[lIN-USE] maildrop busy

[Rakdan]

One of my SBCGlobal.net accounts is getting an error "Login Error [lIN-USE] maildrop busy".
This seems to happen for several hours, and then go away, and then come back again.
I am using 4.1.0.3001.
Most of the time when I get this error, my webmail works fine.
One time, I was able to log into my account on line, but I got an error whenever I opened a message.
What is going on here?

Jeff

[Jeff]

The [in-use] error reported by the server generally means that the server only allows one POP3 connection to the account and the 2nd client connecting will get that error. POP Peeper itself will only make one connection to the server (unless you have multiple accounts in PP using the same login). A web-based connection to the account *shouldn't* make a difference, but it's up to their implementation.

There really are many reasons why it could occur: another client is connected (e.g. do you check the same account via a mobile app?), server maintenance, broken connections where the server still thinks you're connected, or maybe the server doesn't immediately update the in-use status (that might explain why it happens when you try to retrieve a message).

[Rakdan]

There are only 3 ways that I ever access the emails on this account.
I use POP Peeper all the time - many times a day.
Once a month or so, I download my mail using my email client - I have not done that in a while.
On rare occasions, usually when there are problems, I use their web mail.
When I got this error, I had just verified at the web mail that things were working fine. I probably had the web mail page still open,
but was not actively checking the mail at the time.
It is possible that the other times that I had problems recently, it might have been a different error.
I usually do not look at the POP Peeper errors. I just assume that the problem will resolve itself soon.
Next time I have a problem, I will check the POP Peeper error message before going to web mail, just in case that made a difference,
but, from what you said, it sounds like it should not have mattered.

[Jeff]

One other idea -- can you access the account using IMAP? IMAP is better designed to be accessed by multiple clients, so it shouldn't have the same problem.

[Rakdan]

I was getting the error when I was only accessing the account with POP Peeper.
That's why I thought it could be that I was getting a different error message all the times that I did not look to see what the error was, and maybe this message only came up the one time that I checked the account by web mail and the POP Peeper and looked at the error message.

[Rakdan]

OK, Now there is no question that I am getting this error message incorrectly. I guess that Yahoo could be sending the wrong error message.
I could not log on with POP Peeper, so I logged on via email. When that worked, I closed my browser, deleting all my cookies, and I still got the message. A few minutes later, I was able to retrieve the header, but the message crapped out. I selected the option to remove this email from my list, and tried to check the account again with POP Peeper. I got the same error that the maildrop is busy. I waited a few more minutes, and I still got the same error message, even after shutting down and reopening POP Peeper. This is also what happened originally. The header came through, but there was an error opening the message, and then I could not use POP Peeper on this account at all.

[mjs]

Please post to this topic the error information for this account. Whenever you get an error in Pop Peeper it is always best to provide us with the complete "Error overview" data. Doing this gives us additional information that can be of help in determining what may be causing the problem.

To do this:
1) Click on the yellow icon with exclamation in lower right corner of PP interface.
2) Click the "Copy" button (saving the error message to clipboard).
3) Past the error message to this topic.

NOTE: Please make sure your actual email account name does not display by changing it to "XXXX" for example.

By the way, have you looked into using IMAP as suggested by Jeff above?

[Rakdan]

I changed my login ID below to XXXXXX to keep the email address private.

--- Version ---
OS: Windows 7 (x64)
POP Peeper: 4.1.0.3001
Webmail: 4.0.23.0
SSL: 1.0.1.8
IMAP: 4.1.0.0
SendMail: 4.1.0.0
Profile Picture: 4.1.0.0

--- Error ---
0A S XXXXXX [0: POP3] ['pop.mail.yahoo.com' (995) SSL: 1] [Smtp: 'smtp.att.yahoo.com' (465) SSL: 1]
Login Error ([IN-USE] maildrop busy.)

[mjs]

Thank you for the information.

To hopefully resolve your issue it was recommend that you consider looking into using IMAP as suggested by Jeff previously in this topic

So if there is no reason to keep using "POP3" then "IMAP" is generally recommended. Pop Peeper version 4 automatically updates all the necessary settings when editing an account to use the "IMAP" protocol so all you have to do is change the "Server type" setting to "IMAP" and press the "Update" button (you'll notice all the relevant server settings will get set as a result).

Also a new 4.1.1 version of Pop Peeper has just been released, you might consider updating to this new version as well.

In the Pop Peeper main interface go to "Help" > "About POP Peeper..." > Click on "Check Version" button. This will take you to a downloads page, be sure and follow the instructions on the "Product Request form" page.

Doing this will get you a Pop Peeper installer named "POPPeeperProPlus-Install-v411". Be sure to EXIT Pop Peeper (right-click on the Pop Peeper icon in the systray and select "Exit") and then run the downloaded Pop Peeper installer.

[Jeff]

You may be right that Yahoo is sending an incorrect error. Saying that the mailbox is "busy" could be the equivalent of Yahoo saying, "you've used too many resources / suspicious activity / error 999" which they're known to do; or maybe there's just something wrong with their POP3 server. As mentioned, I would highly recommend using IMAP.