[Mailman-Users] Troublesome Mailman Errors

[George Booth]

Greetings,

I've been unable to find answers for two problems that have been plaguing me
for about a week or so now, and decided to turn to the list for help. We're
running Mailman on an IBM server with RedHat 2.6.9-42.0.10.EL-i686

The first problem is that messages sent to one of my lists (750+ members)
don't get propagated out to all the members. At this point, I'm not sure
what percentage is receiving and what percentage isn't receiving, but based
on small samplings, I think it's safe to conclude that more aren't receiving
than are. Checking the post log, I see the following for test messages I've
sent to the list; I know of 5 people who have received it, of which I am not
one:

Jun 19 10:47:31 2007 (32175) post to usmtalk from g.booth at usm.edu,
size=2800, message-id=<005101c7b289$16a60070$f3cb5f83 at elysium>, 7 failures
Jun 19 15:20:28 2007 (32175) post to usmtalk from g.booth at usm.edu,
size=2646, message-id=<001301c7b2ad$9f179e40$f3cb5f83 at elysium>, 7 failures

One person has been trying to send a message to the list for the last week;
he's tried 3 times and, although he's received all of my test messages to
the list, he has not seen his own messages come through. I myself have not
received any email from the list in around a week, and quite a few others
have received no messages at all either. I'm unable to get cooperation from
our server admins to get messages traced as they go through our rather
complex email system, and am told this is a Mailman problem, so I figured
I'd see what the experts think might be possible situations.

The other issue we're facing, which I'm also told by the server admins is an
internal Mailman problem, is that often the Mailman processes, while
outwardly appearing to run, just "stop" working; mail gets queued up, and I
have to restart the Mailman service to get the queue moving again. In the
Mailman error log, I'm seeing the following tracebacks on an almost
minute-by-minute basis:

Jun 19 20:22:04 2007 (11284) Uncaught runner exception:
Jun 19 20:22:04 2007 (11284) Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py", line 111, in _oneloop
    self._onefile(msg, msgdata)
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py", line 167, in _onefile
    keepqueued = self._dispose(mlist, msg, msgdata)
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Queue/IncomingRunner.py", line 130, in _dispose
    more = self._dopipeline(mlist, msg, msgdata, pipeline)
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Queue/IncomingRunner.py", line 153, in
_dopipeline
    sys.modules[modname].process(mlist, msg, msgdata)
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Handlers/ToDigest.py", line 91, in process
    send_digests(mlist, mboxfp)
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Handlers/ToDigest.py", line 132, in
send_digests
    send_i18n_digests(mlist, mboxfp)
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Handlers/ToDigest.py", line 273, in
send_i18n_digests
    msg = mbox.next()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/mailbox.py", line 35, in next
    return self.factory(_Subfile(self.fp, start, stop))
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Mailbox.py", line 41, in _safeparser
    return email.message_from_file(fp, Message)
  File "/var/mailman/pythonlib/email/__init__.py", line 63, in
message_from_file
    return Parser(_class, strict=strict).parse(fp)
  File "/var/mailman/pythonlib/email/Parser.py", line 64, in parse
    self._parsebody(root, fp, firstbodyline)
  File "/var/mailman/pythonlib/email/Parser.py", line 218, in _parsebody
    payload[start:terminator])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/sre.py", line 156, in split
    return _compile(pattern, 0).split(string, maxsplit)
MemoryError

Jun 19 20:22:04 2007 (11284) SHUNTING:
1182289757.230494+ae5c970b2a7ffee54cafa14a22bf0a5b052b671e
Jun 19 20:23:11 2007 (11284) Uncaught runner exception:
Jun 19 20:23:11 2007 (11284) Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py", line 111, in _oneloop
    self._onefile(msg, msgdata)
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py", line 167, in _onefile
    keepqueued = self._dispose(mlist, msg, msgdata)
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Queue/IncomingRunner.py", line 130, in _dispose
    more = self._dopipeline(mlist, msg, msgdata, pipeline)
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Queue/IncomingRunner.py", line 153, in
_dopipeline
    sys.modules[modname].process(mlist, msg, msgdata)
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Handlers/ToDigest.py", line 91, in process
    send_digests(mlist, mboxfp)
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Handlers/ToDigest.py", line 132, in
send_digests
    send_i18n_digests(mlist, mboxfp)
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Handlers/ToDigest.py", line 273, in
send_i18n_digests
    msg = mbox.next()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/mailbox.py", line 35, in next
    return self.factory(_Subfile(self.fp, start, stop))
  File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Mailbox.py", line 41, in _safeparser
    return email.message_from_file(fp, Message)
  File "/var/mailman/pythonlib/email/__init__.py", line 63, in
message_from_file
    return Parser(_class, strict=strict).parse(fp)
  File "/var/mailman/pythonlib/email/Parser.py", line 64, in parse
    self._parsebody(root, fp, firstbodyline)
  File "/var/mailman/pythonlib/email/Parser.py", line 218, in _parsebody
    payload[start:terminator])
MemoryError

Jun 19 20:23:11 2007 (11284) SHUNTING:
1182292904.783638+0a96719432d01f6522da13a1fb9ef301d37d0344

June 15 is when the first of these showed up, which leads me to believe it's
a seperate issue from the non-delivery of email to all recipients of a list
(which, of course, I could be completely wrong about), since the last time I
received a message from this list was June 11. Any pointers or suggestions
would be greatly appreciated. I have asked the server admins if there could
be a physical memory problem, which would cause the Memory Error listed
above, and received a negative. I also have asked if the memory allocation
for Python was sufficient, and was told it has access to all 16GB of memory
that the server holds. I've also come across a suggestion to add the line "
self.__conn.set_debuglevel(1)" to the SMTPDirect.py file and restarted
Mailman, but that hasn't seemed to help either.

Thanks in advance for any help,

George Booth

<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>
George Booth     iTech Applications Administrator
G.Booth at usm.edu
University of Southern Mississippi