Bounces not being deleted

locus

New Member
I have the same problem with the previous poster who said it would take 4 tries to delete all the bounces from the server. It seems that Bounce Handler won't reset it's pointer when new emails arrive in the mailbox. Can you put in an option check box to AUTOMATICALLY reset the mail pointer to 1 EACH TIME eMail Bounce Handler connects to the mailbox? I believe that this will solve the problem..
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
Is eMail Bounce Handler the only software connecting to your POP account at the same time? The problem with pointers happens on that situation. I could add an option to reset pointer each time but it will take a lot of time to process your mailbox then.
 

locus

New Member
Yes, eMail Bounce Handler is the only program accessing the mail box. However, new bounces are still coming in, so it seems that Bounce Handler is missing new emails that are coming in. The mailbox being accessed is ONLY for bounced emails, so there are no legitimate emails there, and I have Bounce Handler go through every email by checking "skip all rules".

I've also noticed that even if no new emails come in while Bounce Handler is accessing the mailbox, like the previous poster said, it will still take 3 or 4 tries before all emails are deleted from the mailbox. Why is this happening?
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
New emails are added to the end of the queue, not the beginning so it doesn't affect eMail Bounce Handler nor any mail reader at all. New emails are always higher than current pointer. If you activate "skip all rules" you will skip a lot of bounces, actually you will skip all the plain text bounces. You should not skip all rules.

What do you mean with "it will still take 3 or 4 tries before all emails are deleted from the mailbox", you have to connect 3 o 4 times to get bounces deleted? Don't you see the DELE commands on the connection log?
 

locus

New Member
Hmmm... I thought that "skip all rules" will mean that bounce handler will treat all emails as bounces and process every email instead of those that only match the rules? The problem is that since I'm in Hong Kong, some of the servers here are in chinese, and send bounces in Big5 or other double byte languages, which are not picked up by the rules... What does "skip all rules" actually do if it doesn't do if it isn't to process all emails?

I did look at the log when it was connecting, and it seems to be deleting the messages, but somehow, some emails would still remain on the server until the next connection from bounce handler... e.g. bounce handler downloads from 1 - 100 mails, even though no new mail seems to be added, there will still be around 50 mails left, then the next time, it will delete about half again, etc...
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
'Skip all rules' means you will catch DSN bounces only. A DSN (Delivery Status Notification) is the most used bounce formatting standard . I guess 50 to 70% bounces are formatted that way nowadays. In other words, if you Skip all rules, you will no longer detect bounces by subject, only DSNs. If you activate all rules you will detect bounces by subject and you will also process DSNs.

About deletion, is eMail Bounce Handler set to connect every xx minutes?
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
eMail Bounce handler disconnects and reconnects every 25 bounces to force the server to delete the messages marked as deleted. I find strange your server is ignoring that and is not deleting those messages. As far as I understand it is what's happening, right?
 
Top