Problem unfreezing mails due to two mailqueues

harro

Verified User
Joined
Oct 15, 2005
Messages
178
Hi all,

The problem I have found is that when mails (for some reason) don't get completely processed, they get stuck in the /var/spool/exim/input folder as FROZEN.

(And I also find a lot of messages in the /var/spool/exim/msglog folder, strangely enough!).

Due to the Dovecot set-up there are two exim-incoming folders and two processes. One does the reception from outside (/var/spool/exim.IN/) and the other the delivery on the server (/var/spool/exim/), if I understand correctly.

But the real problem (or hassle) is that I can't unfreeze the messages after they have been moved from the exim.IN to exim folder, using the
Code:
exim -Mt <msg ID>
, because that command only looks in the incoming folder /var/spool/exim.IN/input


Is there any way to fix this? I never noticed mails being left (frozen) for days before, but maybe that is because they might get deleted after a few days?

The one option that I could get to work is to execute for each seperate message a
Code:
cp -p <msg ID> /var/spool/exim.IN/input && exim -Mt <msg ID>

This way I copy them and unfreeze them before they are put back in the other exim folder unprocessed (because they are frozen).

This, obviously is hell and I don't have time to do this every day...

So... any ideas?

Thank you!

Harro
 
Hey,

I don't know if you know about the "Mail Queue Administration" link in under the Admin login but it's pretty handy.

Also, from the Exim conf file:

# BOUNCE MESSAGES
# OPTIONAL MODIFICATIONS:
# When Exim can neither deliver a message nor return it to sender, it
# "freezes" the delivery error message (aka "bounce message"). There are also
# other circumstances in which messages get frozen. They will stay on the
# queue forever unless one or both of the following options is set.

# This option unfreezes bounce messages after two days, tries
# once more to deliver them, and ignores any delivery failures.

ignore_bounce_errors_after = 2d

# This option cancels (removes) frozen messages that are older than five days.

timeout_frozen_after = 5d

David
 
David, thank you for your reply! The Exim config file is interesting, I will play with those settings to see what effect it has, maybe shorten the retry to 1 day or so.

The DA mail queue is empty (usually, in any case). So I think it shows a different queue - I read that it shows the outgoing mail that is sent from the DA server to the world. I am not sure how exim differentiates between outgoing and incoming, but either way that mail queue overview doesn't help out...

Continuing the search!

Harro
 
I can't open it (not without installing some vague ActiveX plugin)... What is it??
 
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