Subject: addressbook problem on SunOS4 -- long lists

From: "Randall S. Winchester" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 20:33:33 -0400

The following extract from my .addressbook file recreates the problem:

test    test list       (
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked],
   [email-masked])

The problem exists on both SunOS4.1.3 and SunOS4.1.4, and does 
not exist on solaris2.  It does not occur with 41 addresses UNLESS 41 
LINES ARE USED.  just sending mail to [email-masked], 
[email-masked], ... does not cause the problem, apparently because 
pine packs three addresses to a line.  I don't know if 41 is the minimum 
number to see the problem (that's just what I tried), but I know that 
with 41/3 (=14) lines the problem does not occur.

One last clue.  On solaris, when this bounces (as well it should - that's 
what it doesn't do on sunos because it never gets sent) it comes back 
grouped in 4 or so messages.  Perhaps that's why solaris works - for some 
reason it knows to break up messages with large headers.  Just a guess.

Thanks for any insite. All my machines are running the same (current)
sendmail also.

---

From: h9397584@hkusua (Michael Agelasto)
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 1995 08:26:37 GMT

PINE seems to hate long lists.  I tried to send to a list of 500+ and we
got no result.  The To: line was self-addressed and we never received it. 
The list was included in bcc and we got no error message but none of the
intended recipients received the mail.  Subsequently, we divided the list
into 9 sections and mail was successfully delivered and we got bounced
mail messages, etc.  We now use Solaris 2.x which seems to hate long
lists.  We once used  Sun OS4.x and lists of several hundred were ok. 

--
=====================================================================
Michael Agelasto                       Phone: (852) 2858-1914
Department of Education                       (852) 2549-5678 (res)
University of Hong Kong                  Fax: (852) 2857-9279
Hong Kong                              email: [email-masked]
          http://www.hku.hk/educ/michael.htm
=====================================================================

---

From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 13:46:16 -0700 (PDT)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

This is almost certainly a problem with the mail transport and not Pine.
Sendmail is known to have problems when its internal buffers overflow and
other MTAs may have similar problems...

|\ |  |\/|  David L. Miller    [email-masked]  (206) 685-6240
|/ |_ |  |  Software Engineer, Pine Development Team   (206) 685-4045 (FAX)
University of Washington, Networks & Distributed Computing, JE-20
4545 15th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98105, USA