[Exim] Autoreply transport resulting in DEFER

Hi,

I am trying to setup an autoreply with Exim 4.20. After some tweaking
the router finally creates a message with the autoreply transport but
this message is not being sent out. All I get is

39357 130 bytes read from /server-root/mailcfg/.forward
39357 data is a filter program
39357 Filter: start of processing
39357 Filter: end of processing
39356 rda_interpret: subprocess yield=1 error=NULL
39356 set transport address_reply
39356 chinashipping router generated ><j.koopmann@???>
39356 pipe, file, or autoreply
39356 errors_to=NULL transport=address_reply
39356 uid=8004 gid=8004 home=NULL

39356 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
39356 Considering: ><j.koopmann@???>
39356 unique = ><j.koopmann@???>:jpk@???
39356 queued for address_reply transport
39356 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

39356 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
39356 After routing:
39356   Local deliveries:
39356     ><j.koopmann@???>
39356   Remote deliveries:
39356     j.koopmann@???
39356   Failed addresses:
39356   Deferred addresses:
39356 search_tidyup called
39356 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Local deliveries >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

39359 log selector = 060ff9f8
exim: debugging permission denied
39358 address_reply transport succeeded
39358 search_tidyup called
39356 address_reply transport returned DEFER for
><j.koopmann@???>
39356 added retry item for
T:><j.koopmann@???>:jpk@???: errno=0 0 flags=0
39356 post-process ><j.koopmann@???> (1)
39356 LOG: MAIN
39356 == ><j.koopmann@???> <jpk@???>
R=chinashipping T=address_reply defer (0): Failed to send message from
address_reply transport (1)

This strongly resembles the problem Simon Alman reported in the list
October 2002. Unfortunately I could not find the resolution to the
problem. Any ideas? What troubles me is that the autogenerated message
gets put into the local delivery queue. This should be a remote delivery
as well, should it not?

Regards,
JP