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Re: problems with fetchmail and sent mail



On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 08:24:56PM +0100, Conrad Newton wrote:
> 
> Quoting Paul E Condon <pecondon@peakpeak.com>:
> 
> > On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 06:53:37PM +0100, Conrad Newton wrote:
> > >
> > > But since two days ago, fetchmail does
> > > not work.  A call to
> > >
> > > fetchmail -v
> > >
> > > lists the number of mails waiting, but
> > > refuses to download any of them.  It
> > > starts on the first, gives a few dots ...
> > > and then quits.  I can download mail
> > > from the POP3 server manually using mutt.
> > > It also appears that my outgoing mail
> > > is not reaching its destination.
> 
> > I had the same problem last year. It is a problem at your isp, not
> > with your fetchmail config.  Depending on how helpful your isp is,
> > there are several ways to fix it. The basic problem is that your isp's
> > software has clobbered an email on his server in such a way that his
> > software won't deliver it to you when requested by fetchmail. If you
> > can delete that one email on his server, things will start moving
> > again.
> >
> > Maybe you can do this yourself via a web interface to your email.
> > I had to get a person at the isp to manually delete, because, for
> > the bad email, the web interface also didn't work.
> >
> > I suggest you try the web interface. If it works, problem solved.
> > If it doesn't work, complain about that to the live person and leave
> > Linux, etc., out of the discussion.
> 
> Maybe it is worth mentioning that I have three times
> been hit in the last two weeks by the "mangled headers"
> problem---is this the problem you are speaking of?
> 
> The symptom there was that fetchmail stopped with an
> error message.  I could go in on the webmail interface,
> purge the offending e-mail (usually some obvious trash
> from yahoo), and everything worked again, as you say.
> 
> But this time I am not getting the same error message
> from fetchmail, and the message it blocks on (always
> the first, never the third or the sixth, as before)
> is in many cases from a known reliable source---it is
> not a spam problem.
> 
> So it does not appear to be a problem of deleting an e-mail.
> As I said, I download all the e-mail manually, but a few
> minutes later I am back in the soup again.
> 
> Are you saying that their server is somehow stuck in a
> jammed state---would that affect only me and not others?
> 

The situation that I experienced was a damaged email that
could not be downloaded apparently because the isp software
choked on the damage. This would only affect the user who
was trying to download that particular email, i.e. only
the individual in whose mailbox it had been placed. 

I don't recall what the email was. It might have been 
bordereline spam, something from a mailorder catalog firm,
maybe. It was a couple of years ago, and it would happen
maybe once in two or three months. 

The main point of my experience is that I never had to make
adjustments to my fetchmail to fix it. If I did make adjustments,
then I was able to change them back once the email was cleared
by other means. 

Also, I recall that the person at the isp who was helping me
was unable to open the bad emails. 

About a year and a half ago the problem stopped. But I moved
a year ago, and have a new isp.

You have done different diagnostics, but it really seems like
the same problem. It gets fixed at the isp, not inside your host, IMHO.

> Thanks for your time,
> 
> Conrad
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon@peakpeak.com    



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