A POP lock is a mailbox lock that occurs due to one of the following reasons:

  • Mail is corrupted
  • Mailbox is substantially large
  • Mailbox has received a large attachment
  • Interrupted download
  • Downloading mail from more then one location

    To remove the lock on a Linux Fully Managed account, follow the below procedure:

  1. Access your server via ftp and proceed to the /var/spool/mail directory.
  2. Locate the POP username (ex. admin). The POP lock will create a new file with a .pop extension (ex. admin.pop). One file will be zero (0) byte and the other file will contain data.
  3. Download the file containing the data to your local system in ASCII mode. Once downloaded, you may open the file in a text editor (Notepad, etc.) and read the mail. NOTE: All images and attachments will be unable to be read.
  4. Once you have successfully downloaded and read the mail, delete both files (ex. admin and admin.pop) from the server.

    To remove a pop lock on a Windows fully managed web hosting account, follow the below procedure:

  1. You will need to ftp to the server and go to the following directory: /Special/mail/users/
  2. A lock file will consist of two files with the extensions .~xt and .ext. These files are normally named with the email username with the error, IE username.~xt and username.ext
  3. The .~xt file is the file that contains the lock.
  4. The .ext file contains a cipher for the account.
  5. To remove the pop lock, simply delete the two files and you will now be able to send and receive email.
Author: Michael Roberts