Mailman 3 December 2007 - SpamBayes

Help
by Douglas Arnold Jan. 2, 2008

Jan. 2, 2008

I upgraded to Microsoft Vista and Outlook 2007 I have SpamBayes version 1.0.4 It was working with Outlook until I upgraded from XP to Vista. It still works (I think) but every time I start Outlook I get the following error message (See attached screen shot) I tried unloading and reloading SpamBayes but to no avail I looked through the page at sourceforge and could not find anything either. HELP Douglas Arnold THANKS!

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Bugs? Yup. Fixes? Definitely. Downloadable installer and patches? Yes.
by Thomas Hruska Jan. 1, 2008

Jan. 1, 2008

[For those interested in an installable build of 1.0.4 with my fixes and/or want to see the source code modifications I've made, scroll down] While applying the modifications I suggested a couple weeks ago, I'm fairly (99%) certain I've run into at least one critical bug in the Spambayes 1.0.4 POP3 proxy. If you use the proxy, read on. 1) Messages are not saved in their original format. There is actually a hack that _should NOT exist_ in Corpus.py that is referenced from ProxyUI.py: ----- ProxyUI.py ----- # fromCache is a fix for sf #851785. # See the comments in Corpus.py targetCorpus.takeMessage(id, sourceCorpus, fromCache=True) ----- ProxyUI.py ----- ----- Corpus.py ----- # If the notate_to or notate_subject options are set, then the # message in the cache has this information, and it will get used # in training, which is not ideal. So if that option is set, strip # that data before training. The only time I can see this failing # is if the option is changed at some point, so older messages # don't have the notation, but some other program did do the same # notation, which would be lost. This shouldn't be a big deal, # though. if fromCache: ...Modify message to attempt to make it look like the original... ----- Corpus.py ----- This hack is WRONG. Training on messages that include the modified headers is also WRONG (as far as I can tell, the code doesn't undo that either - but having to undo anything in the first place is WRONG). Training should only be done using the original, unmodified message. It is difficult to impossible to revert a modified message back to its original state. 2) sb_server.py classifies a message and modifies the headers but does not save a copy of the original message. Instead, it saves the modified message. It should save a copy of the original message for training purposes. 3) message.py does not offer any method of retrieving/storing a copy of the original message. This seems like the most logical place but would probably be hard to implement here. My improvement/fix: Due to the nature of how the POP3 proxy operates, it would be seriously detrimental to either performance or usability if the modified message were eliminated altogether. Also, changing how messages are stored would probably create a disaster of modifications to the entire code base. Therefore, the simplest (and only _somewhat_ hacky) solution is to create an 'unknown-orig' ExpiryFileCorpus cache that tracks the original message for training purposes. For those who are interested in my solution and use the POP3 proxy, here's the Windows installer version: http://www.cubiclesoft.com/Unrelated/spambayes-1.0.4.exe That applies all the recommended changes I've made to date to the 1.0.4 branch. You can train on any message and Spambayes defends itself from letting its database get too large by rejecting messages that are already classified correctly. It does this by running the original message through the classifier before training on the message - thus training only on "mistakes and unsures" as per the recommendations of the developers. Since each message trained alters the database, I've factored this fact in as well*. You could train on 10 messages or 60,000 messages and Spambayes will still correctly pick and choose what to train on. In layman's terms: Spambayes is smarter than before. * The changes I've made allow you to train on more than one message at a time. If you've been following along with my recent rants, you know that the existing 1.0.4 has some major statistical issues with training beyond one message at a time. If you train on a message that would already be classified that way, the database flattens out over time and Spambayes will eventually not be able to figure out what is ham and what is spam. Additionally, really large databases (e.g. 30,000+ messages) have performance issues. Consider wiping your Spambayes database and staring over after installing this - especially if you have more trained on more than 2000 messages. The entire database so far was based on training on modified messages (not the original messages!). There is a new configuration option in the Advanced configuration page of the POP3 proxy for controlling the name of the directory used for the original message cache. For those who want to see my changes (12MB file): http://www.cubiclesoft.com/Unrelated/spambayes-1.0.4.zip That contains all the source code modifications I made, binaries, etc. The two most critical modifications are in sb_server.py and ProxyUI.py. I heavily commented my changes in ProxyUI.py. I also updated the InnoSetup script to build properly under InnoSetup 5.2.2. This took: 4 hours to learn the basics of Python and how Spambayes works. 30 minutes to apply my fixes. 12 hours to get the darn thing to build properly under Python 2.5.1. Sort of. I'm fairly certain I hosed the Outlook add-in part of the build really good due to not having Outlook 2000. A few hours of testing (spanned over several days). Total time spent on getting this all working was roughly 20 hours. Time I'd rather have spent doing something else. However, I'm quite happy with the result. And all this is from someone who doesn't know Python**. Probably not the most inspiring/reassuring statement, but I'll leave it up to the developers to decide if my modifications are sound enough to merge into the 1.0.4 branch (and hopefully good enough to consider releasing a 1.0.5). They might not go for the 2.5-specific changes due to the email w/ py2exe package problems (case-sensitivity issues in py2exe), but it would be nice if they did. ** I can edit code in almost any programming language without actually knowing the language. Merry Christmas! I can't think of a better Christmas present than to know there will be more spam blocked next year thanks to my changes to Spambayes. -- Thomas Hruska CubicleSoft President Ph: 517-803-4197 *NEW* MyTaskFocus 1.1 Get on task. Stay on task. http://www.CubicleSoft.com/MyTaskFocus/

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www.onlinepymes.com.ar
by Pls check this new site Dec. 31, 2007

Dec. 31, 2007

Please see this site in Subject

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Paula
by A.Guhan＠hclbpl.hcl.in Dec. 31, 2007

Dec. 31, 2007

------------------ Virus Warning Message (on mailho) Found virus EXPL_WMF.GEN in file OurNewHouse.jpg The uncleanable file OurNewHouse.jpg is moved to /etc/iscan/virus/vir8gk3US. --------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ Virus Warning Message (on mailho) OurNewHouse.jpg is removed from here because it contains a virus. ---------------------------------------------------------

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SpamBayes becoming SlowBayes?
by Robert Woodhead Dec. 31, 2007

Dec. 31, 2007

I've been playing with using the SpamBayes proxy with Thunderbird on my Macbook Pro. Over the last couple days I've noticed it become very slow, 5+ seconds to classify a single message, with CPU over 90%, and this with a training set of 160 spams and 87 hams. Is this expected performance or is there something going wrong?

