Re: [IMail Forum] empty e-mail records (again)

[Orin Wells]

At 12:16 PM 12/20/2002 -0600, Smart Business Lists wrote:

   I don't know how they'd get in a mailbox without IMAIL placing the
   message in the mailbox.  And if Imail is putting the message in the
   mailbox but not logging it then there are 2 problems: 1) the blank
   message, and 2) the absence of a log entry.

   You might try setting logging to DEBUG mode.

I guess I should read up on that.  Never used it.

    So are you seeing the messages in the mbx or already downloaded by
    a client?  Having no headers at all seems very strange to me.

I have seen them in the mailbox thus excluding the client (eudora AND web mail) from the equation. The lack of headers, especially the "to" field, is why I think there is something happening in iMail itself. The current system is a total reload but we still see them.

    Well, virus scanners definitely can cause blank messages but you
    should be excluding your spool and mailbox directories from Virus
    scanning. If you're not then that could be something to
    investigate further and certainly you want to keep the scanner
    away from your IMAIL spool and user directories.  You could get
    entire mailboxes deleted.

Never saw that happen. But I will check the configuration to see if the spool is excluded. HOWEVER, how would the anti-virus software catch the viruses if it does not pick up on the message being written to the mailbox? I am not sure what NetShield is watching with regard to the e-mail traffic. Where would the virus be caught? I have never paid much attention to exactly where they are trapped. In fact, we haven't seen any viruses for a while (now watch what happens today!).

>>My "the Bat!" client usually cannot "see" the attachments because Entourage does not properly end the mime segment boundary.

Oh, my! I can't imagine a bug in MicroStuff software.

>>However, it does tell me the proper size of the message<<

In our case the size is "0"

>>However, other clients do render it is one of those things best left to others to argue about.

Probably to overcome the problem with the MS program. Wouldn't be a first.

But if you are certain you are downloading the message from IMAIL then it still seems to me that the more likely place to look is your client until you can prove there are empty messages on the IMAIL sever. On the other hand if you seeing the blanks on the IMAIL server in the mailbox then that has to be something else.

As I have said I have seen it both in my client and in the iMail Web Mail as well as having found them in the mailbox before they were downloaded.

One other thing that might cause this although I've never actually observed it is a dictionary attack.

I have examined the mail log file for anything near the time stamp put on the empty email and have never found any tracks.

Hope you find it -

If I do I will let you folks know what I find.  So far only frustration.



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