I'm running an email list on mailman3.
My users are getting inundated by messages saying that their subscriptions have been disabled due to their bounce score exceeding the mailing list's bounce_score_threshold.
But there is nothing wrong with these users' email accounts. They are all perfectly fine. Apparently the issue is somehow related to spam.
Whenever I (as admin) get these emails, I just unsubscribe the user and then re-subscribe them. But also, the user gets confused and emails me about it, which unnecessarily takes up their time and mine.
The relevant list settings are currently... bounce score threshold: 5 bounce info stale after: 7d bounce disabled warning interval: 7d bounce disable warnings: 5
What's the best way to fix this? I'm considering reducing "bounce info stale after" to "2d" and/or increasing "bounce disabled warning interval" to "90d".
On 6/16/23 19:20, Mike Wertheim wrote:
I'm running an email list on mailman3.
My users are getting inundated by messages saying that their subscriptions have been disabled due to their bounce score exceeding the mailing list's bounce_score_threshold.
But there is nothing wrong with these users' email accounts. They are all perfectly fine. Apparently the issue is somehow related to spam.
Is spam being posted to your list? If so, you should ensure that Default action to take when a member posts to the list is set to Hold for moderation so that spammers can't subscribe to your list and post without the post being reviewed by a moderator. Then if the post is on topic, the moderator can set the user's moderation action to Default processing when accepting the post so subsequent posts won't be held.
Also set verp_probes: yes in the [mta] section of mailman.cfg. Then
when a user's score reaches threshhold, a probe message is sent and
delivery is only disabled if the probe bounces which it probably won't
if the issue is spam bounces.
Whenever I (as admin) get these emails, I just unsubscribe the user and then re-subscribe them. But also, the user gets confused and emails me about it, which unnecessarily takes up their time and mine.
That should be unnecessary. Just click on the member in the members list and set the member's Delivery status to Enabled. However, this may not work because of https://gitlab.com/mailman/mailman/-/issues/1061 which is not fixed until the next release, but enabling verp_probes will avoid that issue.
The relevant list settings are currently... bounce score threshold: 5 bounce info stale after: 7d bounce disabled warning interval: 7d bounce disable warnings: 5
What's the best way to fix this? I'm considering reducing "bounce info stale after" to "2d" and/or increasing "bounce disabled warning interval" to "90d".
Increasing "bounce disabled warning interval" or "bounce disable warnings" won't help because the user's delivery will still be disabled. It will just take longer for them to eventually be removed. Reducing "bounce info stale after" to "2d" might help as long as the list gets good posts more frequently than that, but the best way to deal with this is to enable verp_probes and then only consider other things if that doesn't help.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Thanks for the response.
A while back I experimented with enabling verp-probes. The users on the list were confused by the probe emails and sent me a lot of messages asking about them, so I disabled it.
There is zero spam on the list. Ill try reducing "bounce info stale after" to "2d". (Actually, would "1d" be even better?)
On Fri, Jun 16, 2023 at 7:46 PM Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> wrote:
On 6/16/23 19:20, Mike Wertheim wrote:
I'm running an email list on mailman3.
My users are getting inundated by messages saying that their subscriptions have been disabled due to their bounce score exceeding the mailing list's bounce_score_threshold.
But there is nothing wrong with these users' email accounts. They are all perfectly fine. Apparently the issue is somehow related to spam.
Is spam being posted to your list? If so, you should ensure that Default action to take when a member posts to the list is set to Hold for moderation so that spammers can't subscribe to your list and post without the post being reviewed by a moderator. Then if the post is on topic, the moderator can set the user's moderation action to Default processing when accepting the post so subsequent posts won't be held.
Also set
verp_probes: yesin the [mta] section of mailman.cfg. Then when a user's score reaches threshhold, a probe message is sent and delivery is only disabled if the probe bounces which it probably won't if the issue is spam bounces.Whenever I (as admin) get these emails, I just unsubscribe the user and then re-subscribe them. But also, the user gets confused and emails me about it, which unnecessarily takes up their time and mine.
That should be unnecessary. Just click on the member in the members list and set the member's Delivery status to Enabled. However, this may not work because of https://gitlab.com/mailman/mailman/-/issues/1061 which is not fixed until the next release, but enabling verp_probes will avoid that issue.
The relevant list settings are currently... bounce score threshold: 5 bounce info stale after: 7d bounce disabled warning interval: 7d bounce disable warnings: 5
What's the best way to fix this? I'm considering reducing "bounce info stale after" to "2d" and/or increasing "bounce disabled warning interval" to "90d".
