Found x messages in the Processing Attempts Database

[Mark Sapiro]

On 9/26/19 12:45 PM, PenguinWhispererThe . wrote:
> What's odd, although you mention this table is dynamic, I see the same
> entries being in the processing table for days now (even after
> restarting mailscanner again).
> 
> sqlite> select * from processing;
> sAG1Zwmx014496|1|1416101917
> sAI21lCL048525|1|1416276373
> sAKESsEI061854|1|1416493861
> sAL8iGJv065844|1|1416559666
> sAP200rp009088|1|1416881004
> sAP3FvgT009543|1|1416885645
> sB57KW1j077564|1|1417764217
> sB8BHQpJ098939|1|1418037788
> sBC23AJO030564|1|1418350119
> sBH23A1i063616|1|1418781917
> sBI200Sg068899|1|1418868275
> t2J22LZI009097|1|1426730686
> t2S331Uu068277|1|1427512130
> t3H12Hb5011899|1|1429232748
> t3M128WX002854|2|1429664969
> t3R126rV097720|1|1430096883
> t4Q4qEWM099846|1|1432616194
> t4S16p8x092225|1|1432775494
> t5319C2P088537|1|1433293928
> t5619Hcj004247|1|1433553112
> t5717xY9040021|2|1433639777
> t5B4hNKH095310|1|1433997939
> t5I6eSQR022704|1|1434609981
> t5M1HEZL012536|1|1434936137
> t6J1P7LT079641|1|1437269327
> t6K1Hep2095660|1|1437355245
> t6R14i8f014786|2|1437959694
> t843arsW033210|1|1441338030
> t8614UXF088483|1|1441501659
> 
> Since I first mailed to this mailing list there's still 29 messages in
> the processing database.

Those are all ancient. The three columns are respectively the MTA queue
ID, the number of tries and a timestamp. The timestamp is seconds since
the epoch and is the time that MailScanner will next retry the message.
As I said, they are ancient - the most recent one is Sat Sep  5 18:07:39
2015.

When messages are retried, the the number of tries is incremented, but
when it reaches the configured Maximum Processing Attempts (default 6)
the message won't be further retrieed.


> When I try to find files that correspond with the first column I find
> none (perhaps I'm searching for them in the wrong way). Not sure what
> the difference is between the ones starting with s and t. Is it possible
> some of these messages are still in the database but no longer exist and
> so never get removed from it?


As I said, the first column is an MTA queue id with the addition of the
s or t prefix (I don't know what that means), but these entries are all
so old, that the messages are probably no longer queued.

I suggest you just remove the Processing Attempts Database. As it says
in MailScanner.conf

> # This is the location of the database file used to track the number of
> # times any message has been attempted.
> # To clear out the database, just delete the file, MailScanner will re-
> # create it automatically when it starts.
> Processing Attempts Database = /var/spool/MailScanner/incoming/Processing.db

This will clear these old entries and then you can focus on any new ones.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan