Appendix A - Troubleshooting a Mail Service
The management applications described in this guide can assist you in troubleshooting mail problems and to monitor daily activities on the mail service. If any problems develop, you can gather information about the problem and eliminate it.
For example, you can periodically look through the folders of the mail service mailbox to see if any mail messages are not moving out of one of the queues. If so, you can browse a message to determine why it is not moving. Then, if necessary, you can delete the message.
This appendix describes the symptoms of some possible mail problems. Following each symptom is an explanation of what you can do or why the symptom occurred.
Message Not Moving Out of a Resolve Queue
If a message appears to stay in one of the Resolve queues, select that message from the Resolve queue and then browse or view the fields of the message envelope.
Check the Defer Date field. If the defer date has not yet elapsed, the message remains in the Resolve0 queue until the specified defer date. At that time, the transfer agent begins to resolve the message.
Check the Responsible Recipient List. The Address field contains the addressee that the transfer agent is currently trying to resolve. If the addressee is a list or template, the transfer agent may not be able to resolve a recipient because the server that maintains that StreetTalk name is not available. If the addressee is a StreetTalk name that contains a non-existent group name, the message remains in one of the Resolve queues while the transfer agent continues to try to locate that group. Eventually, the message expires and is returned to the sender with an Undeliverable status.
Message Not Moving Out of a Transfer Queue
If a message appears to stay in one of the Transfer queues, select that message from the Transfer queue and then browse or view the fields of the message envelope.
Check the Responsible Recipient List. The Route field indicates the StreetTalk name of the next mail service or server to which the message is forwarded. The transfer agent may not be able to transfer the message because a link to the destination mail service is down. Check the status of the link and the status of the destination mail service.
Message Staying Active in a Resolve Queue
If a message stays active for some time in one of the Resolve queues, select that message from the Resolve queue and then browse or view the fields of the message envelope.
Check the To field. If the addressee list contains a large number of recipients, or contains a list or template, it may take some time for the transfer agent to enumerate a recipient list and resolve each recipient. This situation can account for the extended active time for the message.
Message Staying Active in a Transfer Queue
If a message stays active in one of the Transfer queues, browse that message and check the message size. Large messages may require more time to transmit. This situation can account for the extended active time for the message.
