Using mailhandler with problematic c-client - use pecl / sockets / streams instead?

My shared host bumped me up to VPS for free, so no longer applicable.

bump again - I want to get back to shared hosting as VPS no longer charged at same rate. So I am reposting this:

My host (byethost.com) have been trying to get mailhandler working for me after I have been receiving the following error message:

warning: imap_open() [function.imap-open]: Couldn\'t open stream {pop.gmx.com:110/pop3/novalidate-cert/notls}INBOX ...modules/mailhandler/mailhandler.module on line 29.

They said that this was due to the following problem:

http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/imap-uw/2008-May/002060.html

It seems that the underlying c-client is just not up to the job.

They are now asking me this:

Do you know if drupal has any other method other than the pop / imap interfaces to do mail handling (eg sockets or streams ? , or http://pecl.php.net/package/POP3/1.0.2 )

I did a search for 'pecl' and 'pop3' and got nothing in Drupal.

Does anyone know if mailhandler could work with sockets or streams? I don't even know what this means!

Thanks!

The link has been changed to mailman2 instead of mailman1:

http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/pipermail/imap-uw/2008-May/002060.html

I can't really explain anything because I don't understand it. This is what they said:

http://www.washington.edu/imap/IMAP-FAQs/index.html

is the c-client that compiles into php, the issue is that this client will not operate if the spawning process (apache) is using more than 1024 file descriptors (open files) , which for a shared hosting apache server is almost an impossible number to get below (every vhost creates at least 3 file descriptors just for logging, then every web page being requested causes 2 descriptors to be used..)

The issue is currently being looked at by washington.edu ( the upstream maintainers of c-client), however unless this is fixed, or drupal uses a sockets interface to talk to the imap server (or uses the pop pecl package) (both of the latter would need some Drupal modifications), then the mail handling will not work as expected.

They wanted to know whether this could be used instead: http://pecl.php.net/package/POP3/1.0.2

I'm leaving this comment live even though it looks like they're going to keep me on VPS for a lower price just in case I need to downgrade.

Thanks!