I think the disk may be the root of the trouble... Check the Disk Queue Length (use perfmon and value should be below the 20 line most of the time. If just a little above, probably just a busy system, but if above 60 for extended periods of time, you seem to have a disk bottleneck.
And the suggestion of RAM problems is worth checking. Open the case and remove/reinstall the RAM. Run diagnostics. By reducing your logins, you may have just reduced the load a bit and that may also be a clue about system resources. with a bit more, things worked better or there is some time/load dependant variable in the mix. Sometimes, reducing logging to disk, can reduce a problem of this nature and provide a further clue to disk problems. Disable all IMail logging (since it does not seem to help) and system logging and see what that does... What do CPU and memory utilization look like? Any processes using large amounts of Virtual Memory and not releasing it? If so, what happens when just that service is restarted? Dan -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of David Waller Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 11:06 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping This is the second time I have spoken too soon. After 5 hrs of stability the service is once again stopping every two minutes or so. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Waller Sent: 07 November 2006 15:51 To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping Daniel, I've been doing a lot of work today on this including a thorough defrag of the relevent drives. CHKDSK report no errors as neither does event logs, SMTP etc. absolutley nothing to give a clue. I'm sure it's not the NIC but haven't ruled that one yet. Rather than re-install I copied a POP3 service exe from another instance after renaming the old file but that didn't make a difference. I disabled/asked users you were logging in very 30secs/minute and after all that the POP3 service has remained reliable since about 11 a.m. this morning (GMT). My thoughts are that this problem is due to a number of reasons, disk I/O is the top of my list. I am fairly sure it's not the exe or the service itself as this historically has been very stable. It may be prudent of me to start the process of examining the disks more closely to see what is occuring at that level. Thanks again for you valuable advice and time. David -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel Donnelly Sent: 07 November 2006 15:33 To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping David, The fact that CHKDSK fixed it and it worked for most of a day, tells me that there is more going on here than just user logins! I'd suggest you try the rest of that procedure I recommended, earlier (rename, restart, reinstall), on the chance that the sector of the disk storing pop3d.exe is not good. It cannot hurt (unless the next sector used is not so good)! And check that event log closely, fixing any warnings or errors! If the OS is not working well, then neither can IMail. Don't forget the NIC stuff and the page file size, either. I'm convinced that the problem is not the POP service itself. A telnet to the service shows over 23,000 connections have been made (@10:15 am EST) since the last restart, over 40 times more than I saw yesterday. A significant improvement, but I'd say the basic problem still exists, if the service is stopping again, but less often. While I've been typing, the telnet session has been open and is now over 10 minutes. I'd say things are much better (although perfect will only come when the system itself is perfect). A few 30 second or 1 minute re-connects will not cause this problem. POP3 users login, connect, get updates and close the connection, usually a second or two, when a fast link is used. The POP3 response line show that only a few concurrent connections are actually taking place (my connection made it 2, I've seen 8, but that went down within a few seconds), so it is not like the connections are not closing and building up to an overload level. Yes, it is good to remind folks that there really is no need for a mail check every 30-60 seconds, but those connections do not seem to be the real problem... Daniel Donnelly -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of David Waller Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 5:48 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping Bill, Thanks for this. I did find a few customers logging in every minute and some every 30 seconds (no email is that important!). I'm going to have to raise this with Ipswitch. Customers are comlaining in their droves. Thanks, David -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matrosity Hosting Sent: 07 November 2006 09:25 To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping Just curious but have you run analyze.exe on your logs to see the frequency your users are logging in? I run this regularly to weed out the people that are logging in every 1 minute. Bill Foresman Matrosity Hosting www.matrosity.com 850.656.2644 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Waller Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 4:14 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping Spoke too soon. Problem restarted at 8:08 this morning. CHKDSK doesn't report any problem. Is there a stability issue with POP3 service based on login rate? -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Waller Sent: 06 November 2006 20:29 To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping Our emails have just crossed. This is valuable information for anyone with this type of problem. Thanks again. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel Donnelly Sent: 06 November 2006 20:04 To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping I've made a few connections to your server and some of those lasted over 50 seconds (my telnet program counts time of connection and I saw 70 once, but maybe some timeout makes it think it is longer). I saw numbers that got as high as 80-8, but the second was always larger in the first few seconds after the restart (not really surprising). It seems to take 10-15 seconds before the restart completes. This is very strange operation! POP3 almost never stops and to see it doing it every minute, is bizarre! Does a re-install fix this at all? If not, try renaming the pop3d.exe to .old and reinstall (bad disk sector, maybe?). Set POP3 to Manual in services, and restart computer before install, if at all possible. Reset service back to Automatic, if install does not do this for you. Have you checked the HD? CHKDSK /F is still a good tool for many HD systems. Is your page file 3 times RAM? Did you find any other warnings or errors in the Event logs? Make them go away! Sorry nothing more specific, but it has the feel of a system problem... Can you try another NIC in the computer? Is the driver for the current NIC, the latest? Does the NIC have any power management enabled on it? You might try disabling that... Oh, I saw you playing with the service greeting... seems it's back to normal, now. Daniel Donnelly -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of David Waller Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 2:42 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping It definitely is stopping - I get disconnected from Telnet when it happens. The numbers are (for each telnet connection) 59-4 18-2 4-4 The service stops at exactly :53 seconds past the minute every two minutes. Some 30 seconds later the system restarts the POP3 mail service. Imail doesn't log down to the second logging to sys????.txt so I've set it to log to the event log instead. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel Donnelly Sent: 06 November 2006 19:12 To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping 1 minute is also the default poll interval for IMonitor. Shut it off, at least for a while. What happens when you manually try to stop/start the service? If that goes OK and quickly, does the restart have any effect on the situation? Did you enable logging in the POP3 service? Does the log show the service restarting when you do it and nothing otherwise? Maybe the service is not really stopping? If you telnet to port 110, the numbers at the end tell how many current connections and how many since last restart. If yours is really restarting every minute, I would expect the last number to be fairly small, certainly less than a thousand. What does the first number show? Daniel Donnelly -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Dave Doherty Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 2:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping 60000 msec is one minute on the dot. Maybe it is never running. Are you getting mail though the POP3 service? ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Waller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 1:26 PM Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping > > I'm seeing the POP3 service failing every minute - on the dot... > > Event Type: Error > Event Source: Service Control Manager > Event Category: None > Event ID: 7031 > Date: 06/11/2006 > Time: 18:29:53 > User: N/A > Computer: DRUM > Description: > The IMail POP3 Server service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 > time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 60000 > milliseconds: Restart the service. > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Waller > Sent: 06 November 2006 15:51 > To: [email protected] > Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping > > There's nothing in the SMTP logs that's relevant. However, I am seeing > entries like: > > 11:06 15:55 POP3D UNK: > > Which I'm trying to find out what they mean. Aside from that it's just > logon/logoff successes > > David > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Gregg > Sent: 06 November 2006 13:57 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] IM POP3 service keeps stopping > >> Thanks for the advice. I will try what you suggest. Unfortunately, >> nothing of any consequence is being logged in the event log other than >> the rather generic "service stopped unexpectedly". > > Check the IMail log files. Lok for POP activity just prior to the POP > service stopping. It might give you some clue as to what is causing the > crash. > > Regards, > > David Gregg > -- > mxGuard for IMail > The no-nonsense antispam and antivirus solution. > > Download a free 30-day trial at > http://www.mxguard.com/postmaster/freetrial.asp > -- > > To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html > List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ > Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ > > To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html > List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ > Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ > > To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html > List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ > Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ > To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
