Re: [Exim] Mail stuck in de queue after 5 days

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Author: Philip Hazel
Date:  
To: Miquel van Smoorenburg
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [Exim] Mail stuck in de queue after 5 days
On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote:

> Using exim 3.35, I have my retry rules set up like this:


> However, mail to a certain domain (eos.ncsu.edu) stays stuck in the
> queue for basically forever:
>
> 12d  2.4K 18K2fC-0000t2-00 <freeradius-users-admin@???>
>           cwu4@???

>
> 11d  6.9K 18KKkq-0002Dy-00 <freeradius-users-admin@???>
>           cwu4@???

>
> .. etc. Those messages should have bounced a week ago.


Is there any useful information in the Exim log about those messages?

> # exim -v -M 18K2fC-0000t2-00
> delivering message 18K2fC-0000t2-00
> Connecting to uni00mr.unity.ncsu.edu [152.1.1.163.25] ... connected


> .. exim tries to the deliver this message *5 times* over SMTP
> in the same queue run (to all 5 MXes of eos.ncsu.edu), then decides
> that the message is not deliverable.


That is correct behaviour. After a temporary error, it will try another
MX.

> The question is, why is the queue runner not doing this? I have
> exim running as '/usr/sbin/exim -bd -q30m'.


Good question. Next time this happens, it may be worth trying a forced
"queue run" style delivery, either using -Mc instead of -M or using -q
with start and stop message ids (in this case, the same id), and
debugging turned on (-d9 for Exim 3).

However, note that Exim 3 is obsolescent now; I haven't time to chase up
anything other than really serious bugs (and I hope there aren't any of
them!).

Philip

--
Philip Hazel            University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@???      Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.