[Tickets #2679] NEW: Possible Webmail Bug dropping email addresses

Mon Sep 26 05:49:54 PDT 2005

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE. THIS EMAIL ADDRESS IS NOT MONITORED.

Ticket URL: http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/?id=2679
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Ticket             | 2679
 Created By         | rob.callahan at dal.ca
 Summary            | Possible Webmail Bug dropping email addresses
 Queue              | IMP
 Version            | HEAD
 State              | Unconfirmed
 Priority           | 2. Medium
 Type               | Bug
 Owners             | 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

rob.callahan at dal.ca (2005-09-26 05:49) wrote:

This is a ticket we have outlining a problem found that we cannot seem to
find the source of. Am forwarding to you to see if this is a possible bug
with WebMail. It appears that Webmail might be dropping email addresses
along the way for certain people. Here are our ticket details:

Entered on 09/19/2005 at 11:56:32 by ae at dal.ca: 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There were 40 recipients listed in the text of the email. The SMTP logs
only show 39 recipients being passed in the SMTP protocol, the one missing
address being Julia Wright's. Here are the details:

Here is the date and sender of the message:

Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 13:37:30 -0300
From: Carole Poirier <Carole.Poirier at Dal.Ca>

Here is the initial smtp.dal.ca log entry for the email, showing that
there were 39 recipients:

Sep 7 13:37:31 KIL-SM-1 sendmail[31761]: j87GbVZL031761:
from=<Carole.Poirier at Dal.Ca>, size=143011, class=0, nrcpts=39,
msgid=<20050907133730.xay6bflhe90k4s08 at my5.dal.ca>, proto=ESMTP,
daemon=MTA, relay=KIL-UPT-5.UCIS.Dal.Ca [129.173.1.165]

Then there is a log message showing the email was split into two queue
entries:

Sep 7 13:37:31 KIL-SM-1 sendmail[31761]: j87GbVZL031761: split:
count=1, id=j87GbVZM031761

Here are the log entries that list the recipients of the email:

Sep 7 13:37:31 KIL-SM-1 sendmail[31768]: j87GbVZL031761:
to=<william.barker at ukings.ns.ca>, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00,
mailer=smtp, pri=1313011, relay=admin.ukings.ns.ca.
[134.190.92.50], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (Data received OK.)

Sep 7 13:37:32 KIL-SM-1 sendmail[31768]: j87GbVZL031761:
to=<ar199 at chebucto.ns.ca>, delay=00:00:01, xdelay=00:00:01,
mailer=esmtp, pri=1313011, relay=lich.chebucto.ns.ca.
[192.75.95.79], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (S90733AbVIGQhb message
accepted)

Sep 7 13:37:32 KIL-SM-1 sendmail[31768]: j87GbVZL031761:
to=<clarekeating at hfx.e astlink.ca>, delay=00:00:01,
xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=esmtp, pri=1313011,
relay=smtpin.eastlink.ca. [24.222.0.18], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (ok:
Message 359371087 accepted)
Sep 7 13:37:36 KIL-SM-1 sendmail[31768]: j87GbVZL031761:
to=<jswan at supercity.ns.ca>, delay=00:00:05, xdelay=00:00:04,
mailer=esmtp, pri=1313011, relay=mail.supercity.ns.ca.
[24.222.76.31], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (Ok: queued as49B03CA6DC)

Sep 7 13:37:32 KIL-SM-1 sendmail[31770]: j87GbVZM031761:
to=<carole.poirier at Dal.Ca>,<gradengl at Dal.Ca>,<mkenney at Dal.Ca>,<jstreete at Dal.
Ca>,
<darl at Dal.Ca>,<jthompso at Dal.Ca>,<tetro at Dal.Ca>,<mistone at Dal.Ca>,<afstewar at Da
l.Ca>,
<tross at Dal.Ca>,<ngrobert at Dal.Ca>,<kenneth.paradis at Dal.Ca>,<hmeek at Dal.Ca>,
<dmcneil at Dal.Ca>,<dmatthia at Dal.Ca>,<ann.martin at Dal.Ca>,<rmaitzen at Dal.Ca>,
<t.macgregor at Dal.Ca>,<sluo at Dal.Ca>,<luckyj at Dal.Ca>,<rleitch at Dal.Ca>,
<sean.lawrence at Dal.Ca>,<dean.irvine at Dal.Ca>,<rhuebert at Dal.Ca>,
<jason.haslam at Dal.Ca>,<greenfld at Dal.Ca>,<mfurrow at Dal.Ca>,<dhevans at Dal.Ca>,
<IV610512 at Dal.Ca>,<diepev at Dal.Ca>,<cvdawson at Dal.Ca>,<lchoyce at Dal.Ca>,
<abrittan at Dal.Ca>,<lyn.bennett at Dal.Ca>,<jbaxter at Dal.Ca>,
delay=00:00:01, xdelay=00:00:01, mailer=esmtp, pri=1313011,
relay=imap.ucis.dal.ca. [129.173.1.98], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent
(j87GbVtP022718 Message accepted for delivery)

