[Mailman-Users] Lists stop working

[bjames at cisco.com]

A correction to the 'analysis' below:

--> --> >A message from a newly added subscriber is accepted, logged in the
--> --> >archive, and distributed to all the members of the mailing list.
--> 
--> I just reconfirmed this, by adding myself again with yet another new
--> address, then sending a message to the list from that new subscriber.
--> The message was logged in the archive and was distributed to all members;
--> I received a copy of the message at my "old" email address.

The comment "... and was distributed to all members" turns out to be
incorrect.  Messages from 'new' subscribers are delivered by MailMan
to *some* existing members of the mailing list, but definitely not all
of them.

The bottom line is that for the moment, our attempts to detect any pattern
in what messages get redistributed to whom has been unsuccessful.

We do know that the messages are being received, logged in the list archive,
and (at least sometimes) distributed to *some* members of the mailing list.
I suspect that MailMan logs will point to the root cause of the problem
fairly quickly, at least for someone with even a moderate understanding
of how MailMan processes list messages and where MailMan logs those
activities.

Our ISP's tech support person is trying again to escalate our problem
to cPanel.

Beau

--> Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 18:21:05 -0700 (PDT)
--> 
--> --> BTW, what do you consider the 'current release' of Mailman?
--> 
--> Sorry, I should have been specific:
--> 
-->     X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9.cp2
--> 
--> which my ISP said was "current".  I don't know the significance of
--> the ".cp2", but 2.1.9 is the latest stable release according to
--> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=103
--> 
--> --> Also, I just had a sudden thought. Do your list(s) have topics defined
--> --> and if not, did they ever?
--> 
--> No and no.
--> 
--> --> >Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't believe it applies in our case.
--> --> >There are several hundred subscribers on each list, with over 200
--> --> >different mail domains (hence many different servers).
--> --> >
--> --> >A message from a newly added subscriber is accepted, logged in the
--> --> >archive, and distributed to all the members of the mailing list.
--> 
--> I just reconfirmed this, by adding myself again with yet another new
--> address, then sending a message to the list from that new subscriber.
--> The message was logged in the archive and was distributed to all members;
--> I received a copy of the message at my "old" email address.
--> 
--> --> >A message from a existing subscriber is accepted, logged in the
--> --> >archive, confirming that it was seen and processed (at some level)
--> --> >by Mailman.  The message *is* distributed to the newly added members
--> --> >of the mailing list.  But it is not distributed to any of the existing
--> --> >members.
--> 
--> This I cannot reconfirm at the moment.
--> 
--> I sent another message to the list from my "old" address.  The message
--> was logged in the list archive, but does not appear to have been
--> distributed to anyone on the mailing list (new or old).
--> 
--> However: the first new user account we added to the list posted one
--> message.  That message is in the list archive, and I have the copy
--> of that message that I received via the mailing list at my "old" address.
--> 
--> So, something is going on but I have not yet characterized it completely.
--> 
--> --> This makes no sense in terms of Mailman. Mailman builds the recipient
--> --> list for a message independently of where it came from except that the
--> --> sender only will be removed if the sender's 'not metoo' option is
--> --> selected.
--> 
-->     Side note: the "not metoo" option is not working for us.
-->     I verified that the new accounts that I added do not have
-->     the "not metoo" option set, and the the default setting for
-->     the list does not have the "not metoo" option enable.d
--> 
-->     (Too many double negatives :-) ) The point being that for
-->     our mailing lists, the poster should receive a copy of his
-->     own message, but that is not happening.
--> 
--> --> >I do not have direct access to the list server system; I am working
--> --> >through our ISP's support service.  Any suggestions for what I can
--> --> >tell them to look for, in Mailman log files or queues or other places,
--> --> >to see why Mailman does not redistribute a message:
--> --> >
--> --> >    - from an existing subscriber
--> --> >    - to any existing subscriber
--> --> >
--> --> >but (as far as we can tell) is working correctly in all other permutations?
--> 
--> Thanks very much for the pointers below.  I've passed them on to our ISP
--> and I'll follow up to the list once I hear back.
--> 
--> Beau
--> 
--> --> They should look in Mailman's smtp log for entries like
--> --> 
--> --> Apr 27 16:31:49 2007 (pid) <message-id> smtp for nnn recips, completed
--> --> in t.ttt seconds
--> --> 
--> --> to verify that nnn is the expected number, i.e. the number of regular
--> --> (non-digest) members with delivery enabled, possibly minus 1 for the
--> --> poster if the poster has 'not metoo' and possibly minus a very few
--> --> more if the post has direct To:, Cc:, Resent-To: or Resent-Cc:
--> --> recipients who are candidate recipients with the 'nodups' option
--> --> selected.
--> --> 
--> --> Also look in the smtp-failure log to see if there are any failed
--> --> recipients of the message.
--> --> 
--> --> Assuming this is OK, the problem is outbound of mailman. They should
--> --> check MTA logs to see that the message is received from Mailman It may
--> --> be received in more that one transaction with anywhere between 1 and
--> --> several hundred recipients per transaction depending on Mailman
--> --> settings, but they should add up to the number Mailman reports in the
--> --> smtp log.
--> --> 
--> --> Then only the MTA can say what it did with the message(s) after that.
--> --> 
--> --> If it should turn out that the smtp log verifies that mailman is not
--> --> sending from 'existing subscribers' to 'existing subscribers', i.e.
--> --> messages from existing subscribers have a small 'nnn recips' equal to
--> --> only 'new subscribers', then we can look at adding debugging logging
--> --> to the handlers that build the recips list.
--> --> 
--> --> BTW, what do you consider the 'current release' of Mailman?
--> --> 
--> --> Also, I just had a sudden thought. Do your list(s) have topics defined
--> --> and if not, did they ever?
--> --> 
--> --> -- 
--> --> Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
--> --> San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan
--> --> 
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