MailScanner stops delivering e-mail to Postfix

[Douglas Ward]

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Restarting postfix does not resolve the problem.  I was running a dual
300 mhz server with 256 mb of RAM and have now replaced it because I
thought it might be part of the problem.  We are now running a AMD
3000+/1gb RAM unit now.  It should have plenty of horsepower to handle
MailScanner.  There are currently 17 messages in the queue as I write
this.  MailScanner is constantly scanning and rescanning these messages
over and over again but they never get sent to the incoming queue.  I see
this happening on both the incoming and outgoing e-mail gateways.  I'll
e-mail the requested information to Julian directly.  I'd rather not send
the contents of these messages to the open list.  The lock type is set to
flock by default.  I am running postfix which is not mentioned in the
conf file.  Should I switch to posix?  Thanks!

On 9/11/05, Drew Marshall <drew at themarshalls.co.uk> wrote:
      On 11 Sep 2005, at 13:06, Douglas Ward wrote:

      > After upgrading MailScanner to version 4.45.4-1 (Mandrake
      2005) I
      > have noticed that my mail gateways seem to be stopping
      delivery at
      > random times.  After a lot of time searching for a postfix
      error I
      > am starting to think that something may be wrong with
      MailScanner.
      >
      > Symptoms:
      > 1) Postfix accepts the message and places it in the hold
      queue.
      > MailScanner scans the message but never gives it back to
      postfix.
      > It remains in the hold queue forever.
      > 2) I see e-mail in the queue that is several days
      old.  MailScanner
      > moved all of the e-mail from that day except for a handful
      of
      > messages.
      > 3) There are times when postfix will run with a certain
      number of
      > messages in the queue.  I'll check it in the morning and
      see 59
      > messages (for example).  E-mail will deliver all day and
      that
      > evening the same 59 messages are still in the queue.  I can
      usually
      > identify the problematic messages after a few days because
      they are
      > much older than current e-mail.
      >
      > If I manually move the messages from
      /var/spool/postfix/hold to /
      > var/spool/postfix/incoming they are immediately
      delivered.  Last
      > night around midnight I dumped 3,000 messages from Friday
      and
      > Saturday just so they could be delivered.  I saw a similar
      thread
      > in the archives and checked to make sure our DNS lookups
      are
      > working properly.  Has anyone seen this before in this new
      > version?  The previous version was rock solid with no
      delivery
      > problems to speak of.  If I can't find an answer soon I
      will have
      > to revert to the previous version.  I appreciate your help!

      Any idea of the content of these messages? It's not. for
      instance,
      the TNEF converter barfing? Do you have any logs showing
      MailScanner
      actually doing anything?

      I feel you are right, it's unlikely to be a Postfix problem
      only
      because once mail is in the hold queue as far as Postfix is
      concerned, it's there forever and forgotten about.

      Drew

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