Trouble Sending or Receiving Emails
Known issues
Emails are not delivered to an existing address
Symptoms: emails are not delivered to an existing address and the sender does not receive any error messages
Cause: a change in the email address (e.g. after a username has been changed) has not been correctly reported by the system in the postfix maps
Resolution: regenerate Postfix maps by going to the admin console > System Management > Mail Maintenance > click on the "Run" button:
There is no need to restart the service, changes are effective immediately.
If this doesn't solve the problem, see the paragraphs below for further investigations.
Checking for incoming emails on the server
There are several reasons why an email message that is supposed to have arrived may not be in the user's mailbox.
- The message has been blocked by an antispam before arriving on the BlueMind server. In that case, you must check your antispam solution's logs
- The message is stuck in the BlueMind server's postfix queue. This typically happens when a user's usage quota is full. The message will be held in the postfix queue for 3 days. If after 3 days the server hasn't been able to deliver it, a non-delivery message will be sent to the sender. You can check whether the message is in the postfix queue using the command:
[root@bluemind ~]# postqueue -p
-Queue ID- --Size-- ----Arrival Time---- -Sender/Recipient-------
4E4D83AF8E 943 Thu Mar 2 07:10:58 full@bluemind.net
(host 192.168.124.72[192.168.124.72] said: 452 4.2.2 Over quota SESSIONID=<cyrus-4311-1488438658-1> (in reply to RCPT TO command))
full@bluemind.net
To release the message, you can either ask the user to delete some emails, or increase their quota, then wait for the message to be delivered or force postfix to try to deliver messages again using the command postqueue -f
If the email message is not stuck, you can find traces of its arrival in the postfix logs (/var/log/maillog or /var/log/mail.log):
Mar 1 20:45:32 bluemind postfix/lmtp[16928]: C5BF3135FAF: to=<user@bluemind.net>, relay=192.168.124.72[192.168.124.72]:2400, delay=0.32, delays=0.21/0.02/0.01/0.09, dsn=2.1.5, status=sent (250 2.1.5 Ok SESSIONID=<cyrus-12823-1488397532-1>)
This log line shows that the message with ID number C5BF3135FAF has indeed been delivered to the inbox of 'user@bluemind.net' on 1 March at 20:45 hrs.
You can find more details about the message, including the sender's address by searching the message-id:
[root@bluemind ~]# grep C5BF3135FAF /var/log/maillog
Mar 1 20:45:32 bluemind postfix/smtpd[16923]: C5BF3135FAF: client=smtp.domain.net[192.168.120.30]
Mar 1 20:45:32 bluemind postfix/cleanup[16927]: C5BF3135FAF: message-id=<AM5PR04MB3219A293B59D96973D338B01D2290>
Mar 1 20:45:32 bluemind postfix/qmgr[364]: C5BF3135FAF: from=<user2@domain.net>, size=8386, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Mar 1 20:45:32 bluemind postfix/lmtp[16928]: C5BF3135FAF: to=<user@bluemind.net>, relay=192.168.124.72[192.168.124.72]:2400, delay=0.32, delays=0.21/0.02/0.01/0.09, dsn=2.1.5, status=sent (250 2.1.5 Ok SESSIONID=<cyrus-12823-1488397532-1>)
Mar 1 20:45:32 bluemind postfix/qmgr[364]: C5BF3135FAF: removed
In this case, you can see that user2@domain.net is the sender of message AM5PR04MB3219A293B59D96973D338B01D2290 and it has been delivered to your user.
The message-id is the unique message identifier and it is found in the email header.
Tracking email history
The bm-cli commands history-imap and history-query used below do not work with shared mailboxes (mailshares).
