[CH] RE: What's happening?

Michael Bowers (bowers@elsie.ucdavis.edu)
Thu, 19 Mar 1998 12:19:03 PST 

>>My postings have been dwindling until today when I don't have any.  I
>>suppose I've been unsubscribed against my will!  I'll try to get back on. 
>>I know I'm not the only one but.....WHAT'S HAPPENING OUT THERE?
>
>Things seem to be getting hung up at webhosts.net .  I've put a copy of
>your post below with full headers.  As can be seen it gets to webhosts.net
>fine, but it takes days for it to get out.

	As everyone has probably seen by now, postings to the list have been
delayed.  And, for the last day or two we've seen numerous test posts, 'what
happened?' posts, and multiple repeat postings, sent when posters never saw
their original post.  For the most part, there is NO good reason to post these
types of posts to the list.  All you will ever get back is "yeah, me too" type
posts.  Subscribers to the list can not help figure out what, if anything, 
is going wrong.  All such problem reports should be sent to me, the listowner.

	I'm still not sure what happened, but one reason is due to problems
locating certain systems (DNS lookup problems for the technically minded).  The
happens now and then, but we seem to have had a larger than usual number in the
last week or two.  If a system can't be located, the message is hung for a
time, so that message won't go out to all subscribers in a timely manner.
This time, the sheer number of connection problems resulted in virtually a
complete shutdown of the list.  As I detect these problems (sometimes it is
five days before the error is returned), I remove the offending address, and
future messages are no longer affected.  However, all messages sent in the
meantime will continue to be delayed.  And, if the DNS problem gets resolved
(say, in 4.5 days), the messages will proceed and I will never see a problem.

	I usually don't delete an problem address right away as many problems
are transient.  Exceptions do occur, especially when I will be away, or over
long weekends or holiday periods, when my mailbox may fill up with 400-500 or
more bounced messages.  If you think you are no longer subscribed, please use
the listserver commands to check, or contact me directly.

	Again, please keep the list on topic (chiles!), and please contact me
if you see any problems.  Don't ask the list, only I can help.

Thanks
Mike
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Michael Bowers			  Internet: mkbowers@ucdavis.edu
University of California, Davis   Owner: Chile-Heads mailing list  
Chile Heads URL: http://www.netimages.com/~chile/