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Problem with Spam Bayes
by Shirley＠farnsworthandassoc.com Dec. 28, 2007

Dec. 28, 2007

I am having a problem with Spam Bayes. The tool bar appears at the top of my e-mail; however, it's not working. I went under the (spambayes) HELP- Trouble Shooting. It then told me if this problem occured that I should go to (outlook) TOOLS-OPTIONS-OTHER-ADVANCE-COM ADD INS- CHECK IT to enable. This did not work because it was already checked. I then went to (outlook) HELP-ABOUT MICROSOFT OUTLOOK- AND HIT DISABLE to disable and then enable....this did not work because nothing was disabled. Is this all making sense? Do I need to delete spambayes and upload it again and reconfigure the whole thing for it to work? Please tell me no. Thanks for all your help. Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.8/1154 - Release Date: 11/27/2007 11:40 AM

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Spambayes not working
by Anne Marie Beck Dec. 27, 2007

Dec. 27, 2007

My Spambayes just stop working. I've reinstalled several times and still can't get it to work. Is there any way you can help me? ******************************************* Anne Marie Beck Executive Director Honolulu Habitat for Humanity 1136 Union Mall, ste 510 Phone: (808) 538-7373 Fax: (808) 538-7171 Donate at www.honoluluhabitat.org <outbind://1/www.honoluluhabitat.org> !

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Problem building 1.0.4 under Python 2.5
by Thomas Hruska Dec. 27, 2007

Dec. 27, 2007

Okay, I've followed the directions in README-DEVEL.txt and the final sb_tray.exe refuses to do anything. Python 2.5.1 w/ py2exe (latest), resourcepackage (latest), pywin32 (latest) InnoSetup 5.2.2 Spambayes 1.0.4 Modified the .iss script so it would work properly under IS 5.x. I also altered the setup_all.py script as per some website I found so it didn't barf on the Outlook typelib stuff (I have Outlook 2003 but don't use it and don't think I've got Outlook 2000 anywhere). It now doesn't locate any typelibs, but that's fine. Here's a list of things that py2exe can't find: ['Entrian', 'FCNTL', 'OpenSSL', '_pybsddb', 'bsddb3', 'bsddb3.dbutils', 'email.Encoders', 'email.Errors', 'email.Generator', 'email.Header', 'email.Iterators', 'email.MIMEAudio', 'email.MIMEBase', 'email.MIMEImage', 'email.MIMEMultipart', 'email.MIMEText', 'email.Message', 'email.Parser', 'email.Utils', 'email.base64MIME', 'exchange', 'exchdapi', 'gdbm', 'psycopg', 'pywin.dialogs', 'pywin.dialogs.list', 'resource', 'twisted.internet.app'] From what I've read, most of that stuff is unimportant. However, I figure the 'email.*' stuff is fairly critical and the cause of my problem. How it managed to successfully build without critical components is weird. Running sb_server.py from the command-line works fine - only the py2exe-based stuff is hosed. The website says Spambayes builds the e-mail stuff with 2.2.2 and later out of the box...that would include 2.5.1. What do I need to do to get this to build under 2.5? I'd rather not re-install Python. It was a pain to install in the first place and hosed portions of my dev. environment. I'd rather apply a patch to some file. I found some website in a foreign language that supposedly has a fix specifically for this but it didn't make a whole lot of sense: http://www.developpez.net/forums/showthread.php?t=348257 -- Thomas Hruska CubicleSoft President Ph: 517-803-4197 *NEW* MyTaskFocus 1.1 Get on task. Stay on task. http://www.CubicleSoft.com/MyTaskFocus/

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(no subject)
by Mike Dec. 26, 2007

Dec. 26, 2007

Michael A Larco 56804 Mound Rd Shelby Twp., MI 48316 586.207.6461 586.992.3004 Facsimile mlarco(a)larco-office.com

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Help Please! 90% there...
by Matkat Dec. 26, 2007

Dec. 26, 2007

I've been using the Outlook add-in of SB for years, but MS in its wisdom decided to disable Outlook when I upgraded my PC's memory. I can't find the original CD to re-install so I am switching to Pegasus Mail. I have installed the new SpamBayes version for non-Outlook mail programs, configured it, set my Pegasus Mail to localhost, and am almost there but my mail server does not recognize my user name or password when I try to retrieve mail. It is receiving the request from Pegasus Mail because I get a Pegasus Mail error message saying my user name and passwords are unrecognized by the mail server. Pegasus Mail picks up mail fine when it is pointed directly at the mail server (not via Spambayes localhost). I've looked through all the SpamBayes install files and troubleshooting files but can't find anyting related to this problem. The correct user name and password is being sent - just not recognized. Any ideas? I'm using Windsows XP Pegasus Mail v4 SpamBayes 1.0.4 (just downloaded today) Using Port 110 (it works) Thanks, Chuck

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