Topic: Email delayed prior to processing

[Craig]

Hi,

I'm running 5.6, retrieving email using the multi pop fetchmail package (from Dungog, I think) and the Spamassasin RPM from contribs.org.

This set up has been working fine for quite a while. Email only retrieves out of business hours (its a home set up, so I read my emails over the web during work hours, and then out of works hours esmith polls and downloads so I can store & read at home)

Yesterday no new mail was on esmith, even though I knew there was mail on the ISP's pop server. When I checked my ISP's pop server (in fact all of my various pop accounts) there was no email there. Additionally when using the mail queue report, it showed 68 emails in the queue, stating that they were 'awaiting processing' (or might have been 'preprocessing')

The only thing I can think of that would have caused this to happen is that I was playing around with my ADSL connection the day prior, and had disconnected from the internet for a period of several hours. Spam assassin may have held up the delivery until it could query the RBLs(?)

But almost 24 hours later, and the emails are still in the queue.

How can I 'force' qmail to deliver the emails?

Is it feasible that Spam Assasin or procmail is the culprit (which the 'preprocessing' message leads me to believe might be the case), and if so, how would I force spam assassin/procmail to deliver the emails?

 Additionally, if I did a reboot now, would I loose those emails in the queue?

(I know there are a couple of emails there that I need to read!!!)

Regards
Craig

[Michiel]

I had a similar problem when I inadvertently changed the ownership of a mailfolder :-/

Check your log files to see what's keeping your mail from being delivered. There should be some clue there.

Michiel

[Craig]

Hmm,

I just checked and the ownerships/group for the Mail folders appears to be the user (me!)

I did discover that my internet link was down without me knowing it, which means that Spam Assassin wouldn't be able to check the RBL's (I'm guessing!)

However the link has now been up for several hours and mail is still delayed in the queue.

Even mail sent (using outlook and imap) stays in the queue 'awaiting preprocessing'

My only hope is that because my server is set to retrieve mail out of hours it is now waiting until 6pm to process the mail...but seeing as the mail has already been retrieved from the remote pop server, then I can't see why it would not be delivered immediatly.

Big question is, will the mail in the queue awaiting pre-processing be saved if I power down and reboot?

Regards
Craig

[Michiel]

> knowing it, which means that Spam Assassin wouldn't be able
> to check the RBL's (I'm guessing!)

SA still has it's own rules and it would not stop it from processing the mail.

> However the link has now been up for several hours and mail
> is still delayed in the queue.

If the mail is in the queue, the problem lies elsewhere. SA only kicks in once the mail has been delivered.

> Big question is, will the mail in the queue awaiting
> pre-processing be saved if I power down and reboot?

You can safely reboot. The mail is stored in /var/qmail/queue and will stay there until it is delivered (Or until qmail gives up, which might be after 72 hours. Not sure. Just to be safe, you might wish to make a copy of that folder.).

Really, you will have to dig through your log files to see what's happening. I'm sure there is a clue there somewhere. /var/log/maillog and /var/log/messages are your friends.

Michiel

[JeffC]

Not familiar with 5.6, but on older versions smtpfwdd would occasionally stop.  You might try doing a "service smtpfwdd status" and see if it is running......

-jeff

[Craig]

Thanks,

service smtpfwdd status gives  "smtpfwdd: unrecognized service"

However

service qmail status gives

"/service/qmail: down 342295 seconds"

I'm not sure how to restart qmail, so I'm going to re-boot. I've looked through all the logs, but honestly am not sure what I am looking for!

Thanks all,
Craig