Entered on 09/19/2005 at 09:18:55 by Robert Callahan: 

Aidan,

Can you attach the SMTP logs Chris is mentioning to this ticket so I can see
what is happening here? 

Thanks,

Rob

Entered on 09/16/2005 at 23:47:51 by Christopher Wright: 
**An update was made to this Ticket based on an update made through email to
dynamically-linked Ticket #19184 in Project Computer Centre Help Desk**

Check with Aidan in N&S for SMTP logs.

1) The text of the ticket with Julia Wright is included in my ticket.
It has the text of one of the messages she did not receive (that had
been forwarded to her). Her address is clearly included in the "To"
header. I linked the ticket to N&S and Aidan replied her address
was not included in the TO list given to the SMTP server by WebMail.
His response is in the ticket. He forwarded the problem to Admin
(ticket ISSUE=7448 PROJ=2).

Julia's address is the last in the "To" list, but is followed by CC's.
Aidan didn't indicate if Julia was the only intended recipient who
didn't receive the message.

2) The error message Andrew Wainwright received and bounced to me is
also included in my ticket together with the original message (that
was incorporated in the error message). I spoke to Bruce N&S and he
consulted Aidan. Bruce gave me a hard copy (somewhat reformated for
printing) of the SMTP log that omit one of the 10 addressees.
The SMTP addresses include a null address that produced the error
message.

I find it interesting that the omitted address was not the last, but
the 7th of the 9 cc's following 1 To address. Bruce pointed out the
strange inclusion of "for <darl at dal.ca>" in the Received header of the
original message. That is not one of the recipients (unless it was
a Bcc, but when I talked to Andrew he said 10 recipients which is the
count of the To and Cc recipients).

The headers for Andrew's original message are already in the ticket.
I asked Andrew bounce the original message to me, but the Received
headers in the message I received are from him to me -- only the
original "From" header seems to have been preserved.

Chris

On Sep 16, 2005, at 9:11 AM, Computer Centre Help Desk wrote:

> [Duplicate message snipped]

Entered on 09/16/2005 at 09:11:04 by Robert Callahan: 

Chris,

You say that the emails are being misaddressed. Can you provide me with
where you are finding this out? IE Can you send me a copy of the email with
the header or log? Providing this will help us better track the problem.

Thanks

Rob

Entered on 09/15/2005 at 16:58:01 by Christopher Wright: 
**This Ticket is a copy of Ticket #19184 of project Computer Centre Help
Desk**

I've had two problems recently with WebMail misaddressing outgoing e-mail.

The first was from julia.wright at dal.ca who has failed to receive several
department e-mail messages. She receives some, but not others.

The second, today, was from Andrew Wainwright who sent a message
to 10 people and received back a delivery "not deliverable to @ (unknown
user)."
A check by system staff determined WebMail had misaddressed the message
resulting it being sent to 9 of the 10 addresses and an error in the
remaining
address.

This is rather disturbing.

The outcome of my ticket about Julia's problem was that you (Admin) could
not
find any report of the problem in the support lists or replicate the
problem.
Since the problem has replicated, perhaps you could make a report of the
problem.