Increasing "bounce disabled warning interval" or "bounce disable warnings" won't help because the user's delivery will still be disabled. It will just take longer for them to eventually be removed. Reducing "bounce info stale after" to "2d" might help as long as the list gets good posts more frequently than that, but the best way to deal with this is to enable verp_probes and then only consider other things if that doesn't help.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Mailman-users mailing list -- mailman-users@mailman3.org To unsubscribe send an email to mailman-users-leave@mailman3.org https://lists.mailman3.org/mailman3/lists/mailman-users.mailman3.org/ Archived at: https://lists.mailman3.org/archives/list/mailman-users@mailman3.org/message/...
This message sent to mike.wertheim@gmail.com
On 6/16/23 20:04, Mike Wertheim wrote:
Thanks for the response.
A while back I experimented with enabling verp-probes. The users on the list were confused by the probe emails and sent me a lot of messages asking about them, so I disabled it.
But at least their delivery wasn't being disabled because the probes weren't being bounced.
Further, the first sentence in the body of the probe is
"This is a probe message. You can ignore this message."
If you think the probe could be more explanatory, you can always set a list:user:notice:probe template to say what you want.
There is zero spam on the list. Ill try reducing "bounce info stale after" to "2d". (Actually, would "1d" be even better?)
Suppose you set it to 1d. This means that in order for a true bouncing user to have delivery disabled with threshold = 5 There have to be posts every day for 5 consecutive days. If it's set to 2d, there can only be one day out of 6 with no posts for a true bouncing user's delivery to be disabled. If you can't guarantee that condition, you might as well just set Process Bounces to No.
I would ensure Notify owner on bounce increment and Notify owner on disable are set to Yes. Then, assuming Mailman core >= 3.3.5, when users scores are incremented the owner will get a notice containing the bounce DSN. With that information, you can figure out why these valid addresses are bouncing the mail. Or, if the bounces occur during your outgoing SMTP, your MTA logs will have the reason. Given that information, you may be able to fix whatever is causing the delivery issue.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Mike Wertheim writes:
I'm running an email list on mailman3.
My users are getting inundated by messages saying that their subscriptions have been disabled due to their bounce score exceeding the mailing list's bounce_score_threshold.
But there is nothing wrong with these users' email accounts. They are all perfectly fine. Apparently the issue is somehow related to spam.
You don't say, but I assume you've checked and the users are actually disabled?
Are these users on Office365 or related MSFT product? My employer switched from Sendmail inhouse to Microsoft-hosted Exchange/Outlook, and ever since I'm getting scores of these:
From: Microsoft Outlook <MicrosoftExchange@O365tsukuba.onmicrosoft.com> To: <turnbull.stephen.fw@u.tsukuba.ac.jp> Subject: Undeliverable: Clinical Studies enrolling now - Get Paid! Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2023 01:50:44 +0000 Message-ID: <REDACTED>
Your message to turnbull.stephen.fw@u.tsukuba.ac.jp couldn't be delivered. When Office 365 tried to send your message, the receiving email server outside Office 365 reported an error. turnbull.stephen.fw Office 365 turnbull.stephen.fw Sender Action Required Policy violation or system error
These spam messages are all allegedly from *me* to *me*! It turns out that they're being rejected at *another* O365 site. The original From is something else (not sure if it's relevant), the original "to" is a virtual mailbox of mine that the site forwards to me, and by the time they get forwarded to me O365 manages to completely confuse itself.
They all go through my local Postfix and just end up in my spam folder, but clearly O365 is really broken when it comes to filtering and delivery status notification. Because I have control of my local mail system and just use O365 as the border MX, I haven't bothered to see if I can automate beyond filtering into the same cessbucket as the other spam, but maybe there's a hint for filtering out these bogus bounces.
@Mark I've been seeing an unusual number of disabled subscriptions on python.org and mailman3.org lists recently. Maybe we should look into this. If you haven't seen this O365 breakage, I can send you some samples.
Steve
-- Friends don't let friends use Microsoft Exchange.
On 6/16/23 22:14, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
@Mark I've been seeing an unusual number of disabled subscriptions on python.org and mailman3.org lists recently. Maybe we should look into this. If you haven't seen this O365 breakage, I can send you some samples.
I haven't noticed this. I do receive notices when delivery is disabled, and I generally look at the attached DSN, and I don't recall any that have this issue.
We do have an issue with mailman-users@mailman3.org messages for five users in the outlook.com, msn.com and hotmail.es domains. These are all since the server was moved last month and are all for the reason
550 5.7.1 Unfortunately, messages from [165.227.190.41] weren't sent. Please contact your Internet service provider since part of their network is on our block list (S3140). You can also refer your provider to http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors. [VI1EUR05FT020.eop-eur05.prod.protection.outlook.com 2023-06-17T05:14:54.401Z 08DB6E025E06C828]
with differences only in the bracketed part at the end.
The same five addresses keep getting disabled because I keep re-enabling them, and I have contacted Microsoft about this, so far with no results.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
participants (3)
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Mark Sapiro -
Mike Wertheim -
Stephen J. Turnbull