[Mailman-Users] admindb just ending with premature end of script, no error message

[Ulf Zimmermann]

Our mailman/data directory has a bunch of heldmsg- files.  One of the lists has over 5,000 currently. Whenever we try to access "Tend to pending administration requests" it never returns. Apache error log shows just:

[Thu Mar 26 01:17:25 2009] [error] [client 172.18.42.241] Premature end of script headers: admindb, referer: http://XXXXXX/mailman/admin/XXXX/privacy/sender

An strace of the python scripts/driver admindb shows it first scanning all the messages in data/heldmsg-* (gettimeofday, stat64, write and unlink, mmap2) followed by a whole lot of just mmap calls (mmap2 and munmap). It finally gets a SIGTERM and closes out with:

munmap(0x9eadc000, 9416704)             = 0
mmap2(NULL, 9424896, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x9d8e3000
munmap(0x9e1e0000, 9420800)             = 0
mmap2(NULL, 9428992, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x9cfe5000
--- SIGTERM (Terminated) @ 0 (0) ---
rt_sigaction(SIGTERM, NULL, {0x19b68a, [], SA_RESTORER, 0xdf2898}, 8) = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGTERM, {0x19b68a, [], SA_RESTORER, 0xc37898}, NULL, 8) = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGTERM, NULL, {0x19b68a, [], SA_RESTORER, 0xc37898}, 8) = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGTERM, {0x19b68a, [], SA_RESTORER, 0xdf2898}, NULL, 8) = 0
sigreturn()                             = ? (mask now [])
gettimeofday({1238052580, 873374}, NULL) = 0
utimes("/var/lock/mailman/XXXX.lock.ml.autc.com.4472.0", {1238070580, 873373}) = 0
stat64("/var/lock/mailman/XXXX.lock", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=47, ...}) = 0
open("/var/lock/mailman/XXXX.lock", O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE) = 5
fstat64(5, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=47, ...}) = 0
fstat64(5, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=47, ...}) = 0
_llseek(5, 0, [0], SEEK_CUR)            = 0
fstat64(5, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=47, ...}) = 0
mmap2(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x9cfe4000
_llseek(5, 0, [0], SEEK_CUR)            = 0
read(5, "/var/lock/mailman/XXXX.lock.ml."..., 4096) = 47
read(5, "", 4096)                       = 0
close(5)                                = 0
munmap(0x9cfe4000, 4096)                = 0
unlink("/var/lock/mailman/XXXX.lock")  = 0
unlink("/var/lock/mailman/XXXX.lock.ml.autc.com.4472.0") = 0
munmap(0x9cfe5000, 9428992)             = 0
gettimeofday({1238052580, 901556}, NULL) = 0
utimes("/var/lock/mailman/XXXX.lock.ml.autc.com.4472.0", {1238070580, 901556}) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat64("/var/lock/mailman/XXXX.lock", 0xbff59360) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
unlink("/var/lock/mailman/XXXX.lock.ml.autc.com.4472.0") = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
munmap(0x9d8e3000, 9424896)             = 0
close(3)                                = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGINT, NULL, {0x19b68a, [], SA_RESTORER, 0xdf2898}, 8) = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGINT, {SIG_DFL}, NULL, 8) = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGTERM, NULL, {0x19b68a, [], SA_RESTORER, 0xdf2898}, 8) = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGTERM, {SIG_DFL}, NULL, 8) = 0
munmap(0xb71d5000, 397312)              = 0
gettimeofday({1238052581, 296099}, NULL) = 0
utimes("/var/lock/mailman/XXXX.lock.ml.autc.com.4472.0", {1238070581, 296098}) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat64("/var/lock/mailman/XXXX.lock", 0xbff59350) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
unlink("/var/lock/mailman/XXXX.lock.ml.autc.com.4472.0") = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
close(4)                                = 0
brk(0x9401000)                          = 0x9401000
futex(0x809c740, FUTEX_WAKE, 1)         = 0
futex(0x809a248, FUTEX_WAKE, 1)         = 0
futex(0x80935b0, FUTEX_WAKE, 1)         = 0
futex(0x808c198, FUTEX_WAKE, 1)         = 0
futex(0x808c198, FUTEX_WAKE, 1)         = 0
futex(0x808c198, FUTEX_WAKE, 1)         = 0
exit_group(0)                           = ?

I have tried to move all the heldmsg- away for this list, but even then it never comes back.

Anyone have an idea how to fix this?

System is RedHat EL4 with 2.1.5.1-34.rhel4.3, which isn't the latest but still.