I am stumped.

Sendmail seems to be loosing emails sent to a single user and I can't figure out why. This user has had a similar problem in the past, but it seemed to be only one email one time 6 months ago. In the last 3 days, he has lost 3-4 emails that we know of.

I have verified that the email was sent to him, but it was not received.

Here is the maillog for this particular email:

May 31 18:58:45 <SERVERNAME> sm-mailscanner[8575]: n4VNwjfP008575: from=<SENDER@MYDOMAIN.COM>, size=14511, class=0, nrcpts=5,msgid=<--Deleted-->, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=OUTSIDEDOMAIN.COM [255.255.255.255]
May 31 18:59:18 <SERVERNAME> sendmail[8624]: n4VNwjfP008575: to=<RECIPIENT1@MYDOMAIN.COM>, ctladdr=<SENDER@MYDOMAIN.COM> (2008/1000), delay=00:00:33, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=254511, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent
May 31 18:59:18 <SERVERNAME> sendmail[8624]: n4VNwjfP008575: to=<RECIPIENT2@MYDOMAIN.COM>, ctladdr=<SENDER@MYDOMAIN.COM> (2008/1000), delay=00:00:33, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=254511, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent
May 31 18:59:18 <SERVERNAME> sendmail[8624]: n4VNwjfP008575: to=<RECIPIENT3@MYDOMAIN.COM>, ctladdr=<SENDER@MYDOMAIN.COM> (2008/1000), delay=00:00:33, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=254511, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent
May 31 18:59:18 <SERVERNAME> sendmail[8624]: n4VNwjfP008575: to=<RECIPIENT4@MYDOMAIN.COM>, ctladdr=<SENDER@MYDOMAIN.COM> (2008/1000), delay=00:00:33, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=254511, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent
May 31 18:59:18 <SERVERNAME> sendmail[8624]: n4VNwjfP008575: to=<RECIPIENT5@MYDOMAIN.COM>, ctladdr=<SENDER@MYDOMAIN.COM> (2008/1000), delay=00:00:33, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=254511, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent


So, This email had 5 recipients, RECIPIENT1 was the only one NOT to receive the email (i ran grep against all the mail files and 4 people had it, just not RECIPIENT1).

Why would it say SENT in the stat for RECIPIENT1 and yet its not in the mail file in /var/mail/recipient1?

Our system setup is not simple, but not overly complicated either. We have a relay set up from another out of state office to our main email server (just in case the main server is unreachable). We run dovecot and sendmail on slackware 10.2.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I am totally stumped as to where to look and what to look at. I have increased the log level for sendmail, but that will only tell me what happens after he looses the next email.

Thank you for your help!

Well I think I figured it out.

There is a .procmailrc file in his home directory. That had a spam filter in it and the emails were inadvertently triggering the spam filter. (looks like the former IT person had applied it, but the filter matched too many emails).

I located where the emails ended up and they dated back to over a year ago. They were mostly spam anyway.

Thanks for reporting back the issue you located, and not leaving the thread dangling.. Much appreciated.


Oh, and Welcome to Linuxquestions.org. maybe we'll be able to help with your next issue