[Mailman-Users] Major problem

[J C Lawrence]

On Wed, 3 Oct 2001 14:58:40 -0400 
Jim Kutter <jim at ebizq.net> wrote:

> Ok. After some digging it would seem that a message somewhere gets
> jammed in the qfiles directory, and prevents qrunner from getting
> to the other messages. The log file indicates that qrunner dies
> for some reason, but running it from the command line does nothing
> to the number of messages in the qfiles directory - 1156 .msg and
> .db files...

> I think I remedied the problem before, by deleting all the files
> in the qfiles directory. I now realize just what I did, and I
> don't want to do that again...

> Is there a way to get the pipes flowing again without losing all
> those messages?

I've been there, twice.  In neither case was I able to determine how
I got there (tho one case looked like an ill-timed reboot dueing a
queue run).  Method of solution:

  cd ~/qfiles
  mkdir tmp
  mv * tmp
  
Depending on time and facility you might like to pre-scan all the
files in ~/qfiles/tmp and remove all the entries for bounces (odds
are that's the majority of them).  This will save considerable time
in your later processing.

Now move small batches (say 15 at a time) of matching .db and .msg
from ~/qfiles/tmp to ~/qfiles, and run qrunner manually from the
command line.  After every pass the ~/qfiles directory should be
empty (unless bounces have come in during the interim).  Repeat this
process, working through the contents of ~/qfiles/tmp.  When you
find an entry which won't deliver, examine it for corruption and
delete/remove as applicable.

In my case I found two obviously corrupted entries for bounces.
Once I removed those everything else flowed smoothly.

-- 
J C Lawrence
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.