Bug#581694: exim4: change to retry time has no effect

[Mark Hedges]

reopen 581694
thankyou

> On Sat, 15 May 2010, Andreas Metzler wrote:
>
> > On 2010-05-15 Mark Hedges <hedges at scriptdolphin.com> wrote:
> > > I edited /etc/exim4/conf.d/retry/30_exim4-config to this:
> > [...]
> > > # /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf
> > [...]
> > > dc_use_split_config='false'
> >
> > You have been changing the wrong file.
> >
> > http://pkg-exim4.alioth.debian.org/README/README.Debian.html#id303738


I set split configuration, and changed
conf.d/retry/30_exim4-config to read:

   *   *    F,4d,30s

... and ran update-exim4.conf.  But the mail that was in the
queue is still not being sent.
"T=remote_smtp_smarthost_defer (-53): retry time not reached
for any host."

I also went back to unsplit configuration, put this line in
the template, ran update-exim4.conf and verified the new
line appears in /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated ... it
still does not send the queued mail.

I thought maybe this was a separate time value for waiting
on the smarthost that has no configuration, because of the
separate db file
/var/spool/exim4/db/wait-remote_smtp_smarthost, but I tried
removing that alone and its lockfile and restarting exim,
but I get the same error.

It does not get sent until I remove
/var/spool/exim4/db/retry (and lockfile) and restart exim.
Then the message unqueues immediately.

As a wishlist item, it would be cool, when it works, if
there could be separate retry settings for AC or battery.
When I'm on AC I want to try frequently to send mail when I
have a connection.  If I'm on battery, I don't want to keep
the disks spinning, especially when the queue is empty.

Let me know if I can check something else.

Mark