On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Paul wrote:
> Which shows we tried delivery, it failed we got 550 permenant error. Exim
> marks it was frozen. However we still keep the email rather than deleting
> it.
That's what happens to failing bounces. See timeout_frozen_after and
ignore_bounce_errors_after.
> And the email gets deleted. Why was it sitting in the queue however when I
> attempt delivey it gets removed as the error is ignored? Why didn't it
> remove it (the bounce email) in the first place when it first encounted the
> 550 instead of just becoming frozen and sitting there? 550 is a permenant
> error as far as I knew, so why would exim hold onto the email and keep
> trying?
It doesn't keep trying. It freezes the message. If it were a normal
message, it would have generated a bounce to send to the sender.
However, a bounce message doesn't have a sender. So Exim freezes it
instead.
When you force a delivery, it may discard a failure, depending on the
settings in your config.
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@??? Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.
Get the Exim 4 book: http://www.uit.co.uk/exim-book