Closure?: Re: Every 36 to 48 hours, can't send mail via smtp(.gmail.com)--must reboot to recover
FWIW, I thought I'd post an update on the status of the problem. The simplest
update is to say that I've switched back to a static IP address on the
computer in question (instead of a dynamic address) and the problem is "under
control".
By that, I mean that, it seems the problem still occurs (I'm sending a test
email every 10 minutes and thus can recognize when a failure occurs), but it
seems that, with a static address, the problem sort of "self corrects"--that
is, so far (two instances, ~48 hours apart), when the next test email is
sent, it is sent successfully.
While I was using a dynamic address, the only way that I found to restore my
email sending ability was by rebooting the computer. I've since found,
thanks to a suggestion from Paul Cartwright from this list, that If I quit
kmail and waited a half-hour before restarting it, my ability to email was
restored. (Perhaps I wouldn't have had to wait a 1/2 hour, but my first
attempt, quitting kmail and restarting it within a few minutes, had no
effect.)
The problem has been a bugger to deal with, partly because of the 48 hours
between occurrences. Because switching to a static address has made the
problem tolerable, I'll probably live with it the way it is. I do suspect
that I might have had the problem for a long time (years) and didn't notice
it because it is such a transient thing with a static IP address--if it
occurred when I wasn't at the computer, I'd never notice, and if I was at the
computer and did notice, (and I have occasionally had problems sending email
or browsing web pages), I would probably have attributed it to just some sort
of temporary glitch, especially if, for example, my next attempt to send an
email was successful.
The other factor that comes into play is that I am still using Debian 5.0, and
hope to switch (before the end of the year?) to Debian 7.x, and, I'm hoping
that the problem might completely disappear at that point.
Randy Kramer
On Tuesday 03 September 2013 3:25:32 pm Randy Kramer wrote:
> I was going to write a long email, detailing the various things I've tried,
> but I thought I'd start with a short email, just generalizing on the
> problem, to see if it rang a bell with someone. Read the entire email to
> see the recent changes I made to my LAN--the problem did not exist before I
> made the changes.
>
> Somewhere between 36 and 48 hours after a reboot on my Debian (5.0) system,
> I can no longer send email via smtp.gmail.com from kmail. Receiving mail
> becomes somewhat erratic, and some web pages either don't load or load very
> slowly. At the same time, quite a few other pages load just find at
> apparently normal speed. The only way I have regained the ability to send
> email is by rebooting (more below).
>
> I think the problem with smtp.gmail.com is a slowdown rather than an
> outright failure, but the slowdown is such that kmail always times out
> while attempting to send an email.
>
> My incoming email is fetched automatically every 10 minutes, and sometimes
> I find new mail while the problem is occurring--I think maybe sometimes
> things are just fast enough so some emails are received. Other times I've
> tried to manually request the mail and received nothing (but, I don't know
> for sure that there was mail to receive).
>
> The pages that become slow always include those from a google.com or
> gmail.com domain, but also a seemingly random selection of other pages. It
> often includes pages from wikipedia, and a recent attempt to load a newegg
> page did not work. (At one point I was beginning to think that I could
> only get new pages from domains that were already open in a different tab
> or browser--I haven't convinced myself of that.)
>
> Things I've tried (some of these things may have been silly to try, but, as
> I really don't have a clue, I'm trying most things I can think of):
>
> * shutting down and restarting relevant applications, i.e., Iceweasel,
> konqueror, Opera, kmail, pidgin (btw, if a page is a problem on one
> browser, it is a problem on all 3)
> * ifdown -a, ifup -a
> * ifupdown restart and ... force-reload
> * network-manager restart
> * network-manager-director restart
> * networking restart
> * running tracert, ping, dig, ifconfig, looking for anomalies--I'll
> report some of those results in a future email if someone asks, but they
> don't tell me anything (I am not, by any means, a network expert)
> * changing the DNS servers
> * changing the hosts file--several times, and trying without a hosts
> file
>
> Nothing seems to restore the performance short of a reboot. (I've also
> tried just waiting several hours to see if the problem goes away.
>
> Other computers on the LAN also experience the problem (one is another
> Debian 5.0 system, another is a SuSe system). I have to reboot the other
> Debian system as well. Sometimes, it seems the problem is more erratic on
> the SuSe system--it seems that sometimes either the problem does not occur
> or seems to correct itself somehow--on the other hand, sometimes I have to
> reboot (I need to do more testing to confirm--that is a laptop, and I don't
> always have it connected nor leave it on overnight).
>
> The problem may be related to changes to my LAN that I made starting about
> a month ago. The basic thing I did was drop RCN (cable) as my ISP and
> switch to Earthlink (DSL).
>
> But, other changes either went along with that or seemed appropriate to do
> at the time. These included:
>
> * changing the LAN from coax to twisted pair
> * changing from manually assigined IP addresses to using DHCP provided
> by a router on the system (GigaFast EE-420)
>
> The problem may have started with the first computer I switched over, but,
> as I don't use it for emails, I didn't notice a problem until I switched my
> main computer over. Since then, the problem has occurred like clockwork,
> every two days (two weeks so far).
>
> Aside: I usually find the problem in the morning, reboot, and then the
> problem occurs during the night of the second day (36 to 48 hours) after a
> reboot.
>
> Ok, sorry that wasn't all that short. If anybody can give me a clue, I'd
> appreciate it.
>
> Randy Kramer
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