Re: [exim] Bug#360696: Bug#360696: Failed to get write lock …

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Author: Greg Folkert
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: Re: [exim] Bug#360696: Bug#360696: Failed to get write lock for/var/spool/exim4/db/retry.lockfile:timedout
On Fri, 2006-04-28 at 18:24 +0200, Michel Meyers wrote:
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> Philip Hazel wrote:
> > On Fri, 28 Apr 2006, Michel Meyers wrote:
> >
> > If that backtrace is to be trusted, Exim's function dbfn_open() has
> > called the function __db_pg_free_read_4002() from the libdb library, and
> > somewhere in there is where things get stuck. Of course, Exim doesn't
> > call such a function by a name like that. It will be using the "open"
> > function pointer in the data structure it gets from db_create().
> >
> > There have been several releases of libdb-4.2 (I'm running 4.2.52). I
> > wonder what you are running?
> >
> > Anyway, this looks like something really horrid going on inside libdb. I
> > am not at all sure what we do now. Andreas?
>
> OK, an update from my side: I never really tried anything on those retry
> files but with the above information I went into /var/spool/exim4/db and
> found a file called __db.retry, some .lockfiles with 0 bytes size and
> some wait-* files (wait-amavis and wait-remote_smtp to be exact).
>
> The wait-* files are 12288 bytes in size, the __db.retry one 4096. Just
> for the sake of it, I shut down exim and moved __db.retry out of the
> way. When I restarted exim, nothing happened at first until I tried to
> deliver to my favourite greylisting server again.
>
> End result: Exim created a file called 'retry' (not __db.retry) and
> guess what size it has? Correct: 12288 bytes. My exim thread doesn't
> lock up on retry any more either.
>
> So there you have it: deleting one silly little file fixed my months old
> issue (if only I had tried that before!).
>
> Anyway, thanks for all your time and great support. Hopefully I won't
> have to bother you again anytime soon.


That has got to be the best quick fix I have ever seen. Never once would
I have thought it to be the case.

Well then, great having a hunch once in a while...

BTW, this also fixed my problem with another "smarthost" (okay, I admit
it, MS exchange) that only worked until it deferred triggering a retry
and then failed from then on out.

I was watching this particular bug in Debian at the same time.
--
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