For a known email address
Once you've found the message ID (see above), you can use bm-cli to view a messages' movements history:
bm-cli mail history-imap --email <email> --imapUid <imapUid>
Where:
- email: the user's email address
- imapUid: the message ID, found through the logs or present on the server in the user's folder
For example:
[root@centos7 test]# bm-cli mail history-imap --email john.test@local.lan --imapUid 1
+------------------------------+---------+--------------------+---------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------------+
| Date | Type | Owner | Folder-UID | Folder | Item/IMAP-UID | Flags |
+------------------------------+---------+--------------------+---------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------------+
| Thu Jun 13 13:11:14 GMT 2019 | Created | John Test (USER) | mbox_records_nqjg0zo2avnp9p8i121e8czq | INBOX | 12617. | |
+------------------------------+---------+--------------------+---------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------------+
| Thu Jun 13 13:11:25 GMT 2019 | Updated | John Test (USER) | mbox_records_nqjg0zo2avnp9p8i121e8czq | INBOX | 12617. | Seen,Important |
+------------------------------+---------+--------------------+---------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------------+
| Thu Jun 13 13:11:25 GMT 2019 | Created | admin admin (USER) | mbox_records_xyum8ijpaahokdnpnhvr6vwp | Trash | 12617. | |
+------------------------------+---------+--------------------+---------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------------+
| Thu Jun 13 13:11:25 GMT 2019 | Updated | John Test (USER) | mbox_records_nqjg0zo2avnp9p8i121e8czq | INBOX | 12617. | Deleted |
+------------------------------+---------+--------------------+---------------------------------------+--------+---------------+----------------+
Using a keyword search
The CLI can also be used to search by keyword:
bm-cli mail history-query --email <email> --query <query>
In the example below, we're going to look for a user's reminder emails to see if they've been received/moved/deleted:
# bm-cli mail history-query --email jdoe@blue-mind.net --query Rappel
+------------------------------+---------+-----------------+---------------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+-------+
| Date | Type | Owner | Folder-UID | Folder | Item/IMAP-UID | Flags |
+------------------------------+---------+-----------------+---------------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+-------+
| Sat Apr 13 06:45:17 GMT 2019 | Created | John Doe (USER) | mbox_records_0ad3865e-6336-4c98-b4b8-1706fc05e73f | INBOX | 7. | |
+------------------------------+---------+-----------------+---------------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+-------+
+------------------------------+---------+-----------------+---------------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+--------------+
| Date | Type | Owner | Folder-UID | Folder | Item/IMAP-UID | Flags |
+------------------------------+---------+-----------------+---------------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+--------------+
| Sun Apr 14 06:45:18 GMT 2019 | Created | John Doe (USER) | mbox_records_0ad3865e-6336-4c98-b4b8-1706fc05e73f | INBOX | 8. | |
+------------------------------+---------+-----------------+---------------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+--------------+
| Thu Jun 13 14:09:35 GMT 2019 | Updated | John Doe (USER) | mbox_records_0ad3865e-6336-4c98-b4b8-1706fc05e73f | INBOX | 8. | |
+------------------------------+---------+-----------------+---------------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+--------------+
| Thu Jun 13 14:09:41 GMT 2019 | Created | John Doe (USER) | mbox_records_6330f080-7b22-4a9d-b181-7ca99e226878 | Trash | 3. | Seen |
+------------------------------+---------+-----------------+---------------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+--------------+
| Thu Jun 13 14:09:42 GMT 2019 | Updated | John Doe (USER) | mbox_records_0ad3865e-6336-4c98-b4b8-1706fc05e73f | INBOX | 8. | Seen,Deleted |
+------------------------------+---------+-----------------+---------------------------------------------------+--------+---------------+--------------+
- One email (id 7) has just been received, it is still in the user's inbox and it hasn't been read
- Another email (id 8) has been read and moved to the trash:
- it is copied to the trash and its id becomes 3
- the original, with id 8, is removed from the inbox
- both versions are marked as read
In another example, you can see that the email with id 7 is "gone":
# bm-cli mail history-imap --email jdoe@blue-mind.net --imapUid 7
+------------------------------+---------+------------------------+---------------------------------------------------+------------+---------------+--------------+
| Date | Type | Owner | Folder-UID | Folder | Item/IMAP-UID | Flags |
+------------------------------+---------+------------------------+---------------------------------------------------+------------+---------------+--------------+
| Sat Apr 13 06:45:17 GMT 2019 | Created | John Doe (USER) | mbox_records_0ad3865e-6336-4c98-b4b8-1706fc05e73f | INBOX | 7. | |
+------------------------------+---------+------------------------+---------------------------------------------------+------------+---------------+--------------+
| Thu Jun 13 14:09:42 GMT 2019 | Updated | John Doe (USER) | mbox_records_0ad3865e-6336-4c98-b4b8-1706fc05e73f | INBOX | 7. | |
+------------------------------+---------+------------------------+---------------------------------------------------+------------+---------------+--------------+
| Thu Jun 13 14:13:54 GMT 2019 | Created | projet (MAILSHARE) | mbox_records_32d9e5e24fb3a25a | projet | 56. | |
+------------------------------+---------+------------------------+---------------------------------------------------+------------+---------------+--------------+
| Thu Jun 13 14:13:55 GMT 2019 | Updated | John Doe (USER) | mbox_records_0ad3865e-6336-4c98-b4b8-1706fc05e73f | INBOX | 7. | Seen,Deleted |
+------------------------------+---------+------------------------+---------------------------------------------------+------------+---------------+--------------+
→ the email has been moved to the shared mailbox named "project":
- the email is created in this mailbox, where its id becomes 56
- the original is marked as read and removed from the user's mailbox
In this particular instance, the email message isn't copied to the trash and the file no longer appears on the server as it is not a deletion as such but a message being moved to another folder, even though it is a shared folder.
Restore
Thanks to the double bottom trash can, it is possible to restore deleted messages. For more information on the procedure, consult the page Restoring messages deleted by a user.