iredmail-doc/en_US/troubleshooting/debug.dovecot.md

Turn on debug mode in Dovecot

Don't know where Dovecot config files are? check this tutorial: Locations of configuration and log files of major components.

To turn on debug mode in Dovecot, please update below parameter in Dovecot config file dovecot.conf:

mail_debug = yes

Restart Dovecot service.

If you need authentication and password related debug message, turn on related settings and restart dovecot service.

auth_verbose = yes
auth_debug = yes
auth_debug_passwords = yes
auth_verbose_passwords = yes

If you see many error message (like dovecot fails, spawning too quickly) in Dovecot error log while restarting Dovecot, there might be something wrong in Dovecot config file. Please try to start it on command line manually, it will report configuration error if any, fix them and start it again:

# dovecot -c /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf