Issue Plesk Dovecot Roundcube Filters

[tastymonkey]

Server operating system version

Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS

Plesk version and microupdate number

Plesk 18.0.53

The system in question is running the following.
Plesk 18.0.53
Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS
Dovecot for IMAP
Roundcube Webmail 1.6.0

Everywhere I search it says to use sieve when using filters made in Roundcube. I think this has been broken for a couple years by Plesk updates. I have tried to fix to various degrees. I even reimaged the server to upgrade it to the newest of both OS and Plesk, but then needed to restore the backup since it was a working server, which may have added the possibly broken setting back to the system. I would think there is a setting somewhere that should make this work again but so far nothing. And everywhere I look involves making changes I am not sure I feel ok with making, it being a working server. I have even looked in this forum and found nothing yet that has worked.

 

[tastymonkey]

I was also looking around and plesk-dovecot-pigeonhole is installed.

 

[tastymonkey]

Doing an apt reinstall of plesk-dovecot-pigeonhole does nothing as well.

 

[Kaspar]

Everywhere I search it says to use sieve when using filters made in Roundcube. I think this has been broken for a couple years by Plesk updates. I have tried to fix to various degrees. I even reimaged the server to upgrade it to the newest of both OS and Plesk, but then needed to restore the backup since it was a working server, which may have added the possibly broken setting back to the system. I would think there is a setting somewhere that should make this work again but so far nothing. And everywhere I look involves making changes I am not sure I feel ok with making, it being a working server. I have even looked in this forum and found nothing yet that has worked.

Just for my own understanding, what is the issue you're facing exactly? Filters created in Roundcube don't work for you? If so, can you give an example of a filter rule you created that doesn't work?

 

[tastymonkey]

Just for my own understanding, what is the issue you're facing exactly? Filters created in Roundcube don't work for you? If so, can you give an example of a filter rule you created that doesn't work?

Filters created through Roundcube do not work at all. Spamassassin seems to still work with moving to spam folder. Here is an example.

 

[Kaspar]

Filters created through Roundcube do not work at all. [...]

I can imagine that's quite a bummer. I am using Sieve filters extensively on my servers and never had any issue. But that doesn't help you of course. From experience however I can say that Sieve filters can be a little bit tricky to use. The way filter rules can be managed in Roundcube can be a little deceiving as well, especially when you're using multiple rules.

Here are some things you can check to troubleshoot your issue.

1) Check if the Filter Set in Roundcube is actually active.
The distinction between an inactive and active Filter Set in Roundcube isn't particularly clear (imho), so it's easy to miss if the Filter Set is inactive. The name of an inactive Filter Set in Roundcube is grey, while the name an active Filter Set is black (or white if you use a dark theme). If you are unsure try to deactivate and then active the Filter Set again to see if that makes any difference.

2) Check if any "Stop" action is used in a rule.
Filter rules are processed in order. If you are using multiple rules a previous rule can affect the next rule. For that reason it's worth checking if any of your rules use the "Stop evaluating rules" action. That action would stop any following rules to be used.

3) Clear any rules you have and start from scratch.
As mentioned in the previous point, rules are processed in order. Which means rules can affect eachother. So, for the purpose of troubleshooting, you might want to delete your current rules and with a blank Filter set. Adding new rules one by one and testing each one before adding a new rules.
You can of course download your current Filter Set(s) in Roundcube and save them on your computer as a backup (and upload them again in Roundcube if need or if this point didn't yielded any result).

4) Check the Dovecot configuration files for any server wide filters that might block (take president over) Roundcube filters
This is a bit more technical (and I would check the first points first). Dovecot configuration files can contain Sieve rules that are processed before any Roundcube filter rule. These configuration files are located in the /etc/dovecot/conf.d/ directory. You can search trough the files in this directory see if there is anything that might cause a conflict.

For example run the grep -rnw '/etc/dovecot/conf.d/' -e 'stop' command to see if the Stop action is used in any of the configuration files. You might also want to search for 'fileinto' and 'include'.

Hope this helps.

 

[tastymonkey]

I can imagine that's quite a bummer. I am using Sieve filters extensively on my servers and never had any issue. But that doesn't help you of course. From experience however I can say that Sieve filters can be a little bit tricky to use. The way filter rules can be managed in Roundcube can be a little deceiving as well, especially when you're using multiple rules.

Here are some things you can check to troubleshoot your issue.

1) Check if the Filter Set in Roundcube is actually active.
The distinction between an inactive and active Filter Set in Roundcube isn't particularly clear (imho), so it's easy to miss if the Filter Set is inactive. The name of an inactive Filter Set in Roundcube is grey, while the name an active Filter Set is black (or white if you use a dark theme). If you are unsure try to deactivate and then active the Filter Set again to see if that makes any difference.

2) Check if any "Stop" action is used in a rule.
Filter rules are processed in order. If you are using multiple rules a previous rule can affect the next rule. For that reason it's worth checking if any of your rules use the "Stop evaluating rules" action. That action would stop any following rules to be used.

3) Clear any rules you have and start from scratch.
As mentioned in the previous point, rules are processed in order. Which means rules can affect eachother. So, for the purpose of troubleshooting, you might want to delete your current rules and with a blank Filter set. Adding new rules one by one and testing each one before adding a new rules.
You can of course download your current Filter Set(s) in Roundcube and save them on your computer as a backup (and upload them again in Roundcube if need or if this point didn't yielded any result).

4) Check the Dovecot configuration files for any server wide filters that might block (take president over) Roundcube filters
This is a bit more technical (and I would check the first points first). Dovecot configuration files can contain Sieve rules that are processed before any Roundcube filter rule. These configuration files are located in the /etc/dovecot/conf.d/ directory. You can search trough the files in this directory see if there is anything that might cause a conflict.

For example run the grep -rnw '/etc/dovecot/conf.d/' -e 'stop' command to see if the Stop action is used in any of the configuration files. You might also want to search for 'fileinto' and 'include'.

Hope this helps.

1. As far as I know the filter that I showed a screenshot of is active. It says Filter Enabled. I tried the deactivate/reactivate.
2. The gmail one I screenshotted I have is at the top of the list and there is no stop action.
3.I removed all the rules I had and recreated the gmail one to test. The rules I had were all usable but I have not used them in 2 years since this has not worked in that time so I did not have an issue removing them all. The only existing rule I recreated did not work.
4. I found nothing by using the command you specified and still nothing searching for fileinfo and include. I did try sieve and it showed up here.
/usr/share/doc/dovecot/example-config/conf.d/90-sieve.conf
I am thinking there is something missing to reference sieve in the Dovecot config but I don't know what to do about that since I tried making a change and Dovecot would not start until I reverted the change.

 

[Kaspar]

I am thinking there is something missing to reference sieve in the Dovecot config but I don't know what to do about that since I tried making a change and Dovecot would not start until I reverted the change.

I see. What you could try, at your own risk, is to switch to Courier and then back to Dovecot again. This would re-initiate the Dovecot configuration. I would advice against doing this if you have a large number of email users on your server. As all email messages have to be downloaded again by email clients (Apple mail, Outlook, Thunderbird, ect) after each switch. But if you just have a couple of mailboxes for your own use you could try switching. In any case make sure to make a backup of your server in case things get sour. (Any filter rules will be lost, so make sure to make a copy of those too).

Alternatively you could contact Plesk support. They can investigate the issue on your server and I am sure they can solve the issue too. They are very knowledgeable.