[Mailman-Users] invites for large user list fails

[Anne Ramey]

Mark Sapiro wrote:
> Anne Ramey wrote:
>
>   
>> Is there a known problem with inviting relatively large groups of 
>> addresses at once, ex. 6K at a time?  I usually just subscribe, so I 
>> haven't run into this before, but I have a list owner who gets an error 
>> when trying to subscribe a list of 6000 addresses, but I've been 
>> breaking it up to smaller groups (<400) and they seem to work fine.  But 
>> when I get up to 1000+ it fails.
>>
>> If we try to invite the whole list we get:
>>
>>
>>  Server error!
>>
>> The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your 
>> request.
>>
>> Error message:
>> Premature end of script headers: admin
>>
>> If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster 
>> <mailto:anne.ramey at ncmail.net>.
>>
>>
>>    Error 500
>>
>> on the screen and:
>>
>> admin(10796): [----- Mailman Version: 2.1.9rc1 -----]
>> admin(10796): [----- Traceback ------]
>> admin(10796): Traceback (most recent call last):
>> admin(10796):   File "/usr/local/mailman/scripts/driver", line 101, in 
>> run_main
>> admin(10796):     main()
>> admin(10796):   File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/confirm.py", line 
>> 117, in main
>> admin(10796):     subscription_confirm(mlist, doc, cookie, cgidata)
>> admin(10796):   File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/confirm.py", line 
>> 350, in subscription_confirm
>> admin(10796):     userdesc = mlist.pend_confirm(cookie, expunge=False)[1]
>> <trimmed>
>>     
>
>
> The above traceback is not from the error in inviting. It is from an
> error that occurred in trying to accept (or possibly not accept) an
> invitation or some other subscription confirmation. It was generated
> by the confirm CGI, not the admin CGI.
>
> I don't have time to look at it in more detail for a couple of days,
> but I will. It could be due to some corruption in the list's pending
> database caused by the invite error.
>
>   
It appears you are correct and there is no log for the error from the 
admin invite except the "premature end of headers" from apache (see below).
>   
>> This error didn't really tell me what was wrong, but I guess I'm just 
>> not reading it right.  This was the only thing I could find that seemed 
>> to be an error:
>> TypeError: unsubscriptable object
>> Does this mean there was just one address on the list that freaked it 
>> out? f it is one email address, how do I tell which one?  They all look 
>> OK to me when I scroll through.
>>     
>
>
> I think the 'invite large list' error is the CGI running into an Apache
> imposed CPU time limit and thus being killed and not given a chance to
> log any error.
>
> You may find more info in the apache error_log.
>
> See
> <http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq06.018.htp>
> which has to do with memory limits and MemoryError from
> Mailman/Python, but in this case, you would be looking for an
> RLimitCPU directive in your Apache config, not RLimitMEM.
>   
I see neither RLimitCPU nor RLimitMem in my apache config.

The error in my apache log is pretty much just what shows on the screen:

[Wed Sep 12 16:17:54 2007] [error]  Premature end of script headers: 
admin, referer: http
://lists.domain.tld/mailman/admin/listname/members/add
[Wed Sep 12 16:21:10 2007] [error] Premature end of script headers: 
confirm, referer: h
ttp://lists.domain.tld/mailman/confirm/listname/6aa1c93a87faa005a204269528bab4968eeda7f3
[Wed Sep 12 16:23:05 2007] [error]  Premature end of script headers: 
confirm, referer: h
ttp://lists.domain.tld/mailman/confirm/listname/88534c254d1e0e5d4866814e7a4e3da15d75580a
[Wed Sep 12 16:34:08 2007] [error] Premature end of script headers: 
admin, referer: htt
p://lists.domain.tld/mailman/admin/listname/members/add
[Wed Sep 12 16:37:54 2007] [error] Premature end of script headers: 
options, referer: ht
tp://lists.domain.tld/mailman/options/listname
[Wed Sep 12 16:38:28 2007] [error]  Premature end of script headers: 
confirm, referer: ht
tp://lists.domain.tld/mailman/confirm/listname/0abdea7d85f4df17e7007b00f86f3901421292aa
[Wed Sep 12 16:38:40 2007] [error]  Premature end of script headers: 
confirm, referer: ht
tp://lists.domain.tld/mailman/confirm/listname/d1a76914852c2a8a920e1a6836adadb41e36d99e
[Wed Sep 12 16:52:35 2007] [error]  user 9944 not found: /NCMail/index.html
[Wed Sep 12 17:34:16 2007] [error]Premature end of script headers: 
admin, referer: htt
p://lists.domain.tld/mailman/admin/listname/members/add

It looks like this list is having problems with both confirms and 
invites, but not every time.  This appears to be the only list (out of 
several hundred) having this problem.  But this is probably only one of 
a few that is sending out large quantities of invites.

Anne