Re: exim problem: frozen message
On Wed, Aug 21, 2002 at 04:23:03PM -0400, Stephen Gran wrote:
> This one time, at band camp, Paul E Condon said:
> > I am having a problem with exim. I have some theoretical knowledge of
> > email but zero practical knowledge of email administration. I recently
> > discovered that I have a frozen message, i.e. when I type mailq I get:
> >
> > cmn:/home/pecondon# mailq
> > 3h 1.5K 17hYMC-0000BC-00 <> *** frozen ***
> > root@cmn.lan.gnu
> >
> > I have found in man exim that I can unfreeze with:
> > exim -Mt <message id>
> > but which part of the above mailq result is the message id?
> > I have tried the string 17hYMC-0000BC-00, and various substrings of
> > it. In all cases, my command is rejected with a statement that the
> > message id is invalid. I believe that is message is something to do
> > with reporting on system condition. Everything about this system is
> > mine, especially the junk, so I don't worry about losing the
> > message. I would just like to clear it out of the queue.
> > And learn a little about administering my email system.
>
> That is in fact the message ID. exim -Mt 17hYMC-0000BC-00 should retry
> the message. The only thing I would check is why this message froze in
> the first place - do you have an alternate email address for root
> (peconden@cmn, I'm guessing, would be the one)? If you can't force it
> to deliver, you can always remove it from the queue with -Mrm, and read
> it first by less /var/spool/exim/<something - msglog?> - at any rate,
> it'll have the same file name as the message ID, and it will be split
> between headers and message. Also tail -f /var/log/exim/mainlog will
> tell you about failures of the retry, and why they're failing.
>
I tried again here is what happened:
cmn:/home/pecondon# mailq
3h 1.5K 17hYMC-0000BC-00 <> *** frozen ***
root@cmn.lan.gnu
some cd work to get to:
cmn:/var/spool/exim# ll msglog/
total 12
drwxr-x--- 2 mail mail 4096 Aug 21 11:34 .
drwxr-x--- 5 mail mail 4096 Aug 21 09:29 ..
-rw------- 1 mail mail 145 Aug 21 09:29 17hYMC-0000BC-00
cmn:/var/spool/exim# less msglog/17hYMC-0000BC-00
2002-08-21 09:29:21 directing failed for root@cmn.lan.gnu: unknown local-part "root" in domain "cmn.lan.gnu"
*** Frozen (delivery error message)
cmn:/var/spool/exim# exim -Mt 17hYMC-000BC-00
exim: malformed message id 17hYMC-000BC-00 after -Mt option
cmn:/var/spool/exim# exim -Mt "17hYMC-000BC-00"
exim: malformed message id 17hYMC-000BC-00 after -Mt option
cmn:/var/spool/exim# exim -Mt '17hYMC-000BC-00'
exim: malformed message id 17hYMC-000BC-00 after -Mt option
cmn:/var/spool/exim# exim -Mrm
exim: no message ids given after -Mrm option
cmn:/var/spool/exim# exim -Mrm 17hYMC-0000BC-00
Message 17hYMC-0000BC-00 has been removed
cmn:/var/spool/exim# ll
total 20
drwxr-x--- 5 mail mail 4096 Aug 21 09:29 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Aug 21 09:39 ..
drwxr-x--- 2 mail mail 4096 Aug 21 11:04 db
drwxr-x--- 2 mail mail 4096 Aug 21 13:38 input
drwxr-x--- 2 mail mail 4096 Aug 21 13:38 msglog
cmn:/var/spool/exim# ll msglog/
total 8
drwxr-x--- 2 mail mail 4096 Aug 21 13:38 .
drwxr-x--- 5 mail mail 4096 Aug 21 09:29 ..
I don't understand, but the message _is_ gone.
> HTH,
> Steve
>
> --
> May all your PUSHes be POPped.
Thanks for your help.
And is the above a benediction or a curse? ;-)
Paul
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@quiknet.com
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