Frozen

[rusticdog]

OK this was fixed about 36 hours ago when I posted, it was only a problem with one of the gateways for about 8-9 hours but Windows caching likely meant that once you hit the problem gateway it would keep happening.

[Spurred On]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Windows caching". On Tuesday after I unticked the Enable FirstAlert! box MailWasher unfroze and displayed my e-mail normally. I then reticked the Enable FirstAlert! box and MailWasher evaluated my e-mail without any problems, meaning that the server problem must have been resolved at that point. I had rebooted before unticking the box, but I had not yet read the post about unticking it, so I tried MailWasher afresh after rebooting. It froze. I closed it, then read the latest post, then unticked the box. If I cleared the cache with rebooting, I would have retainted the cache when I tried MailWasher after rebooting and it froze again.

I don't know if mine was an isolated case or yours was. I'm using XP Pro, and maybe the cache is handled differently in Windows 7. MailWasher has worked flawlessly for me since unticking and reticking the box.

Tony

[rusticdog]

Sorry meant Windows DNS caching.

We have many FA servers, but only one that was failing to properly function, so it was basically chance that determined which FA server you got. However Windows stores the IP of the FA server it finds which I think lasts for an hour. So that would mean you'd keep hitting the same problem server.

[Spurred On]

Thanks for clearing that up. The hour release time is interesting to know. Seems like it'd be handy to be able to manually flush the DNS cache after freezes.

Tony

[anniebrion]

Windows has the command

Code: Select all

ipconfig /flushdns

[rusticdog]

Interestingly the old MailWasher flushes the DNS every time it checks with FirstAlert enabled....something I only realised in testing a couple of weeks ago.

We've got some improvements to make that we've picked up on though, they'd already been made in MailWasher Server Enterprise which uses the same code, just not yet migrated across to this MailWasher

[Spurred On]

We've got some improvements to make . . . just not yet migrated across to this MailWasher

Great! I look forward to the update. Thanks for your ferreting out the source of the problem.

Tony

[Spurred On]

Windows has the command
ipconfig /flushdns

Thanks anniebrion. I've only used the ipconfig command to find the MAC address. Guess I should get more familiar with the syntax and parameters. A handy tool.

Tony

[lin_kot]

I enabled First Alert but it doesn't seem to be working ... most of my incoming isn't being sorted.

[stan_qaz]

lin_kot, Looking at my morning spam run about 50% got tagged by First Alert so it is working here.

I do wish the FA icon had an indication for when the FA check failed instead of just the on the FA list and the inactive state, that would make it easier to see when the FA tool was having problems.

Rusticdog, possibly you could set the TTL on the DNS entry for FA to something shorter than an hour. Server load really shouldn't go up too badly with 10 or 20 minutes. That would keep the ISP caches fresher so when MW flushes and rechecks it would have better odds at getting good data.

[alanwsg]

Has FA gone belly-up again?
MwPro kept freezing on "Evaluating mail", I've tried switching off FA and it seems to be OK.

[Spurred On]

Curiously, MW was stuck at the evaluation stage again on my system just minutes ago. The rest of the program was operating normally, so unticking the FirstAler! box and restarting MW ended the evaluation lockup.

Is the same server down again? Do I have some uncanny knack for always logging into it?

I used the /flushdns parameter with the ipconfig command to flush the DNS, then reopened MailWasher and reticked FirstAlert!, saved it, and tried checking mail again from several accounts. All worked well,including the evaluation process.

Tony

[stan_qaz]

It has nailed several new spam messages here in the last five minutes. May have been from a cached hit though since I have that turned on.

[lin_kot]

MW is stuck again evaluating message ... there are two messages and we're not going anywhere! Needed to use Task Manager ... disabled FirstAlert and now it's working but I have no confidence that MW is checking anything ... doesn't seem to remember flagged/sorted messages.

[stan_qaz]

You can look in the logs and see the first alert checks and results, not a lot of fun but it would tell you if FA is at least checking messages and getting responses.