Satya's blog - Mutt and Ubuntu indexer

Okay, here's a good one. I use mutt with local mbox folders, some of which are also my incoming folders (via fetchmail's IMAPS and procmail). Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) ame along, and I stopped seeing new mail in the folders.

That is, I used to start mutt and be in the inbox. Hit c, and the "Open mailbox" prompt had the next folder with unread mail filled in by default. Hit enter, and I go to the next incoming folder with unread mail. Now, I was getting no folder filled out, which means mutt thinks I have no un-read (new) email.

Mutt relies on mtime and atime to tell which folders have new mail (contrast "read" mail and "old" mail). Gutsy Gibbon's trackerd, the file indexer, was messing up the timestamps. Kill the tracker, mutt sees unread mail again. Since I don't use nor like OS-level file indexers, I can live with this.