Looking for solution for frozen messages

[Andreas Metzler]

On 2026-04-06 Haines Brown via Pkg-exim4-users <pkg-exim4-users at alioth-lists.debian.net> wrote:
> By mistake I sent a message (mutt, fetchmail, exim) that was
> missing a From: line in the header. As the result I'm deluged with
> frozen messages.

> I understand that the command # exiqgrep -z -i | xargs exim -Mrm
> removed all frozen mail. It does so but the broken message
> continues to be received.  

> I went to The "timeout_frozen_after" setting is in
> /etc/exim4/conf.d/main/02_exim4-config_options file and changed
> MAIN_TIMEOUT_FROZEN_AFTER = 7d to 1 hr. That had no effect.

> I purged exim4 and deleted the /etc/exi4 directory. I removed mutt
> and fetchmail but assume that was not necessary. I commended the
> existing mail queue and let exim build another. I rebooted and
> rebuilt my mail system from scratch to no avail.

Hello Haines,

I do not understand.
1. You have frozen messages.
2. you delete them with exim -Mrm.
3. Something continues to inject broken messages into your system, which
get frozen.
4. You re-install without taking care of 3.
5. GOTO 3.

cu Andreas