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Held Mail Troubles


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This trouble seemed vaguely linked to a cople other topics here, but I thought it best to post it and get a few answers specific to it.

I have recently ha a dictionary attack and was innundated with thousands of spam messages. I've been clearing out tens of thousands for the past couple weeks very tediously. Using the Empty Folder command times out the majority of the time, so I can't be sure if it actually does anything or not. I've written filters to apply to the Held Mail folder to move all to the Trash, but they only seem to owrk half the time. I never know when they are actualy moving anything...but that's worked usually.

However, now, I'm coming on another issue besides the hassle deleting these thousands of emails. I can't even log in at times. Logging in times out, kind of like the pinned topic discussing items in the trash timing you out, except that I'm sure there is nothing in my trash at this time since I have been moving the mesasges and emptying the trash via the menu command. Also, and this is the weirdest: logging into webmail shows ZERO messages in Held Mail; logging into the report interface says I have over 12000 Held messages.

So which is right? I've closed down the catch-all account which was allowing the dictionary attack to inundate me. But I can't seem to get rid of the last 12.5 thousand spam mails related to that problem. (Plus, Spamcop, even with my SpamAssassin settings, is still letting 20 or more spams through each day -- down from the 800 let through during the attack -- so Im beginning to wonder if it's still accepting spam at the moment. Dunno if this is another issue or related to the messed up Held Mail folder counts.)

Thanks for any info you may be able to provide.

PS. I did dutifully report many of the spams which came in during the attack, but I couldn't obviously do them all.

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This trouble seemed vaguely linked to a cople other topics here, but I thought it best to post it and get a few answers specific to it.

I agree that your problem seems to be a combination of several other peoples problems.

I can't even log in at times. Logging in times out, kind of like the pinned topic discussing items in the trash timing you out, except that I'm sure there is nothing in my trash at this time since I have been moving the mesasges and emptying the trash via the menu command.

Which exact menu command are you referring? Are you doing this from inside webmail, getting timed out and trying to log in again? This could be explained that it is still working on deleting the messages and won't let you login until it completes.

The Held Mail page (http://mailsc.spamcop.net/reportheld?action=heldlog/) has beed described as simply an IMAP view of the Held Mail folder on the server. Likewise, webmail is simply an IMAP application to access the messages on te same server.

Also, and this is the weirdest: logging into webmail shows ZERO messages in Held Mail; logging into the report interface says I have over 12000 Held messages.

This count difference could be caused by some information in a cache somewhere, probably on the server where you have no access to it. Can you access the spamcop server via IMAP from your local machine (i.e. outlook express) to check which count is valid?

Hope some of this helps

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Which exact menu command are you referring?  Are you doing this from inside webmail, getting timed out and trying to log in again?

In webmail, there is a button at top labeled "Folders". This will take you to a list of folders to expand. You can then check any of them, like "Held Mail" and then choose "Empty Folders" from the pop-up selector. It's supposed to delete all mail in the selected folders, but it apparently hangs if you have over a few thousand in the folder.

Can you access the spamcop server via IMAP from your local machine (i.e. outlook express) to check which count is valid?

I set up my mail client to connect via IMAP to my Spamcop account. It has connected and is currently listing all the titles. It seems to have stopped at 2597, but that may be a limit of my software. I'll see if I can remove them using this client. Once I get it back to something manageable, all should be well again since I've cut off the "catch all" and my spams are down to their normal levels of only 30-100 per day instead of hundreds. :)

I'll post back here after I experiment more using my local IMAP client.

EDIT: The mail software retrieved a few more and has hit 3000 now, but it is moving very slow. Definitely I've overwhelmed something somewhere, so it's no wonder trying to get logged in via the webmail interface or do anything there is a problem, too... This is going to take a long while before I can get back to reporting spam regularly.

Thanks for the tips!

Would deleting the Held Mail folder itself and then recreating Held Mail do the trick?

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Sounds like a plan...let us know how everything goes. Also, if you find a better way as this is becoming a FAQ

In response to:

It's supposed to delete all mail in the selected folders, but it apparently hangs if you have over a few thousand in the folder.

I'm not sure it is hanging. How it has been explained to me is that any of those operations continue but the browser times out waiting for the server to respond. The usual symptom described is failing to get into webmail after the login is accepted.

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Well, I've played with this off and on all afternoon, and I've succeeded in maybe deleting a hundred messages or so. I can login via webmail, but when attempting to switch to the Held Mail folder, it either times out or sends me to a screen indicating there are no messaages. However, both the Report spam screen (which shows 100 messages at a time to check and apply an action to) and my local mail client indicate there are nearly 13000. But deleting the mail is an incredible chore. Sometimes the messages are expunged, and sometimes they aren't. Sometimes my mail client spins and spins just as the webmail seems to do and nothing is deleted or expunged.

So, thank you for the ideas and tips, but I think I'm going to email the deputies address and see if they can do something at their end for me. Once these 12-13000 messages are gone and any flags reset, I should be fine. I've never run into this before in my several years using SpamCop, so I know it is related to the sudden burst to thousands of spams from the dictionary attack. That shouldn't happen again, so....crossing my fingers...

EDIT: This message describes exactly what is happening to me. It seems Wazoo ended up forwarding this person's held mail folder trouble to JT. WHile I'm certain my trash folder is fine, I know I can't delete messages properly from the held mail. So, hopefully I can get escalated up the chain,too.

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I'm going to email the deputies address

Won't help directly, as the Deputies don't have this kind of access to JT's e-amil servers. The right address would be support <at> spamcop.net. However, your post in the other Topic has already been actioned.

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