From: Fred Lindberg
Date: March 26 1999 10:32pm
Subject: ADMIN: Why are some messages missing, etc
List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/1056
Message-Id: <19990326223424.30762.qmail@id.wustl.edu>
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Hi,

[This is about the management of this list, not about MySQL]:

The mailing list manager (ezmlm) tries to send a message to all
subscribers. However, some subscriber mail programs will refuse certain
messages (about 0.5% of subscribers and only for some messages). For
instance, messages with special characters (=F6=E4=E5, etc) in the heade=
r may
be refused. If your postmaster imposes such restrictions, you will not
see those message.

ezmlm keeps track of refused messages. After about 11 days, it will
send you a message with the numbers of the missed messages as well as
the reason for the refusal to receive the first one. (You can retrieve
a range (e.g. 12-34) of messages from the archive by mailing e.g.
mysql-get12_34@stripped.)

If this "warning message" bounces, ezmlm will after another 11 days or
so send a "probe" message. If that one bounces as well your address
will be removed from the subscriber list. Thus, your mail must fail for
more than 22 days before you are removed. You can see that this is
_very_ conservative to assure that addresses are not removed due to
temporary or intermittent failures (while eventually removing "dead"
addresses). The fact that you read a warning/probe message means that
it did NOT bounce, so don't worry.

If you fail to receive some digests, it may be because your postmaster
refuses messages above a certain size. You can use the same -get
command to retrieve them in smaller chunks or ask your postmaster to
increase the accepted mail message size.

In all these cases, please consult your local postmaster. If you need
more information, write to me explaining the problem. I can look at our
logs and provide more information.

If for some reason you stop receiving messages, it is most likely not
that you have been removed from the list. The list host has some
ethernet hardware problems (being fixed) that cause it to be down for a
few hour intermittently.

To find out if you are still on the list, send a message to
mysql-query@stripped (or mysql-digest-query@stripped for
the digest). THe answer will tell you. If the answer takes more than 10
min to arrive, there is a [temporary] problem at the list host or the
network somewhere between it and you. Don't worry - no mail gets lost,
it just gets delayed ;-)



-Sincerely, Fred

(Frederik Lindberg, Infectious Diseases, WashU, St. Louis, MO, USA)