If MAIL8 finds that it can't deliver a particular Outbound message, MAIL8 tells you about the problem. For example, MAIL8 might tell you that the userid you specified as recipient does not exist. This is a very common error that is almost always due to misspelling the recipient's name.
If an Outbound message cannot be delivered, it is called a rejected message. The STATus command shows how many rejected messages you have in your mailbox, and the Summary command shows which messages were rejected. Rejected messages are not deleted. This lets you try to send the message again with the error corrected (e.g., with the proper spelling of the recipient's userid).
If you decide not to try to send a rejected message again, you can just delete it with the usual Delete command.
The misspelled name error is the most common problem, and easy to fix. Below we list more unusual difficulties.
If a user's mailbox file has a maximum size or if the user has reached the maximum amount of disk space he or she is allowed, the mailbox may reach the point where it has no more room for new messages. There are two situations in which this problem may occur.
acce mf /_sysfiles/mail.box,llinks/unlmted/
removes the size limit from your mailbox file.
If people have sent you messages and the messages have been rejected because your mailbox file is full, you will be told how many messages have been rejected when you start a MAIL8 session. You should delete material from your mailbox or increase the file's size so that you can once again receive messages.
Once you have made it possible to receive more messages, you should issue the MAIL8 command
Number +REJected
This sets the count of rejected messages to zero. If you do not issue this command, you will be told about rejected messages every time you start a MAIL8 session.
If you try to send a message and MAIL8 tells you
Mailbox currently busy, retrying...
it means that someone is currently using the mailbox of your intended recipient. This doesn't just mean that the recipient is using MAIL8 -- it means that someone is using the mailbox for a big operation (e.g., copying in a large file). It also could mean that someone has placed the mailbox in his/her AFT for some reason.
If you find that a person's mailbox is busy, the only thing you can do is wait a few moments and then try to send the message again.
Your own mailbox may also be busy briefly during times that you are receiving a large message. Since the mailbox is updated fairly quickly, these busy occasions are rare. MAIL8 automatically retries to send messages for about 40 seconds, before deciding that the mailbox is going to be busy for a long time.
The easiest way to send a message that was rejected because of a busy mailbox is to use the ReMail command. See "expl mail remail" for more details. Another approach is to Print the message into a file, then POST the message from the file (possibly editing the message first).
If you have some problem with your mailbox that you don't understand, try the following MAIL8 commands.
number +all
quit
Once you have quit MAIL8, enter it again with the command
and see if the problem has cleared up.
In the unlikely event that you cannot leave MAIL8, type PANIC in response to MAIL8's prompt for input. This should quit MAIL8 successfully. The PANIC command should never be used under other circumstances.
Whenever you are forced to use PANIC, contact your site administrator and describe the problem.
As you delete messages from your mailbox, space inside the box is made available to hold new messages. Space that is not currently being used to hold messages is still part of the file and still takes up file space. You can use the TSS SHRINK command (from the UW Tools package) to discard unused space in your mailbox file and shrink the file's size. For further information, see "expl shrink".
If you believe you have found a bug in MAIL8, try to recreate the problem with as short an example as possible and submit this example to your Bull HN representative. Also supply the information provided by the command
STATus +Verbose
In the short run, quitting MAIL8 and starting again often makes problems go away.
When you are submitting a bug report, please do so with
option language_key=engl
set (so that diagnostic messages are printed in English). If a bug does not occur when your Language_Key is "engl", it is likely that the error lies in the language diagnostic files created by your site. If a site administrator cannot identify the problem in the language diagnostic files, please submit machine-readable versions of the files along with the bug report.
Copyright © 1997, Thinkage Ltd.