Cute, you don't like my message, so I'm bounced as not subscribed

[Duncan]

Gene Heskett posted on Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:50:23 -0500 as excerpted:

> On Thursday 15 November 2012 15:46:11 Duncan did opine:
> 
>> Anne Wilson posted on Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:59:19 +0000 as excerpted:
>> > Besides, the fact that others can see the messages he says are
>> > missing suggests that it has nothing to do with the servers.
>> 
>> He says he re-sent.  I only see the one copy.  So I'm guessing the
>> first copy did simply disappear into the aether, and it's the re-send
>> we are seeing.
>> 
> Yes, I verified the headers were correct, and re-sent from my sent-mail
> folder.  That message then did not bounce, and was received by all
> AFAIK.
> 
>> Of course where in the aether it went is open to question.  My theory
>> assumes it actually got to the listserv and it dropped the first post.
>> But without access to the listserv logs (assuming it logs such drops),
>> we don't know.

Just a followup.  I had forgotten that you actually got a bounce from the 
listserv and the above assumed the message simply disappeared.  But 
another reply reminded me that you got a bounce, which means the listserv 
saw the message or it couldn't have bounced it saying you needed to be 
subscribed.

And if you reset directly from the outbox, without changing the from, and 
it showed up, that means that you obviously ARE subscribed, and the 
listserv apparently simply "forgot" that, for the first message.

But computers aren't supposed to "forget" such things, and then remember 
them again, as it did with the second.

Which leaves a very limited set of possibilities.  The only two I know of 
that make sense at all, are that the database was temporarily unavailable 
the first time (maybe taken offline for a backup), then brought back into 
service, but the listserv itself wasn't taken out of service so it 
thought saw the missing database as an unsubscribed address (but if so, 
why haven't Anne or I seen similar issues?), OR... my original theory, 
that the listserv deactivates subscriber addresses after a period of 
inactivity, as a spam control measure or the like.

Maybe there's other explanations, but they have to account for the 
message actually getting to the listserv to generate a "must be 
subscribed" bounce the first time, AND the same message using the same 
address getting thru, the second time.

Oh, just thought of one more possibility.  Maybe there were listserv 
hardware problems, and a normally "open" list was restored as 
"subscription required", then fairly quickly set back to open, and Gene's 
first post happened to hit during the "subscription required" time.  If 
his subscription had gotten lost somewhere over time (or a different 
address was subscribed), but mine and anne's hadn't, we'd have never 
noticed a thing.  And if it's normally an open list, temporarily set to 
subscription only due to a restore or some such, that would explain the 
temporary error gene got the first time.

But that still doesn't explain this happening once every few months, 
unless Gene's simply unlucky enough to hit a regular maintenance window 
once every few months.  But maybe it's different problems...

But as long as it's working now... <rhetorically cross fingers>

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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