Digest not being received in a timely fashion
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For years our digest has arrived at 9:00 am (PST).
In the last six months it has been erratic, arriving at different times during the day.
Now, recently it is not arriving for a day, sometimes days. It's pretty useless to our members to have messages from one or two days ago arrive late.
I've asked the Mailman hosting company about this repeatedly. Their answer is that bigger volume mailist senders on shared servers take time in the queue, and our little mailist has to wait until their messages are processed. They've asked them to move to a dedicated server, but the delays are still occurring.
I've asked them about setting up a Cron job to schedule the release of our emails, but haven't received a definitive answer.
Anyone have any suggestions?
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/56f108518d7ee2544412cc80978e3182.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On 3/8/24 12:20 PM, jan@janalexander.ca wrote:
Examine the full raw text of the received digest. Look at the chain of Received: headers (they are in chronological order with most recent at the top) to determine where the delay(s) occur. I suspect the message will have been received from Mailman by the outgoing MTA. in a timely manner and the delay is later in the delivery chain, but if not, Mailman's outgoing queue is hopelessly backlogged. If this is the case, it should affect not only digests but also individual messages. See https://wiki.list.org/x/17892002 for tips on what the hosting service can do about this.
On the other hand, if the delays are later in the delivery chain, there's nothing Mailman can do about it.
I've asked the Mailman hosting company about this repeatedly. Their answer is that bigger volume mailist senders on shared servers take time in the queue, and our little mailist has to wait until their messages are processed. They've asked them to move to a dedicated server, but the delays are still occurring.
I've asked them about setting up a Cron job to schedule the release of our emails, but haven't received a definitive answer.
If the messages are in Mailman's out queue, that's a situation that can be addressed by the host (tips in the wiki article above). If the messages have been delivered by Mailman to the outgoing MTA and are queued there it's likely because of greylisting or some other issue between the outgoing MTA and the next hop. These can be diagnosed via the MTA's logs. Otherwise the delays may be further downstream. It's a true shame that EMWD is not able to provide the support that they did when Brian was still alive.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3bf07b524d0449ded0c9e5d3801fe420.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
- Where do I see the raw text of the received digest?
- What is MTA?
I get what you're saying about received by Mailman, but the delay is later in the delivery chain.
If not that, then Mailman outgoing queue is backlogged (which is what EMWD is saying), due to a larger volume list on the shared server taking up all the space.
I will send along the wiki article to them.
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/b273ab068bc220d17a3e4c710c401c4b.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On 3/8/2024 8:58 PM, jan@janalexander.ca wrote:
It depends on how you're reading the email. In Thunderbird, control-U will open a new windows with the raw message. Roundcube Webmail has a "show source" button, other clients should have something similar.
Mail Transfer Agent - the software that moves email between servers.
z!
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/56f108518d7ee2544412cc80978e3182.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On 3/8/24 12:20 PM, jan@janalexander.ca wrote:
Examine the full raw text of the received digest. Look at the chain of Received: headers (they are in chronological order with most recent at the top) to determine where the delay(s) occur. I suspect the message will have been received from Mailman by the outgoing MTA. in a timely manner and the delay is later in the delivery chain, but if not, Mailman's outgoing queue is hopelessly backlogged. If this is the case, it should affect not only digests but also individual messages. See https://wiki.list.org/x/17892002 for tips on what the hosting service can do about this.
On the other hand, if the delays are later in the delivery chain, there's nothing Mailman can do about it.
I've asked the Mailman hosting company about this repeatedly. Their answer is that bigger volume mailist senders on shared servers take time in the queue, and our little mailist has to wait until their messages are processed. They've asked them to move to a dedicated server, but the delays are still occurring.
I've asked them about setting up a Cron job to schedule the release of our emails, but haven't received a definitive answer.
If the messages are in Mailman's out queue, that's a situation that can be addressed by the host (tips in the wiki article above). If the messages have been delivered by Mailman to the outgoing MTA and are queued there it's likely because of greylisting or some other issue between the outgoing MTA and the next hop. These can be diagnosed via the MTA's logs. Otherwise the delays may be further downstream. It's a true shame that EMWD is not able to provide the support that they did when Brian was still alive.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3bf07b524d0449ded0c9e5d3801fe420.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
- Where do I see the raw text of the received digest?
- What is MTA?
I get what you're saying about received by Mailman, but the delay is later in the delivery chain.
If not that, then Mailman outgoing queue is backlogged (which is what EMWD is saying), due to a larger volume list on the shared server taking up all the space.
I will send along the wiki article to them.
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/b273ab068bc220d17a3e4c710c401c4b.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On 3/8/2024 8:58 PM, jan@janalexander.ca wrote:
It depends on how you're reading the email. In Thunderbird, control-U will open a new windows with the raw message. Roundcube Webmail has a "show source" button, other clients should have something similar.
Mail Transfer Agent - the software that moves email between servers.
z!
participants (3)
-
Carl Zwanzig
-
jan@janalexander.ca
-
Mark Sapiro