-ERR, aack, child crashed

[Urs]

Another self-answering post!

I had this error, after up@#$%!@#$%!@#$%!@#$%!@#$%!@#$%! my qmail/vpopmail e-mail server, running Solaris 9. It occurred when users tried to access their POP3 or IMAP accounts. This is what happens:
Telnet to port 110
user me@there.com
pass guesswhat
-ERR, aack, child crashed

Connection closed.

I did some debugging. It turned out, that the encryption of the passwords used by vchkpw changed! Or actually the function crypt() changed. Before the upgrade, the scrambled password started with a "$1" and about 11 characters. Now, they are encoded much longer, like "$1$" and 8 characters, a "$" and 22 characters. The crypt() routine returned EINVAL when fed with the old style "salt", which is not checked within vchkpw and it crashes.

So the solution was to regenerate the passwords using vpasswd. This was easy, because I have the clear-text passwords, lucky I am!

Hope this information might someone save the weekend...
BTW: Don't ask me, why the encryption changed at all, with only doing the recommended patches.

-Urs

[brooky]

I've reset my passwords and bumped the memory limit up to 25600000 Bytes but I still get this error.

I've even deleted email accounts and added them again but the error warning in Thunderbird won't go away.

Is there anything else that can be tested or tried? I've looked i so many forums and just can't find the solution to this.

[slowsurfer]

Brooky,

Feel for you! Have done the same thing. I have increased ram, decreased ram, done everything I can think of, but still am experiencing the same problem. Wouldn't be so bad for myself, I can live with it. But we use Interworx CP and am hosting 100+ websites and hundreds of email accounts. Have been getting some irate emails from our clients regarding this problem.

Has anyone out there found a good solid solution?

- Sean

[brooky]

Isn't that interesting.. I'm running InterWorx too.

I've been unable to resolve this for months and it is painful!! I can imagine how hard it must be dealing with your customers.

I wonder if IWorx has anything to do with it or if it is coincidental.