Some email arrives, some do not

[Aspegic]

This problem started a few days ago...

The vast majority of emails are delivered correctly, but some are not. Those who are not delivered correctly end up in the 'admin' email box.

There are no error messages in the log files. According to the log files they were all accepted and delivered correctly.

There seems to be no logic as to which emails will be delivered correctly and which won't. It isn't just with some email boxes only, because some mail to those mailboxes still get through to the correct mailbox.

Anyone have any ideas as to what may be causing this?

I'm running exim and vm-pop3d (not dovecot).

 

[nobaloney]

One possibility is that the "To:" header doesn't match the envelope-to address. Email is always delivered to the envelope-to address.

Another possibility is that forwarding is setup for the email address in question.

Otherwise I'd have to see all the headers to even begin to make an educated guess. If you're going to post headers do NOT change anything, and do not post them here in plaintext but rather in an attachment.

Jeff

 

[Aspegic]

One possibility is that the "To:" header doesn't match the envelope-to address. Email is always delivered to the envelope-to address.

I checked the envelope-to addresses and they were correct (same as the "To:" addresses).

Another possibility is that forwarding is setup for the email address in question.

I've checked that to, but no forwarding was setup for these addresses.


At first it seemed that only 'default' mailboxes were effected (with 'default' I mean the mailboxes that are automatically created when a new user account is created). But later I found one that was sent to a normal address so there goes that theory.


I'll study this some more. If I can't figure it out on my own I'll post the logs here.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Aspegic]

Ok, I've found out that it is in fact only a problem with 'default' mailboxes. The one exception I found had 2 mail addresses in the To: line, one of which was the default address of that account which caused it to end up in the 'admin' mailbox.

Here are 2 entries from the exim mainlog that ended up in the 'admin' mailbox:

[size=2]
2006-03-29 10:12:20 1FOVmt-00004w-Uj <= [email][email protected][/email] H=220-138-55-89.dynamic.hinet.net (g4x3x.qk5eucw.ameritech.net) [220.138.55.89] 
 P=esmtp S=1659 T="Rejuvenation for you!" from <[email protected]> for [email][email protected][/email] [email][email protected][/email]
2006-03-29 10:12:20 1FOVmt-00004w-Uj => admin <[email protected]> F=<[email protected]> R=localuser T=local_delivery S=1823
2006-03-29 10:12:20 1FOVmt-00004w-Uj => catchall <[email protected]> F=<[email protected]> R=virtual_user T=virtual_localdelivery S=1821
2006-03-29 10:12:20 1FOVmt-00004w-Uj Completed

2006-03-30 21:30:36 1FP2qp-00013s-6N <= [email][email protected][/email] H=(gmail.com) [211.112.213.130] P=smtp S=1378 [email protected] 
 T="Re: we can help your web site.." from <[email protected]> for [email][email protected][/email]
2006-03-30 21:30:36 1FP2qp-00013s-6N => admin <[email protected]> F=<[email protected]> R=localuser T=local_delivery S=1545
2006-03-30 21:30:36 1FP2qp-00013s-6N Completed
[/size]

(i have only changed the email addresses of my clients for obvious reasons, all other data is unaltered)

Can you see anything that could explain why these emails were delivered in the 'admin' mailbox?

I noticed the word "admin" in front of the clients email address, could that have something to do with it?

 

[nobaloney]

I hate guessing ...

but it appears that you've got a catchall setup.

Perhaps the email is really coming to two addresses, one of them being the catchall account.

Jeff

 

[Aspegic]

Yes, that's what I said.

But the 'catchall' isn't the problem, the 'admin' line is. Also these are just 2 examples. I included that first one because that was the one that had the two adresses in "To:".

Note that the second is just a normal entry. It appears perfectly normal except that it ended up in the 'admin' mailbox and not in the 'seconduser' mailbox!

If you would like to take a look at the actual email itself, including headers and all, click here.

 

[nobaloney]

On line seven of your link you'll see the only address the email is being sent to.

If it's not appearing where it should be check into running exim in diagnostic mode from the command line to see where exim is making the delivery.

Jeff