[Mailman-Users] We're sorry, we hit a bug!

[Mark Sapiro]

J.R. Constance wrote:

>I'm hoping someone can help me figure out a problem that I've been  
>having for some time now. For some of my lists when I try to log in  
>and approve/discard posts using the admin function I get the  
>following error.
>
>This is obviously a cpanel version of mailman. I am also trying to  
>get support through my hosting company on this.
>
>We're sorry, we hit a bug!
>Mailman experienced a very low level failure and could not even  
>generate a useful traceback for you. Please report this to the  
>Mailman administrator at this site.
>
>Looking at the error log for this particular error shows the following:
>
>Sep 07 07:56:13 2007 (19565) Uncaught runner exception: No  
>terminating boundary and no trailing empty line
>Sep 07 07:56:13 2007 (19565) Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py",  
>line 100, in _oneloop
>     msg, msgdata = self._switchboard.dequeue(filebase)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Queue/ 
>Switchboard.py", line 164, in dequeue
>     msg = email.message_from_string(msg, Message.Message)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>__init__.py", line 51, in message_from_string
>     return Parser(_class, strict=strict).parsestr(s)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 75, in parsestr
>     return self.parse(StringIO(text), headersonly=headersonly)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 64, in parse
>     self._parsebody(root, fp, firstbodyline)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 240, in _parsebody
>     msgobj = self.parsestr(part)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 75, in parsestr
>     return self.parse(StringIO(text), headersonly=headersonly)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 64, in parse
>     self._parsebody(root, fp, firstbodyline)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 265, in _parsebody
>     msg = self.parse(fp)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 64, in parse
>     self._parsebody(root, fp, firstbodyline)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 206, in _parsebody
>     raise Errors.BoundaryError(
>BoundaryError: No terminating boundary and no trailing empty line
>
>Sep 07 07:56:13 2007 (19565) Ignoring unparseable message:  
>1173539747.1827431+c4b30a10b02f512f3aa88e8038d6f17843cdb81b
>Sep 07 07:56:13 2007 (19565) Uncaught runner exception: No  
>terminating boundary and no trailing empty line
>Sep 07 07:56:13 2007 (19565) Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py",  
>line 100, in _oneloop
>     msg, msgdata = self._switchboard.dequeue(filebase)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Queue/ 
>Switchboard.py", line 164, in dequeue
>     msg = email.message_from_string(msg, Message.Message)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>__init__.py", line 51, in message_from_string
>     return Parser(_class, strict=strict).parsestr(s)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 75, in parsestr
>     return self.parse(StringIO(text), headersonly=headersonly)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 64, in parse
>     self._parsebody(root, fp, firstbodyline)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 240, in _parsebody
>     msgobj = self.parsestr(part)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 75, in parsestr
>     return self.parse(StringIO(text), headersonly=headersonly)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 64, in parse
>     self._parsebody(root, fp, firstbodyline)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 265, in _parsebody
>     msg = self.parse(fp)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 64, in parse
>     self._parsebody(root, fp, firstbodyline)
>   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/pythonlib/email/ 
>Parser.py", line 206, in _parsebody
>     raise Errors.BoundaryError(
>BoundaryError: No terminating boundary and no trailing empty line
>
>Sep 07 07:56:13 2007 (19565) Ignoring unparseable message:  
>1187578207.7474239+de47fddadb334d46d06c9248df89448cf2a433ce


The above two 'errors' and tracebacks just coincidently occurred about
the same time as your 'we hit a bug' error. The above errors are due
to malformed (unparseable) messages which almost certainly were spam
sent to your lists (probably the same message sent to two lists).


>Sep 07 07:58:41 2007 admin(25812):  
>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>admin(25812): [----- Mailman Version: 2.1.9.cp2 -----]
>admin(25812): [----- Traceback ------]
>admin(25812): Traceback (most recent call last):
>admin(25812):   File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/scripts/ 
>driver", line 101, in run_main


This is from the 'we hit a bug' error. Was there any more? Is there
anything in the web server (apache?) error_log?

All I can tell from this is that a Cgi script (presumably admindb) was
called, encountered an exception not caught in the script, and the
attempt to print the traceback encountered another exception.

Since this only happens with some lists, it seems that the
/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/lists/listname/config.pck file (or
possibly the pending.pck or requests.pck file) for that (those) lists
is corrupt in some way.

You could try looking at these files with
/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/bin/dumpdb and comparing them with
'good ones' to see if you can identify the problem. You might be able
to 'fix' a bad config.pck by copying the config.pck.last over it or
restoring it from a backup.

You can just remove a bad pending.pck or requests.pck, but removing a
pending.pck will invalidate the cookies for all requests waiting
confirmation for that list meaning that unconfirmed subs, address
changes, etc. can't be confirmed and held messages can't be approved
or discarded by 'confirm'. Removing requests.pck means that requests
will be lost from the admindb interface. Held messages can still be
discarded with /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/bin/discard on the
held message(s) in the /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/data/
directory.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan