Spamcop Held Non-Spam For Days And Then Released

[schalliol]

One of my employees with a SpamCop account sends email from his regular email address at work to a spamcop account, which sends it to another account at work where it is downloaded. Last week there were aproximately 150 messages that were "held" seemingly at random until they were all released at once today. This is very perplexing, and a problem, should it continue. These messages were not deemed as spam by SpamCop, so I'm not sure why they were held. I have included the headers from one message below so that perhaps someone can indicate what happened.

Return-Path: <ncschwar[at]indiana.edu>

Delivered-To: iipi-informationinplace:com-sonnyk[at]informationinplace.com

X-Envelope-To: sonnyk[at]informationinplace.com

Received: (qmail 95102 invoked from network); 26 Jul 2005 04:33:59 -0000

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  by c60.cesmail.net with SMTP; 26 Jul 2005 00:33:59 -0400

Received: (qmail 31428 invoked by uid 1010); 22 Jul 2005 15:52:13 -0000

Delivered-To: spamcop-net-sonny[at]spamcop.net

Received: (qmail 31289 invoked from network); 22 Jul 2005 15:52:09 -0000

Received: from unknown (192.168.1.101)

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Delivered-To: iipi-informationinplace:com-sonny[at]informationinplace.com

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[129.79.1.220])

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j6MFq4D8010329

    for <sonny[at]informationinplace.com>; Fri, 22 Jul 2005 10:52:04 -0500

(EST)

Received: from iu-mssg-mbx03.ads.iu.edu ([129.79.1.212]) by

iu-mssg-smtp03.ads.iu.edu with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6713);

  Fri, 22 Jul 2005 10:52:05 -0500

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Subject: Carnivale

Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 10:52:05 -0500

Message-ID:

<395FB5FD6AECA94C88CCFDA66EB574FC02836520[at]iu-mssg-mbx03.exchange.iu.edu>

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Thread-Topic: Oz Visit

Thread-Index: AcVzieMU+NNKAQBVThO5Em4dbN1loQbSzr4n

From: "Schwartz, Nancy Carol" <ncschwar[at]indiana.edu>

To: "Sonny Kirkley" <sonny[at]informationinplace.com>

X-OriginalArrivalTime: 22 Jul 2005 15:52:05.0874 (UTC)

FILETIME=[4F409D20:01C58ED5]

X-spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.2 (2004-11-16) on blade4

X-spam-Level:

X-spam-Status: hits=0.0 tests=none version=3.0.2

X-SpamCop-Checked: 192.168.1.101 209.68.2.62 129.79.1.74 129.79.1.220

129.79.1.212

Any thoughts? Thanks!

[DavidT]

It's due to the solving of a problem with mail getting stuck on the server. It has been announced here in the forums (such as in the "pinned" announcement posted yesterday at the top of this very forum), and also on the webmail login page...here's the announcement (from yesterday):

[18:50 EDT] Today we discovered that one of our filter machines was queueing outgoing mail instead of delivering it. This means that a percentage of mail which should have been forwarded was stuck here. We have corrected this problem and all stuck mail is now being delivered. It may take a few hours for all this mail to be delivered, but we do not believe any mail was lost. We apologize about the problem and will be looking at ways to ensure this doesn't happen again.

[schalliol]

Thanks for the info. For whatever reason I didn't see that notice. While I can imagine that sometimes they might not go through, can I get emails to let me know when such things happen? I don't use webmail and rarely come here.

[superfluous quoting snipped by Moderator]

[Jeff G.]

schalliol, I suppose you missed my Pinned Announcement Filter Machine's Outgoing Queue Unstuck and SpamCop Email System News, too?

JT has historically been very careful about the very important info he emails vs. the important info he posts. You are free to repeat your request using his email address support[at]spamcop.net.

[StevenUnderwood]

can I get emails to let me know when such things happen?  I don't use webmail and rarely come here.

31059[/snapback]

If you subscribe here to the Announcements section, that should give you a heads up when something major is going on.

[Wazoo]

Thanks for the info.  For whatever reason I didn't see that notice.  While I can imagine that sometimes they might not go through, can I get emails to let me know when such things happen?  I don't use webmail and rarely come here.

31059[/snapback]

I don't believe that there is any other mechanism available. If you don't logon to web-mail, you won't see the "news" link with a new date ... if you don't log onto your www.spamcop.net page, you won't see the "News" link with a new date ... and if e-mail was hosed, what good would trying to send you an e-mail do?

If you subscribe here to the Announcements section, that should give you a heads up when something major is going on.

31065[/snapback]

Actually, I don't think I added this one to the Announcements here (????) ... there was all the attitude going on 'here' about folks getting upset at being asked to help diagnose/troubleshoot something based on the few folks saying anything about a problem, no newsgroup traffic, etc .... It was after one person's work at documenting the issue with test e-mail and test accounts, sending that to JT that got to the bottom of things .. the notification from JT that the stuck server was found and fixed was then placed and re-posted in a number of places ....

Check: Jeff G. placed it there .. perhaps why I don't remember doing it <g>

[Jeff G.]

Check: Jeff G. placed it there .. perhaps why I don't remember doing it <g>

31074[/snapback]

Indeed, I did. The problem appears to have on Wednesday but the symptom wasn't reported until Saturday. The symptom appeared at that time to be a forwarding issue. The problem was actually that one of the blades that processes incoming email messages for SpamCop Email System Customers was wrongly queueing the messages it had processed rather than sending those messages on for more processing. No one (including yours truly) whose incoming messages were stuck in that queue was able to participate enough in testing to provide a firm diagnosis. I didn't because the reported symptom was that no forwarded messages were going through, I couldn't duplicate that reported problem, and I had other stuff to do. The queues were finally checked sometime on Monday, the root cause found, and the resolution posted.