Don't fear the overflow folder.  The overflow folder is your friend.
It's good to have an overflow folder.

A few key things to know about the overflow folder:

- odds are pretty good that everyone on this list has dealt with the
overflow folder, you're not alone and there *are* answers

- it is a Declude invention, so if you've disabled Declude and just use
Imail, there will be no SMD files there

- files going into the overflow is a good thing, because IMail chokes on
too much mail

- it is a good thing because Declude also watchdogs the number of IMail
plus Declude related processes, and too many probably means too much CPU
contention

- there is a historical "mystery heap" overflow problem which led to
Declude processes blowing up, and the usage of the overflow folder
addresses that too

- restricting the number of simultaneous Declude processes is a good
thing

- IMail knows nothing about the overflow folder; an instance of Declude
needs to move the SMD file back into the SPOOL folder for delivery.

- if you cut off inbound mail delivery, the current declude instances
will finish, leaving the files in the overflow folder stranded.  If this
happens, either a) move them back to the spool folder manually and on
the next queue run IMail will deliver them, or b) do a "manual queue
run" and invoke declude with a fake SMD name, e.g. declude
c:\imail\spool\Q1231231231231231.SMD which

Don't give up on Declude support so easily.  You really need to cover
your basics first, such as figuring out your current mail volume, and
whether your DNS is responding the way you think it is.

I've been on this list for a couple of years and have had this problem
myself.  The causes were always:

- Local DNS failures

- DNS timeouts from using dead IP4R blacklists.

- Sudden increases in mail

- Mail surges caused by accepting wildcard addresses for a domain

- Plain old too much mail for your hardware

- Disk fragmentation; IMail and Declude drives get terribly fragmented

- Log files are too big for your disk system; multiple processes trying
to add a bit of text on the end of a 100 MB flat text file is
surprisingly disk intensive

- Log file analysis shows a bunch of errors that would lead to an answer

- Declude uses too much CPU time.

This last one is entirely within your control; Declude has added lots of
features to control how much work it does.  A few quick examples:

- If you're using filter files with Declude JunkMail Pro, you really
need to look at the "short circuit" processing options like SKIPIFWEIGHT
and STOPATFIRSTHIT.

- David Barker from Declude Support recently posted that a directive in
your global.cfg "DECODE OFF" would (at the least) turn off BASE64
message body decoding, which saves CPU time two ways, the decoding
itself, and by reducing the amount of text that could possibly be
searched by filter files.

- The directive in your virus.cfg "AVAFTERJM ON" would run your
antivirus scanner after JunkMail instead of before it, and only if the
message is not held as spam.  This leads to viruses being held in your
spam folder, but is a common choice.

- Your choice of antivirus scanner can make a big difference in
processing time; Matt did a heroic job of comparing scanners.  Check
this link to search the web mail archive for his scanner efficiency
olympics (bottom line- if you choose only one scanner, choose F-Prot) :
http://www.mail-archive.com/cgi-bin/htsearch?config=declude_virus_declud
e_com&restrict=&exclude=&words=olympics and if you have further
questions, bring them over to the Declude.Virus mailing list.


Andrew 8)




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