Rules not working as expected

[David Anderson]

I have created a text file from a folder of bounce messages in Outlook. 'Dredging' this file with EBH has created a list of 526 email addresses but this list is incomplete.

I have bounce messages with a subject line of 'Delivery Status Notification (Failure)' and a rule that looks for any subject containing that text - but the dredging process does not pick up the email addresses in those messages.

What might be going wrong?

David

 

[stanbusk]

And all those addresses have a count of '1'?

 

[David Anderson]

For my purposes, I'm not too concerned about the count. However, the address I checked in detail was listed more than once in my text file.

My problem is that there are many addresses that simply don't get picked up even once by dredging the text file.

 

[stanbusk]

How do you know addresses are not extracted? Note that rules have no effect on DSN bounces. DSN bounces use a standard format and only the address in the DSN format is extracted.

 

[David Anderson]

At the moment, my understanding of EBH is very basic, which may explain why I don't really understand your reply.

Please give me the 'EBH for Dummies' version of what you were trying to tell me!

David

 

[David Anderson]

At the moment, I am assuming that a dredging session will apply the listed rules to that document and the extracted email addresses will then appear in the Bounce tab window. Is that not correct?

 

[stanbusk]

eMail Bounce Handler looks if the bounce is a DSN, if it is, since it is a standard format, the address is extracted from DSN text. If the bounce is not a DSN then rules are used. Rules are never used for DSNs.

 

[David Anderson]

I'm completely lost. Please tell me if what I said in my last post is a valid understanding of how dredging works. If not, then how does it work?

If rules dont affect this process why do the standard rules contain a reference to 'Delivery Status Notification'?

 

[stanbusk]

The fact a message has a subject of 'Delivery Status Notification' doesn't mean it is a standard DSN! It is just a subject. Most will be indeed standard DSNs others will not, this is the reason why I included it in the rules, to catch the ones that are not standards.

 

[David Anderson]

How do you know addresses are not extracted? Note that rules have no effect on DSN bounces. DSN bounces use a standard format and only the address in the DSN format is extracted.

When all else fails, read the instructions...

I have had a proper look at your user guide and now understand the distinction between standard DSNs and other bounce messages. Apologies for asking some silly questions.

However, I still have a problem. You asked me how I knew that addresses were not extracted. My answer is that they did not appear in the bounce list.

To quote your user guide:
eMail Bounce Handler checks each available message from the given source using all active rules. If one or more rules are met, the message is processed, the email address is extracted and added to the bounce list.

David

 

[stanbusk]

Yes, the last paragraph applies to non-standard bounces. I have to correct the sentence.

Can you give me the full raw source of a bounce that is not being processed?

 

[David Anderson]

Here are three bounce messages, covering two different addresses for the same person (with addresses modified for anti-spam reasons). Neither address was captured by the dredging process.



----------------------------------------------------
From: postmaster@Hotel
Sent: 01 February 2011 15:53
To: [email protected]
Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
Attachments: details.txt; 2011 ZZZZZ ZZZZZ ZZZZZ - Second Reminder (6.65 KB)

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

[email protected]


----------------------------------------------------
From: Mail Delivery System [[email protected]]
Sent: 24 January 2011 14:22
To: [email protected]
Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
Attachments: details.txt; 2011 ZZZZZ ZZZZZ ZZZZZ - First Reminder (7.49 KB)

The following message to <[email protected]> was undeliverable.
The reason for the problem:
5.1.0 - Unknown address error 550-'Mailbox is inactive'


----------------------------------------------------
From: postmaster@Hotel
Sent: 24 January 2011 14:22
To: [email protected]
Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
Attachments: details.txt; 2011 ZZZZZ ZZZZZ ZZZZZ - First Reminder (6.54 KB)

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

[email protected]

 

[stanbusk]

Attach each bounce raw sources as files to this thread.

 

[David Anderson]

My 'raw source' is an Outlook folder of bounce messages. I selected all these messages and saved them to a text file for my dredging operation.

For my previous post, I copied the total content of 3 of those messages to another file and made edits only to fudge the addresses.

I tried to attach that file to this post but got an error saying 'The extension txt is not allowed'. I then tried attaching the file without any extension but that was also rejected. I give up. Please tell me how to attach my file!

David