POP3 Mail Download Hangs

[jsefton]

Hi Folks,

I have a real annoying problem that seems to be getting worse as time goes on and the worst part is, i have very little information to give an indiaction of what is causing it.

The problem is occuring a lot with one user in particular but has happened a few times with others.

A user has a site on my server with 2 mailboxes setup. (and a couple of aliases too i think.)

They pickup mail using Outlook 2003 using POP3.

Every so often, the mail download will just 'hang'.

For example, it will stick at 'message 1 of 15 (57k out of 170k)' or similar and then just time out. (these numbers are not accurate)

While this download appears to be 'stuck', by watching the logs you can see others logging in and downloading mail without problems.

I have tried rebooting the workstation but that does not seem to help.

The only way i have found to get it un-stuck is to reboot the server.
Just of late, i have been needing to reboot the server because of this problem 3 or 4 times a week.

It is primarily happening with one mailbox but i am getting the same problem with other mailboxes occasionally.

The logs are not much help since they just show the user connecting and then say they disconnected.

Here is a bit of the log in case i am missing something

Sep 9 11:16:26 ns1a vm-pop3d[1471]: Connect from 81.178.50.141
Sep 9 11:16:26 ns1a vm-pop3d[1471]: User 'info' of 'somedomain.co.uk' logged in from 81.178.50.141
Sep 9 11:16:27 ns1a vm-pop3d[1471]: bytes: domain somedomain.co.uk 5832 bytes
Sep 9 11:17:35 ns1a vm-pop3d[1471]: Socket closed from 81.178.50.141

Today, rebooting the server does not help.

I know this is very little to go on but i would appreciate any suggestions that anyone might have.

Server Info:

Processor Name Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.26GHz
Vendor ID GenuineIntel
Processor Speed (MHz) 2259.859
Total Memory 643232 kB
Free Memory 515664 kB
Total Swap Memory 1052248 kB
Free Swap Memory 1052248 kB
System Uptime 0 Days, 0 Hours and 44 Minutes
Apache 1.3.29 Running
DirectAdmin 1.22.2 Running
Exim 4.24 Running
MySQL 4.0.16 Running
Named 9.1.3 Running
ProFTPd 1.2.9 Running
sshd Running
vm-Pop3d 1.1.7e Running

(just copied from da admin panel.)

Thank You

- James

 

[nobaloney]

We had similar problems with OE hanging; we found it to be problems with malicious headers in spam/viruses in the user's emailbox.

if you log in with squirrelmail and delete all the spam and virusses, does it then let you download the email?

Jeff

 

[jsefton]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your comments.

I copied the virtual mailbox file over an existing 'test' mailbox and then used OE (instead of MS Outlook) to download the 'test' mailbox. It downloaded perfectly.

I have since cleared the users mailbox and then used OE to forward the emails (16 of) back to the original user as attachments to a single mail and can open all the attached messages.

The user managed to download this mail without any trouble.

I dont remember seeing any spam messages in the 16 that i downloaded but the next time it happens, i will pay more attention to the content of the emails and i will do a few more tests with the mailbox to see if i can work out if it is realated to the content of the messages.

I will bring this topic back up when i have another problem and especially if i find a solution.

Thanks,

- James