undeliverable messages warning

[miki75]

Hi, first I want thanks martin for hmailserver!

And now the poll for this feature I think important: undeliverable messages warning

When a message is on queue, there are those default settings:
Number of retries: The default value is 4 retries, which means hMailServer will try a total of 5 times before giving up and returning an error message to the sender
Minutes between every retry: The default value is 60 minutes.

There are many reason for a mailserver could be offline (for hours or days)
and we want to keep on queue an email for 48 hours.
So we set retry to 288 and Minutes between every retry to 10 minutes.
Normally the email are sent in 20/30 minutes, but in some cases are in queue for hours.

Many mailserver on this case send an automatic alert message like this:

**********************************************
** THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY **
** YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE **
**********************************************

The original message was received at Wed, 30 June 2009 06:08:07 +0200 (CEST)
from localhost [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]

----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to spamkiller.domain.com.:
>>> DATA
<<< 451 4.3.0 Could not connect to other SMTP server: Operation now in progress
Warning: message still undelivered after 2 hours
Will keep trying until message is 2 days old

This could be a nice feature on hmailserver, so the users will be informed if a message is delayed

Thanks again and best regards

Miki

[Keba]

As long as the 'notify that message is in queue' time is configurable, this would be nice to have.

I'd still prefer to have customisable intervals (different poll) first though - the main reason messages get put in a queue on my servers is on the rare off chance that other mail servers have greylisting enabled. That happens far more often than messages staying in a queue for a few hours and then being delivered happens.

[pepsi]

- the main reason messages get put in a queue on my servers is on the rare off chance that other mail servers have greylisting enabled.

Or you have hit my server that was recovering from a system down (faulty powersupply)
default messages ttl is 72 hours until receiving mailbox
If you make it a High priority it will bew 24 hours.

so why an allert after a few hours.

[Keba]

Usually the users of the mailbox would appreciate knowing that their email message (which they assume has gone through instantly) has not yet been delivered.

Users aren't always tech-savvy, and sometimes put through time-critical information in emails. If they were notified of a delivery issue after a few hours, they might be able to do something about that time-critical information.

Of course, this does not hold true for all delayed messages - but on the ones where it is important, having a 'you message is still in a queue' option would be beneficial.

hMail by default has a 6 hour or so retry? In the scenario you put forward, all those messages would have been returned (but 6 hours if that is the default would be way too long for time-critical information imo). I think I have mine set to retry up to 48 hours currently, which without an easy ability to determine if a message is in a queue or not (I can through the admin console obviously, but I'm not a normal end user), then 48 hours would be even worse for time-critical info.

I advise most end-users to use delivery/read receipts on time-critical emails, and hope that the mail admin (or mail client) at the other end doesn't stop those sorts of messages - Microsoft Exchange for example can be told to only allow read/delivery receipts to local users and to not allow them outside into the intraweb...

[^DooM^]

Changed the poll.

Here's how I see it in one easy to understand sentence.

Have a configurable option to notify the sender after 'X' minutes/hours if their mail has not yet reached the recipient.

Yes / No

[Keba]

I like the poll change

[miki75]

Thanks ^DooM^, better poll
and I agree with Keba opinions

Miki

[sckramer2]

this should be #1

I'm migrating off of MDaemon, (not that it actually did this)

mdaemon just has too many queues, too many delays, and to many places to change the same settings, the purity in hmailserver is awesome--

but I'm watching hmailserver like a hawk... and the immediacy of delivery is awesome... but this feature needs to happen...

its all well and good that hmailserver tries for 4 hours, but the user does not know this.... maybe they made a dumb mistake... let them know immediatly!!! & they will fix & resend the email...

this should be #1 on the list...

this is for another thread, but the smtp retry to the isp relay needs to happen "as soon as possible (using the hmail queue terminology)" on the outgoing queue, the rule method is elegant, but it's delays the retry by whatever you have the retry set to (default is 1 hour) and even my setting of 10 minutes is too slow

thanks!!