------------------- Previous Ticket wrt julia.wright at dal.ca problem
--------------

PreviousNext
Detail View - Ticket 18961
Title Fwd: A form-fillable travel claim form
Priority Normal
Status Closed
Submitter julia.wright at dal.ca
Assignee(s) Christopher Wright
CC(s) No CCs
Linked to 
UCIS-NetSys - Ticket 73754 
Unlink from Ticket 73754 of Project 5 Unlink

Description
Entered on 09/14/2005 at 14:28:58 by Christopher Wright:
Hi,

To summarize...

When an e-mail message is sent, there are two lists of addresses. A list
that
appears in the mail message headers and a list that is used to deliver the
message.

The message in question was sent from WebMail to a long list of addresses.
You
appear as the last address in the list of addresses appearing in the mail
message
headers. Our systems staff checked the mail server log and found you were
not on the
list of addresses
used to deliver the message. That indicates a glitch in WebMail.

Our admin computing staff (who look after My.Dal/WebMail) say:

"No similar bugs have been reported on the vendors support from what we can
see here.
We have also not been able to reproduce the problem. The best advice would
be to
follow
the guidelines for creating a mailing list when dealing with a high number
of email
addresses."

Setting up a department mailing list will
1) avoid this problem (not a fix, but a work around - which you need for
now)
2) remove the long list of addresses from the mail message headers
3) be usable by more than one person (if desired)

To setup a mailing list, complete the form located at:
http://ucis.dal.ca/services/email/classmailinglistrequestform.html (or go
to
http://www.dal.ca/email, select "Mailing Lists" and click on "Application
Form").

If you (or rather your the person maintaining the department mailing list)
would like
assistance setting up a mailing list on the list server, please let me
know.

Entered on 09/07/2005 at 18:05:46 by ae:
**An update was made to this Ticket based on an update made through email
to
dynamically-linked Ticket #73754 in Project UCIS-NetSys**

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is no record in the mail log on the SMTP server (to which the
message was first transmitted on its way to IMAP) of Julia Wright's address
having been included as a recipient. This shows that there is not a
problem with the delivery of mail but with its sending.

A curious circumstance is that Julia Wright's address in the text of the
message is the last one in the "To:" list. This suggests that the mail
sending program left off that last address.

It appears from the message ID in the log messages that the sending
program is My Dal WebMail. I'd there foe guess there is a bug in that
program. I'm going to pass this ticket along to Admin. Computing who look
after WebMail.

Entered on 09/07/2005 at 15:46:58 by julia.wright at dal.ca:
I can at least discount b & c: my spam filter is set to send spam to my
spam
folder, and it does that successfully, but the missing e-mails haven't been
delivered to the spam folder; my disk quota is at just 7.11% and this pdf
file
is only about 100KB, so that can't be the problem.

Thanks for your help on this,
Julia

Quoting Computer Centre Help Desk <helpdesk at dal.ca>:

> [Duplicate message snipped]

Entered on 09/07/2005 at 15:37:34 by Christopher Wright:
Copied to UCIS-NetSys as Ticket #73754 by Christopher Wright

Entered on 09/07/2005 at 15:37:14 by Christopher Wright:
I don't see any obvious reason for the message not to have been delivered to
you.
Its curious that some messages arrive and not others.
That suggests
a) Different mailing address lists used to send the message (one with a
problem)
However, I don't see a problem with this one.
b) Spam filtering. The long address list would score high on a spam filter.
However, mail sent from on campus doesn't go through the central spam
filter
and you've checked your spam folder. How do you read your e-mail?
Do you use a program that has its own spam/junk-mail filter?
c) Disk quota. This message had a pdf attachment. If you are hovering on
the
edge of your disk quota that could cause larger messages to be rejected.
However, the sender should receive a report saying the message was not
delivered.

I'm going to link this ticket to our systems staff to take a look at the
problem.

