Planet Ergo

If you ever run into a situation where OTRS 2.4.7 on your CentOS system (for which packages live here BTW) bails out retrieving new email from a mailbox, it might actually fail sending out notifications to agents:

[otrs@app01 ~]$ perl -d /var/www/otrs/bin/PostMasterMailbox.pl -d 9 -f 1
Loading DB routines from perl5db.pl version 1.28
Editor support available.

Enter h or `h h' for help, or `man perldebug' for more help.

main::(/var/www/otrs/bin/PostMasterMailbox.pl:34):
34:	$VERSION = qw($Revision: 1.10 $) [1];
  DB<1> step

  DB<2> [...System/MailAccount/IMAPS.pm line 82 in sub new] looking for greeting
[...System/MailAccount/IMAPS.pm line 82 in sub new] got a greeting: * OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4 (...snip...)
[...rl/5.8.8/Net/IMAP/Simple.pm line 931 in sub _send_cmd] 0 LOGIN (...snip...)
[...rl/5.8.8/Net/IMAP/Simple.pm line 196 in sub _process_cmd] 0 OK [CAPA(...snip...)
(...snip...)
[...rl/5.8.8/Net/IMAP/Simple.pm line 509 in sub _process_cmd] )\r\n
[...rl/5.8.8/Net/IMAP/Simple.pm line 942 in sub _cmd_ok] )\r\n
[...rl/5.8.8/Net/IMAP/Simple.pm line 903 in sub _seterrstr] warning unknown return string (id=3): )\r\n
[...rl/5.8.8/Net/IMAP/Simple.pm line 509 in sub _process_cmd] 3 OK Completed (0.000 sec)\r\n
[...rl/5.8.8/Net/IMAP/Simple.pm line 942 in sub _cmd_ok] 3 OK Completed (0.000 sec)\r\n
Wide character in subroutine entry at (eval 72)[/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8 (...snip...)
 at (eval 72)[/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/MIME/Decoder/QuotedPrint.pm:78] line 1
	MIME::Decoder::QuotedPrint::encode_qp_threearg('> > > ��Buil(...snip...)
', 'undef', '') called at /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/MIME/Decoder/QuotedPrint.pm line 95
	MIME::Decoder::QuotedPrint::encode_qp_really('> > > ��Build OS:���(...snip...)
', 1) called at /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/MIME/Decoder/QuotedPrint.pm line 154
	MIME::Decoder::QuotedPrint::encode_it('MIME::Decoder::QuotedPrint=HASH(0x7811330)', (...snip...)
	MIME::Decoder::encode('MIME::Decoder::QuotedPrint=HASH(0x7811330)', 'IO::ScalarArray (...snip...)
	MIME::Entity::print_bodyhandle('MIME::Entity=HASH(0x78c07a0)', 'IO::ScalarArray=GLOB(0 (...snip...)
	MIME::Entity::print_body('MIME::Entity=HASH(0x78c07a0)', 'IO::ScalarArray=GLOB(0x78c09 (...snip...)
	MIME::Entity::print('MIME::Entity=HASH(0x78c07a0)', 'IO::ScalarArray=GLOB(0x78c0980)') called (...snip...)
	MIME::Entity::print_body('MIME::Entity=HASH(0x782b520)', 'IO::ScalarArray=GLOB(0x78c0980)') (...snip...)
	MIME::Entity::stringify_body('MIME::Entity=HASH(0x782b520)') called at /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/ (...snip...)
	MIME::Entity::body_as_string('MIME::Entity=HASH(0x782b520)') called at /var/www/otrs/Kernel/Sys (...snip...)
	Kernel::System::Email::Send('Kernel::System::Email=HASH(0x76199f0)', 'From', (...snip...)
	Kernel::System::Ticket::Article::SendAgentNotification('Kernel::System::Ticket=(...snip...)
	Kernel::System::Ticket::Article::ArticleCreate('Kernel::System::Ticket=HASH(0x(...snip...)
	Kernel::System::PostMaster::FollowUp::Run('Kernel::System::PostMaster::Foll(...snip...)
	Kernel::System::PostMaster::Run('Kernel::System::PostMaster=HASH(0x7232(...snip...)
	Kernel::System::MailAccount::IMAPS::_Fetch('Kernel::System::MailAccount::I(...snip...)
	Kernel::System::MailAccount::IMAPS::Fetch('Kernel::System::MailAccount::IM(...snip...)
	Kernel::System::MailAccount::MailAccountFetch('Kernel::System::MailAccount(...snip...)
	main::Fetch('EncodeObject', 'Kernel::System::Encode=HASH(0x6bf86e0)', 'C(...snip...)
[otrs@app01 ~]$ 

Note that the error in the web interface or from a normal regular run may look like:

Wide character in subroutine entry at (...something...) at 1

This is actually caused by the default OTRS setting for SendmailEncodingForce which is set to 'base64'. Hence, in /var/www/otrs/Kernel/Config.pm, add the following line:

$Self->{'SendmailEncodingForce'} = '7bit';

Thanks to Paul Adams for some ingenious Googling ;-)