[Mailman-Users] Multiple identical copies (100s) ad nauseum being sent as daily digest

[JC Dill]

On 11:55 PM 6/24/01, Dan and Robby Grether wrote:
 >Dear Mailman-Users,
 >
 >We are again having the problem of multiple (100s) of emails coming from
 >our mailing list. The regular emailings are working fine, but the vol 17
 >msg 4 of our daily digest is spewing out 100s of copies to those who were
 >subscribed to the daily digest. I have unsubscribe everyone who was
 >subscribed to the daily digest, but the copies keep coming. How can they be
 >stopped? How can this problem be prevented in the future.
 >
 >I would rather not shut down the whole list---again---to stop them.

This has been addressed here, in the archives, many times before.

The reason people who have been unsubscribed still keep receiving the 
messages (this is a BIG tip off that the problem is NOT your "mailing list 
software", BTW) is that Mailman is not the "thing" sending them.    This 
also means that shutting down the entire list will also not be successful 
in stopping the problem.  Mailman handed off the message correctly, once, 
to your MTA for delivery.  The problem is in the MTA.

The duplicate messages are being generated from your MTA (sendmail, qmail, 
etc.), which is broken, and believes for some reason, that the message it 
has already successfully sent hasn't really been successfully sent.  The 
MTA will keep on sending it until you clear the offending message from the 
MTA queue.

Similarly, the fix (to prevent this from happening in the future) will be 
found by changing something within your MTA, not Mailman (although, if 
there's HTML in the digest running your incoming email through demime 
before handing it to Mailman will help prevent a messed up digest with 
screwed up HTML from triggering the MTA's bug).  Fixes vary depending on 
the exact problem and the particular MTA.  Keep a copy of the message so 
you have it to show when asked, and then inquire on a list for your 
particular MTA.

jc  (posted and emailied)