As an aside, the long mail header could be avoided by creating a mailing
list.
Information on the is found at http://www.dal.ca/email, by following the
"Mailing
Lists" link. The direct link to the request form is:
http://ucis.dal.ca/services/email/mailinglistrequestform.html

Entered on 09/07/2005 at 14:00:09 by julia.wright at dal.ca:
Hello,
I'm forwarding you the attached because, for some reason, the original
e-mail
did not reach me. This has happened a few times in the past couple of
months,
always (as far as I know!) with e-mails from Carole Poirier addressed to
the
whole department, like this one. I only found out about them via a
colleague
who could then (as with this e-mail) forward it to me.
I've checked my filters etc., and there's nothing that would block
this--and
I have my filters (spam and otherwise) set to put e-mails into my spam
folder,
and these e-mails have not appeared in that folder.
If you could figure out why these e-mails aren't being delivered, that
would
be a great help--I'm most concerned about what other e-mails might be going
missing. Could it be that the system just gives up after the 20th addressee
or
something?
Thanks,
Julia

----- Forwarded message from Jason.Haslam at dal.ca -----
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2005 13:43:13 -0300
From: Jason Haslam <Jason.Haslam at dal.ca>
Reply-To: Jason Haslam <Jason.Haslam at dal.ca>
Subject: Fwd: A form-fillable travel claim form
To: "Wright, Julia " <julia.wright at dal.ca>

>X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 2.2
>Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 13:37:30 -0300
>From: Carole Poirier <Carole.Poirier at Dal.Ca>
>To: "Barker, William" <william.barker at ukings.ns.ca>,
> "Baxter, John "
> <jbaxter at Dal.Ca>,
> "Bennett, Lyn " <lyn.bennett at Dal.Ca>,
> "Brittan, Alice"
> <abrittan at Dal.Ca>,
> "Choyce, Lesley " <lchoyce at Dal.Ca>,
> "Dawson, Carrie"
> <cvdawson at Dal.Ca>, "Diepeveen, Len " <diepev at Dal.Ca>,
> "Djordjevic, Ivana "
> <IV610512 at Dal.Ca>,
> "Evans, David" <dhevans at Dal.Ca>,
> "Fraser, Graham"
> <ar199 at chebucto.ns.ca>,
> "Furrow, Melissa " <mfurrow at Dal.Ca>,
> "Greenfield,
> Bruce " <greenfld at Dal.Ca>,
> "Haslam, Jason " <jason.haslam at Dal.Ca>,
> "Huebert, Ronald " <rhuebert at Dal.Ca>,
> "Irvine, Dean " <dean.irvine at Dal.Ca>,
> "Keating, Clare " <clarekeating at hfx.eastlink.ca>,
> "Lawrence, Sean "
> <sean.lawrence at Dal.Ca>,
> "Leitch, Rory " <rleitch at Dal.Ca>,
> "Luckyj,
> Christina " <luckyj at Dal.Ca>, "Luo, Shao-Pin " <sluo at Dal.Ca>,
> "MacGregor,
> Tiree " <t.macgregor at Dal.Ca>,
> "Maitzen, Rohan " <rmaitzen at Dal.Ca>,
> "Martin,
> Ann" <ann.martin at Dal.Ca>,
> "Matthias, David " <dmatthia at Dal.Ca>,
> "McNeil,
> David " <dmcneil at Dal.Ca>, "Meek, Heather " <hmeek at Dal.Ca>,
> "Paradis,
> Kenneth " <kenneth.paradis at Dal.Ca>,
> "Robertson, Patricia "
> <ngrobert at Dal.Ca>,
> "Ross, Trevor " <tross at Dal.Ca>, "Stewart, Anthony "
> <afstewar at Dal.Ca>,
> "Stone, Marjorie " <mistone at Dal.Ca>,
> "Swan, Julia "
> <jswan at supercity.ns.ca>,
> "Tetreault, Ronald " <tetro at Dal.Ca>,
> "Thompson,
> Judith " <jthompso at Dal.Ca>,
> "Wainwright, Andrew " <darl at Dal.Ca>,
> "Wright,
> Julia " <julia.wright at Dal.Ca>
>Cc: "Kenney, Martha" <mkenney at Dal.Ca>,
> "MacIsaac, Mary Beth"
> <gradengl at Dal.Ca>,
> "Poirier, Carole " <carole.poirier at Dal.Ca>,
> "Streeter,
> Mark" <jstreete at Dal.Ca>
>Subject: A form-fillable travel claim form
>User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.0.3)
>
>Dear Colleagues:
>
>Julia Wright has passed on to me a form that I think you will
>find useful. It is the form for travel reimbursement, and it will
>be attached to this email, as well as on the hard drive of the
>computers in the main office. As you may recall, the form has
>extremely narrow
>lineation, necessitating a cramped hand and perhaps bifocals. So
>Julia's made it available as a form-fillable document, if you have
>Adobe Acrobat Reader. Here are her instructions:
>
>For some reason, you can't tab through the text boxes in order, but
>clicking your mouse at the start of a line or box where you need to
>type information works just fine. There are form-fillable boxes for
>everything but the signature lines and the grayed-out spaces that we
>don't use. This works in Adobe Reader 4.0 and later. If anyone has
>any problems, just let me know; I'm still new to AdobePro, but I
>might be able to figure out a solution. You can't save the data you
>type in, though, so you have to fill it out all at once and then
>print off a copy for your records.
>
>Best Wishes,
>
>Leonard Diepeveen
>Professor and Chair
>Department of English
>Dalhousie University
>(902) 494-6873
>
>
>
>
>

