had renamed his "Grants Active 
\ European" (.Grants Active.European) folder to "Grants Active \ 
International" (.Grants Active.International), he thought that it was 
lost and requested a restore of "Grants Active \ European" (with all of 
its subfolders) from backup.



Since we did that (using a simple "cp -rp" from a backup, observing 
timestamps, ownership and permissions), mail client software won't see 
"European" mail folder in "Grants Active" mail folder; "International" 
mail folder shows up but only with two folders, those which do not exist 
in "European" branch (obviously, these were created later).



I have tried to run the command "doveadm index -u userx Grants\ Active" 
and likewise for each and every mail subfolder under "Grants\ Active"; I 
have also tried deleting the dovecot.index.cache and dovecot.index.log 
from the latter ("Grants\ Active") and then run:


   doveadm -vD force-resync -u userx Grants\ Active

but it didn't do the trick: Mail clients are still stuck as I explained.


In the end, I thought that the snag might be that mail folders that are 
not appearing have identical (duplicate) UIDs; As an example:


   [root@mailx .Grants Active.European]# cat dovecot-uidlist
   3 V1548680759 N1 G64e70a1130343f61003c0000715faa8d
   [root@mailx .Grants Active.European]# cd ..
   [root@mailx Maildir]# cd .Grants\ Active.International
   [root@mailx .Grants Active.International]# cat dovecot-uidlist
   3 V1548680759 N1 G64e70a1130343f61003c0000715faa8d

If so, how should we overcome this issue?


I guess I could simply delete the restored folders to return to an 
acceptable state? If nevertheless we need to restore the ".European" 
mail folder from a backup (as it was before getting renamed), what would 
be the right way to do so?



Is there another way to resolve the issue without deleting the restored 
mail folders?



Here is the list of mail folders in this mailbox (I have intentionally 
removed lots of them, to reduce irrelevant content; this mailbox 
includes a large number of mail folders):


   # doveadm mailbox list -u userx
   IGARSS 2024
   IAC2022
   Junk
   ...
   Junk E-mail
   INBOX.EMISSION
   ...
   Trash
   Trash.Equality
   Trash.sadf
   ...
   Grants Active
   Grants Active.European
   Grants Active.European.URBAN RELEAF
   Grants Active.European.SMURBS
   Grants Active.European.SMURBS.In Kind
   Grants Active.European.SMURBS.Final Reports
   Grants Active.European.RI-URBANS
   Grants Active.European.QA4EO
   Grants Active.European.ATMO-ACCESS
   Grants Active.European.IGOSP
   Grants Active.European.GAUSS
   Grants Active.European.E-SHAPE
   Grants Active.European.CIROCCO
   Grants Active.European.InCASE
   Grants Active.European.EIFFEL
   Grants Active.European.ARSINOE
   Grants Active.International
   Grants Active.International.2324
   Grants Active.International.GAUSS
   Grants Active.International.CIROCCO
   Grants Active.International.IGOSP
   Grants Active.International.ATMO-ACCESS
   Grants Active.International.URBAN RELEAF
   Grants Active.International.InCASE
   Grants Active.International.ARSINOE
   Grants Active.International.RI-URBANS
   Grants Active.International.E-SHAPE
   Grants Active.International.EIFFEL
   Grants Active.International.QA4EO
   Grants Active.International.SMURBS
   Grants Active.International.SMURBS.Final Reports
   Grants Active.International.SMURBS.In Kind
   Grants Active.International.India
   Grants Active.Urban ReLeaf
   Grants Active.National
   Grants Active.National.ΑΓ ΠΑΡΑΣΚΕΥΗ
   Grants Active.National.ΠΕΤΡΟΥΠΟΛΗ
   Grants Active.National.CLIMATTICA
   Grants Active.National.ΝΑΥΠΛΙΟ
   Grants Active.National.ΕΔΒΜ
   Grants Active.National.PANGEA
   Grants Active.National.ΕΛΙΔΕΚ
   Grants Active.National.ΕΛΙΔΕΚ.OXONIAN - Δέσποινα
   Grants Active.National.ΕΛΙΔΕΚ.Νασια PhD
   Grants Active.National.CLIMPACT
   Sent
   ...
   INBOX


Please, provide some guidance on what we should do to make these mail 
folders work correctly again.



Sorry, I am not very knowledgeable on mail inner architecture and 
operations; please let me know if you need additional info.


Thanks in advance,
Nick























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