Mailing List Archive

Bouncing messages
Hello list,

Ever since the new year I've been getting a bounce message from this list - 19
of them so far. The first of those listed one message twice, most of the others
six times. The message was 200359.

I don't know what that message was, but why is the system Out There having
such a hard time with it?

--
Regards,
Peter.
Re: Bouncing messages [ In reply to ]
On 2023-01-13, Peter Humphrey wrote:

> Hello list,
>
> Ever since the new year I've been getting a bounce message from this list - 19
> of them so far. The first of those listed one message twice, most of the others
> six times. The message was 200359.
>
> I don't know what that message was, but why is the system Out There having
> such a hard time with it?

Was the message from the list software or from a Microsoft system?

There's possibly one subscriber that has configured their
Exchange/Outlook account to forward e-mails to a Gmail account, and
forwarding as implemented by Microsoft apparently isn't done correctly
and so "SPF" checks run by Gmail are failing.

I tried to send a message to this list about this topic back in November
but it never made through, perhaps it was filtered because it quoted
some of the error messages.

--
Nuno Silva
Re: Re: Bouncing messages [ In reply to ]
On Saturday, 14 January 2023 07:00:29 GMT Nuno Silva wrote:
> On 2023-01-13, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > Hello list,
> >
> > Ever since the new year I've been getting a bounce message from this list
> > - 19 of them so far. The first of those listed one message twice, most of
> > the others six times. The message was 200359.
> >
> > I don't know what that message was, but why is the system Out There
having
> > such a hard time with it?
>
> Was the message from the list software or from a Microsoft system?

I don't know - I haven't received it as far as I know. The only archive
entries I've found are of this conversation.

> There's possibly one subscriber that has configured their
> Exchange/Outlook account to forward e-mails to a Gmail account, and
> forwarding as implemented by Microsoft apparently isn't done correctly
> and so "SPF" checks run by Gmail are failing.

Hmm. Would that cause the message to me to fail, in particular?

> I tried to send a message to this list about this topic back in November
> but it never made through, perhaps it was filtered because it quoted
> some of the error messages.


--
Regards,
Peter.
Re: Re: Bouncing messages [ In reply to ]
On Sat, 14 Jan 2023 10:25:27 +0000
Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:

> On Saturday, 14 January 2023 07:00:29 GMT Nuno Silva wrote:
> > On 2023-01-13, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > Hello list,
> > >
> > > Ever since the new year I've been getting a bounce message from
> > > this list
> > > - 19 of them so far. The first of those listed one message twice,
> > > most of the others six times. The message was 200359.
> > >
> > > I don't know what that message was, but why is the system Out
> > > There
> having
> > > such a hard time with it?
> >
> > Was the message from the list software or from a Microsoft system?
>
> I don't know - I haven't received it as far as I know. The only
> archive entries I've found are of this conversation.

This seems like it might be a problem. A lot of the time when I get
"weird bounces" for messages for a mailing list, it isn't the list, but
somewhere down the line, which is bouncing because they either aren't
properly handling mailing lists, or something else (like in this
example given, failing to properly handle forwarding "bouncing onward"
sort of as the PINE parlance was used) list messages.

> > There's possibly one subscriber that has configured their
> > Exchange/Outlook account to forward e-mails to a Gmail account, and
> > forwarding as implemented by Microsoft apparently isn't done
> > correctly and so "SPF" checks run by Gmail are failing.
>
> Hmm. Would that cause the message to me to fail, in particular?

The message *to* you? I don't think so. Or it might be someone
sending from a server which somehow throws something into the header
that causes it to be bounced that the list manager doesn't properly
deal with?

> > I tried to send a message to this list about this topic back in
> > November but it never made through, perhaps it was filtered because
> > it quoted some of the error messages.
>
>
Re: Re: Bouncing messages [ In reply to ]
Send again

David

On Sun, Jan 15, 2023, 19:50 Jigme Datse <jrasku@armispiansystems.ca> wrote:

> On Sat, 14 Jan 2023 10:25:27 +0000
> Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > On Saturday, 14 January 2023 07:00:29 GMT Nuno Silva wrote:
> > > On 2023-01-13, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > > Hello list,
> > > >
> > > > Ever since the new year I've been getting a bounce message from
> > > > this list
> > > > - 19 of them so far. The first of those listed one message twice,
> > > > most of the others six times. The message was 200359.
> > > >
> > > > I don't know what that message was, but why is the system Out
> > > > There
> > having
> > > > such a hard time with it?
> > >
> > > Was the message from the list software or from a Microsoft system?
> >
> > I don't know - I haven't received it as far as I know. The only
> > archive entries I've found are of this conversation.
>
> This seems like it might be a problem. A lot of the time when I get
> "weird bounces" for messages for a mailing list, it isn't the list, but
> somewhere down the line, which is bouncing because they either aren't
> properly handling mailing lists, or something else (like in this
> example given, failing to properly handle forwarding "bouncing onward"
> sort of as the PINE parlance was used) list messages.
>
> > > There's possibly one subscriber that has configured their
> > > Exchange/Outlook account to forward e-mails to a Gmail account, and
> > > forwarding as implemented by Microsoft apparently isn't done
> > > correctly and so "SPF" checks run by Gmail are failing.
> >
> > Hmm. Would that cause the message to me to fail, in particular?
>
> The message *to* you? I don't think so. Or it might be someone
> sending from a server which somehow throws something into the header
> that causes it to be bounced that the list manager doesn't properly
> deal with?
>
> > > I tried to send a message to this list about this topic back in
> > > November but it never made through, perhaps it was filtered because
> > > it quoted some of the error messages.
> >
> >
>
>
Re: Bouncing messages [ In reply to ]
On 2023-01-14, Peter Humphrey wrote:

> On Saturday, 14 January 2023 07:00:29 GMT Nuno Silva wrote:
>> On 2023-01-13, Peter Humphrey wrote:
>> > Hello list,
>> >
>> > Ever since the new year I've been getting a bounce message from this list
>> > - 19 of them so far. The first of those listed one message twice, most of
>> > the others six times. The message was 200359.
>> >
>> > I don't know what that message was, but why is the system Out There
> having
>> > such a hard time with it?
>>
>> Was the message from the list software or from a Microsoft system?
>
> I don't know - I haven't received it as far as I know. The only archive
> entries I've found are of this conversation.

And *now* I haven't received one of these messages I was talking about
(which would usually appear for every post of mine to the list, albeit
possibly delayed by a few hours), so I guess either the forwarding
problem was fixed or that person is not subscribed to the list anymore.

>> There's possibly one subscriber that has configured their
>> Exchange/Outlook account to forward e-mails to a Gmail account, and
>> forwarding as implemented by Microsoft apparently isn't done correctly
>> and so "SPF" checks run by Gmail are failing.
>
> Hmm. Would that cause the message to me to fail, in particular?

No, in the case I was writing about, it'd only cause you to get these
failure messages/reports delivered to you, I think precisely because of
the incorrect Microsoft forwarding implementation that'd present you as
the sender.

So it is delivery *to* you that's failing? Hm, seeing you mentioned one
of these message numbers that are internal to the list, I think I now
understand what kind of bounce message you're talking about, sorry for
the confusion.

Now was there (I recall asking about this previously, but I forgot what
the answer was) a way to get a message-ID from that internal number, or
at least a way to get the address of the message's archive copy on the
gentoo website?

>> I tried to send a message to this list about this topic back in November
>> but it never made through, perhaps it was filtered because it quoted
>> some of the error messages.

--
Nuno Silva
Re: Re: Bouncing messages [ In reply to ]
On Wednesday, 18 January 2023 08:59:21 GMT Nuno Silva wrote:

> And *now* I haven't received one of these messages I was talking about
> (which would usually appear for every post of mine to the list, albeit
> possibly delayed by a few hours), so I guess either the forwarding
> problem was fixed or that person is not subscribed to the list anymore.

I've just had another one.

[...]

> So it is delivery *to* you that's failing? Hm, seeing you mentioned one
> of these message numbers that are internal to the list, I think I now
> understand what kind of bounce message you're talking about, sorry for
> the confusion.
>
> Now was there (I recall asking about this previously, but I forgot what
> the answer was) a way to get a message-ID from that internal number, or
> at least a way to get the address of the message's archive copy on the
> gentoo website?

I haven't found it, if so.

--
Regards,
Peter.
Re: Re: Bouncing messages [ In reply to ]
On 1/18/23 06:44, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Wednesday, 18 January 2023 08:59:21 GMT Nuno Silva wrote:

[ .... ]


>> Now was there (I recall asking about this previously, but I forgot what
>> the answer was) a way to get a message-ID from that internal number, or
>> at least a way to get the address of the message's archive copy on the
>> gentoo website?
> I haven't found it, if so.

Some time back I traded some emails with a sysadmin about this, and I'm
pretty sure there is no way to make that translation.  The number is
internal to the list software database and is apparently not surfaced
anywhere except such messages.  In my case, I was usually able to to to
the archive page for the list, and by displaying as messages (instead of
threads) identify the one I never received.

Jack
Re: Bouncing messages [ In reply to ]
On 2023-01-13, Peter Humphrey wrote:

> Hello list,
>
> Ever since the new year I've been getting a bounce message from this list - 19
> of them so far. The first of those listed one message twice, most of the others
> six times. The message was 200359.
>
> I don't know what that message was, but why is the system Out There having
> such a hard time with it?

Did the bounce report you got reproduce any reason/message from the
system it failed to deliver the message to? This message was
particularly quite large, so it could be simply that... 200359 didn't
make it to Gmane or marc.info either.

200359 is:
Message-ID: <67f4d690-1005-a4d6-abba-c685fd4afe6c@youngman.org.uk>

And is about 20MB big (owing to the attached build.log).

On the Gentoo website:
https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-user/message/dd1fc2d5d273f8590d73302748f2cda7

(Note that if you request the message and it does get delivered to you,
the Date: field differs between what you get and the archived copy on
the Gentoo website.)

--
Nuno Silva
Re: Re: Bouncing messages [ In reply to ]
On Thursday, 19 January 2023 08:56:41 GMT Nuno Silva wrote:

> Did the bounce report you got reproduce any reason/message from the
> system it failed to deliver the message to?

No, just the standard list of message numbers.

> This message was particularly quite large, so it could be simply that...
> 200359 didn't make it to Gmane or marc.info either.
>
> 200359 is:
> Message-ID: <67f4d690-1005-a4d6-abba-c685fd4afe6c@youngman.org.uk>
>
> And is about 20MB big (owing to the attached build.log).
>
> On the Gentoo website:
> https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-user/message/
dd1fc2d5d273f8590d73302748f2cda7

Good detective work - thanks Nuno.

I'll see it it's my ISP who's bouncing the message. After that I don't know
where to look next.

--
Regards,
Peter.
Re: Re: Bouncing messages [ In reply to ]
On Thursday, 19 January 2023 09:30:34 GMT I wrote:

> I'll see it it's my ISP who's bouncing the message.

It looks as though they did reject the mail. I asked them please to let it
through just this once, and now it's sitting on their server (my ISP's).
Unfortunately, my local postfix is rejecting it because it's over "a fixed
limit". I tried turning up the two likely-looking limits in /etc/postfix/
bounce.cf.default, but that just removed the error message - the mail remained
at my ISP.

What else can I try?

I use fetchmail to collect the POP3 mail and forward it to postfix for dovecot
to serve as SMTP. This is the first trouble I've had with it and external mail.

--
Regards,
Peter.
Re: Re: Bouncing messages [ In reply to ]
On Sunday, 22 January 2023 22:33:50 GMT Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Thursday, 19 January 2023 09:30:34 GMT I wrote:
> > I'll see it it's my ISP who's bouncing the message.
>
> It looks as though they did reject the mail. I asked them please to let it
> through just this once, and now it's sitting on their server (my ISP's).
> Unfortunately, my local postfix is rejecting it because it's over "a fixed
> limit". I tried turning up the two likely-looking limits in /etc/postfix/
> bounce.cf.default, but that just removed the error message - the mail
> remained at my ISP.
>
> What else can I try?
>
> I use fetchmail to collect the POP3 mail and forward it to postfix for
> dovecot to serve as SMTP. This is the first trouble I've had with it and
> external mail.

If you want to try an old school approach, but with a more modern encryption
method, you could try 'openssl s_client' and then list messages and retrieve
the one you're interested in. Something like this:

openssl s_client -connect pop.some_server.com:995 -crlf -starttls pop3

then use server commands[1] as you would over a telnet connection, e.g.

USER peter

PASS s3cr3tPa77

STAT
LIST
RETR 5
DELE 5
QUIT

The TOP command may also be useful if you wish to only check the top few lines
of a (large) message to decide if you want to retrieve the rest of it.

TOP 5 10

Or if your ISP offer a webmail front end to their server, it should be easier
to access the message with a browser.

[1] https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1939.txt
Re: Re: Bouncing messages [ In reply to ]
On Sunday, 22 January 2023 23:04:43 GMT Michael wrote:

> Or if your ISP offer a webmail front end to their server, it should be
> easier to access the message with a browser.

Useful advice, Michael; thanks.

When I eventually found the right search terms, I went straight to the answer
I needed [1].

Meanwhile, I used webmail to delete the offending message. I hope the lesson
has been learnt, but I'll be ready next time if not. :)

1. https://serverfault.com/questions/327416/changing-the-maximum-mail-size-in-postfix

--
Regards,
Peter.