[Mailman-Users] undelivered mail, but only to some

[Mark Sapiro]

D. Alan Stewart wrote:
>
>This list is provided to me by my web hosting provider, who is also  
>baffled. The Mailman installation is version 2.1.5. The sendmail logs  
>show successful transmissions to the users in question, at the  
>correct time, so it appears Mailman is sending something, but the  
>receiving end  must be discarding it. I'm one of those not receiving  
>the emails. I've contacted my mail provider, mac.com, but they want a  
>copy of the email being sent with complete headers. Since any new  
>subscribers I've added aren't getting emails I'm having trouble doing  
>this.


If the sendmail log says the post is sent to the user in question,
Mailman delivered it to sendmail for the user, and it's not Mailman's
problem.

Here are things you can check.

Mailman's 'smtp' log. This will tell you how many recipients the post
was sent to.

Also check if the list is personalized. You may not even have
personalization options on your Non-digest options page which means
that OWNERS_CAN_ENABLE_PERSONALIZATION is not set to Yes in mm_cfg.py
and delivery is almost certainly not personailzed.

Check the settings of VERP_DELIVERY_INTERVAL and SMTP_MAX_RCPTS if any
in mm_cfg.py

If the list is not personalized and delivery is not 'VERP like' because
VERP_DELIVERY_INTERVAL has its default value of 0, and SMTP_MAX_RCPTS
has its default value of 500, then all 100 or less recipients receive
the identical message sent by Mailman in the same SMTP transaction
(with each recipient specified in a RCPT TO command).

You should also see this in the sendmail log, i.e. that the mail was
delivered to sendmail in one transaction.

Thus, if you can get copy of a received post from anyone, all the
initial headers (those that aren't Received: headers added by MTA's
outbound of your sendmail or other headers added by MDA's or receiving
MUA's) will be identical to those of the missing deliveries.


>We set up a test list. I've found that the test list works if I  
>subscribe only myself. However, if I mass subscribe all the  
>subscribers of the malfunctioning list to the test list, it appears  
>to behave in the same manner as the malfunctioning list. That seems  
>to imply that it is either the number of subscribers or that one bad  
>entry in the list is creating the problem. It can't be the number of  
>subscribers, there are other, bigger Mailman lists on this same host  
>that seem to be working correctly.


Can you add yourself to one of these lists?


>There are less than 100  
>subscribers to my list. In examining the list that I am subscribing I  
>can find no entries that appear malformed.
>
>Does anyone have any suggestions?


Sendmail claims it sent the mail to the users who didn't get it. I
recognize the symptoms say that Mailman is somehow involved, but I
don't see how.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan