Hi brian,
It might be informative to specify what Cyrus version is on your old and new servers, in case there's quirks that need highlighting.
Is there a safe way for me to massage this into working order? (Without having to transfer all the files again.)
Even if there was, would you trust it?
Should i delete, and recreate, the mailboxes?
We usually recommend people upgrade Cyrus by replicating from the original server to a new server. This will fairly transparently take care of configuration/feature differences between the two installs, unlike a file system copy, because the receiving server will just store the things it receives in the way it expects them to be stored.
This isn't always an option for people (not everyone has the luxury of redundant hardware), but since you're moving to a new server anyway, I think this is what you should do (after deleting all the broken stuff from the previous attempt).
We have some upgrading (to 3.4) documentation here: https://www.cyrusimap.org/imap/download/upgrade.html
If you're upgrading to some older version, there's old upgrade documentation at:
If you're not upgrading, but just moving to a new server running the same version, I'd still suggest replicating.
You may wish to upgrade your old server in place to the latest release from its current series first -- e.g. if you're running 3.0.7, first upgrade to 3.0.15. Please check all the release notes for any versions you're skipping over.
If you're currently running something older than the 2.4 series, then I think -- sorry, my memory is woolly -- you'll probably need to upgrade in place to 2.4 before you'll be able to replicate to something newer.
Cheers,
ellie