---------------------------------------------
Click on the titles to see details:
By Jason Haslam:
Fitting
Sentences: Identity in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Prison
Narratives, a monograph forthcoming from the University of Toronto Press,
2005.

Edited by Jason Haslam and Julia M. Wright:
Captivating
Subjects: Writing Confinement, Citizenship, and Nationhood in the
Nineteenth Century, a collection of critical essays available now
(University of Toronto Press, 2005).
--------------------------------------------
Dr. Jason Haslam
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Dalhousie University
6135 University Ave.
Halifax, Nova Scotia
B3H 4P9
http://myweb.dal.ca/~js592681

----- End forwarded message -----

____________________________________
Julia M. Wright
Canada Research Chair in European Studies
Department of English
Dalhousie University
6135 University Ave.
Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4P9
homepage: http://myweb.dal.ca/jl441155 19th-c. Irish Literature:
http://irish-literature.english.dal.ca

Contact Information
Email address julia.wright at dal.ca 

Ticket Information
Via Email 

Attached Files
Filename Size Date
travel-form.fillable1.pdf 98 KB Sep 7 14:00:08 Download

------------------------ Headers of message sent by Andrew Wainwright
-------------

Return-Path: <Andrew.Wainwright at Dal.Ca>
Received: (from apache at localhost)
by KIL-UPT-3.UCIS.Dal.Ca (8.12.11/8.12.11/Submit) id j8FIkdKw020155;
Thu, 15 Sep 2005 15:46:39 -0300
Received: from AWainwright.English.Dal.Ca (AWainwright.English.Dal.Ca
[129.173.64.115]) by my3.dal.ca (Horde MIME library) with HTTP for
<darl at dal.ca>; Thu, 15 Sep 2005 15:46:39 -0300
Message-ID: <20050915154639.g2w4jyvgjs8w40ss at my3.dal.ca>
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 15:46:39 -0300
From: JA Wainwright <Andrew.Wainwright at Dal.Ca>
To: acompton at unbsj.ca
Cc: paulmilton at telus.net, tremblay at stthomasu.ca, creelman at unbsj.ca,
afurlong at upei.ca, alan.young at acadiau.ca, cnicholson at ed.ac.uk,
fuller at hhs.bham.ac.uk, john.baxter at Dal.Ca, carrie.dawson at Dal.Ca
Subject: Literary Atlas
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.0.3)

--------------------- Error Message recived by Andrew.Wainwright
----------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 15:46:39 -0300 [15:46:39 ADT]
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON at KIL-UPT-3.UCIS.Dal.Ca>Add to
Address
book (MAILER-DAEMON at KIL-UPT-3.UCIS.Dal.Ca) Canada
To: Andrew.Wainwright at dal.caAdd to Address book (Andrew.Wainwright at dal.ca)
Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details
Part(s): Download All Attachments (in .zip file)
Headers: Show All Headers
Error 
ERROR: Your message could not be delivered.
The mail server generated the following error message:

The original message was received at Thu, 15 Sep 2005 15:46:39 -0300
from apache at localhost

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
@
(reason: 550 5.1.1 User unknown)

----- Transcript of session follows -----
550 5.1.1 @... User unknown 

Info 
Additional message error details can be viewed HERE.
The text of the returned message can be viewed HERE.

---------------------------

The following fields were incompatible with this project's schema:
Field: Via (Project field not present) 
Original Data: Phone
Field: Phone (Address Book field not present) 
Original Data: 494-2644