Disappearing e-mails

[Flydesign.nl]

Hello,

I have got a weird problem, not all my e-mail messages are received well.

For example, when I send a message with 5 receipients (all in the To field), only 1 message is delivered. Other users are also complaining that some of the messages disappear.

I looked in the server log, and found that the 5 messages are logged in /var/log/maillog. There where no errors, all commands end with: Completed

In this log, I find also the ID's of the message, so I tried to find them on the server. Not one of the messages can be found on the server, they just disappear.

Does anyone know what the problem is?

Thanks in advance!

[nobaloney]

Are those five addresses local to your server, or elsewhere?

if "completed" shows for each address in the logs, then...

If the address was local, exim did manage to append the email to the user's spool file; you can check this in realtime by tailing (with the option -f) the email user's mail spool while sending the email.

If the address was remote (on another server), "completed" means the remote server accepted the email.

Some servers won't accept an email with lots of addresses in the "To:" or "Cc" field, as an anti-spam measure, but five shouldn't be a problem.

Jeff

[Flydesign.nl]

I tried the tailing option as you mentioned, the e-mail is added to the file and after a few seconds deliverd as an e-mail.

When I try to email myself more then 1 time, the file doesn't change. The e-mail stays in the /var/spool/exim/input directory, the headers look fine, and there are no errors. But when I have a look in the /var/spool/exim/msglog/MESSAGE_ID file, I find this error:


2004-04-18 19:32:12 info@domain.tld R=virtual_user T=virtual_localdelivery defer (-9): failed to lock mailbox /var/spool/virtual/domain.tld/info (fcntl/flock)


I don't know what it means, maybe someone can explain it to me.

[nobaloney]

The lock is created while you read your email; exim can't deliver (in fact no MTA or MDA can deliver) to an incoming mbox mail spool while it's being read.

The word "defer" written to the log says it'll be retried later.

I'm hoping John switches to Maildir format for DA2.

Hear that, John :) ?

Jeff

[Flydesign.nl]

The problem is that is isn't tried later, I never receive the e-mail.

Is this a wrong settings in exim?

[DirectAdmin Support]

Hello,

It just means that the file is being used by another program or process. If it's still locked then the process that locked it probably forgot to unlock it, so it might have to be done manually.

John

[Flydesign.nl]

I have running: Exim, MailScanner, SpamAssassin and ClamAV. Could it be possible that one of those deamons try to access the mailbox at the same time while sending more then 1 message to the same user at the time.?

[DirectAdmin Support]

I guess it could be possible, but I'm not too sure.

You could always test it with the barebones exim.conf (after backing up yours) and then see if it makes any difference. (http://files.directadmin.com/services/exim4.conf)

John

[tristan]

Any solutions, I had this problem too, out of the blue these lock file that didn't disappeared.

[nobaloney]

Usually if the lock file doesn't disappear it means the connection between the server and the MTA (mail transport agent, i.e., Outlook Express) was disconnected before the final "exit" took place.

In that case the lock should eventually be cleared by itself.

If it isn't you will have to close it manually, but you should be sure it's not being read while you delete the lock.

Jeff

[ganesh.rao]

I know this is a really, really old thread, but my issue is something related to this.


How do I unlock a message? Either via SSH or DirectAdmin, previously, I tried "bounce" and then deleted the email and it worked, but not this time :(.

[nobaloney]

What do you mean by unlock a message? The thread appears to be about unlocking a mailbox. Dovecot's Maildir mailboxes don't lock and don't need locks.

Please be more specific.

Thanks.

Jeff