Re: [Exim] unable to transfer mail from my machine

On 2002-05-01 at 01:56 -0400, Tomasz Kosinski wrote:
> I have been using exim (together with fetchmail) with no problems for 6
> months or so. As of a few days ago, I am no longer able to send mail
> from my machine (mostly single user, dial-up connection). For every
> message I try to send out, the exim log shows first that the "Spool file
> is locked (another process is handling this message)" and then that the
> connection to the remote mailhost is timed out.
>
> I do not know what I have done to cause this problem, I haven't adjusted
> any of the configuration files. I can't find which "Spool" is locked, or
> which "process" is handling the message - the "ps" command shows no
> process handling the message, and to my knowledge I haven't adjusted the
> permissions on any files.

What does "exiwhat" show you? It should have been installed into the
same directory as the other Exim maintenance commands (which for Exim 3
are documented in "53. Exim utilities" in the Spec).

If you go to the nearest Exim site mirror and choose to look at the
documentation, then the FAQ for Exim 3, and search for
Spool file is locked
then you'll see that this is the topic of Q0035 in the FAQ.

Also, Q0042 then covers your question.

If following the advice in the FAQ doesn't work, because there are no
relevant processes (as suggested by looking at ps) then use lsof (or I
think GNU/Linux systems sometimes include "fuser"?) to see if anything
owns the lockfile, and try removing it.


After that, if the connection to the remote host isn't even being tried,
because of bad data in the hints databases, then just remove all the
hints databases -- they'll be recreated. Hints are just hints.
--
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