MTA process running high

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psmithza
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Apr 19, 2013 12:53 pm

MTA process running high

Post by psmithza »

Yesterday I noticed that the MTA process is running 100% on my server . I do have about 15 filters trying to get rid of the spam could it be that or is there something else wrong.

it seems that it only goes high as soon as i get large emails. I noticed that there would be 3 mb files stuck in the inbound queue of the SMTP service why does this happen ? It takes a good few minutes for the mail to go through if it is big like over a few MB

I really need to sort this out because running at 100% makes everything else slow
At the moment I have reduced the priority of the process so it does not block anything else

Regards

psmithza
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Apr 19, 2013 12:53 pm

Re: MTA process running high

Post by psmithza »

This is a serious issue. Just checked this morning that a 2mb file takes more than 5 mins to get through the MTA and in that time the MTA runs 100% on the cpu
how do i fix this Mailenable ?

psmithza
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Apr 19, 2013 12:53 pm

Re: MTA process running high

Post by psmithza »

My server crashed today because of this problem . It Ran the CPU at 100% so much so that i could not even log in to the machine to do anything

I checked the debug log files and the messages get stuck in the MTA and then the MTA just goes into an infinite loop where it tries to deliver the message

Can mailenable please sort out their problem and get back to me.

psmithza
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Apr 19, 2013 12:53 pm

Re: MTA process running high

Post by psmithza »

How to fix the Mal transfer agent when it runs at 100%

go to servers>localhost>services and connectors>MTA , Rightclick on the MTA service click on properties then change the Maximum threads to 1 , click OK and restart the service
and see how quickly all the mail go out in the Inbound queue

UPDATE**
As soon as i enabled my filters everything grinded back to a halt. My inbound queue once again had a lot of undelivered mails in it and one delivering mail that just is stuck on being delivered
this seems to be a bug in version 8.51 because this never happened in previous versions

psmithza
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Apr 19, 2013 12:53 pm

Re: MTA process running high

Post by psmithza »

My last fix i posted is not working . Mailenable is still running 100% when someone sends a mail and the mail still gets stuck in the smtp/inbound folder
only way it does not get stuck is if i disable all of my filters
if i do that the server gets swamped by spam

Guess it is time to look for something better than mailenable
that can handle the load because receiving ten emails and hanging up the system is not handling the load

dcol
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri May 26, 2017 11:25 pm

Re: MTA process running high

Post by dcol »

I know this is an old thread, but I am also seeing the MTA service pegged at 100%.

Any resolutions?

MailEnable-Ian
Site Admin
Posts: 9738
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2004 4:44 am
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Re: MTA process running high

Post by MailEnable-Ian »

Hi,

What version of MailEnable Professional are you running? Are you running MTA pickup events? If so try and disable them to see if the high CPU drops. Do you have many filters configured?
Regards,

Ian Margarone
MailEnable Support

dcol
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri May 26, 2017 11:25 pm

Re: MTA process running high

Post by dcol »

MailEnable Enterprise 10.14
I have 9 filters and a pickup for attachments.
I restarted the MTA service and the CPU usage dropped to normal.
I am monitoring the MTA service with an app that will alert me if it happens again.

Is this too many filters? Running a pretty fast server with SSD's and lots of memory and dual Xeon's 16 cores.

MailEnable-Ian
Site Admin
Posts: 9738
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2004 4:44 am
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Re: MTA process running high

Post by MailEnable-Ian »

Hi,

Is this a custom pickup event for attachment filtering? Perhaps the pickup event is causing problems. As mentioned try and disable it for a day to see if the problems persist.
Regards,

Ian Margarone
MailEnable Support

dcol
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri May 26, 2017 11:25 pm

Re: MTA process running high

Post by dcol »

Been running that pickup event for a month or so and this is the only time I saw this. Could have been going on for a while. Noticed it when I went into the manager today to change some settings and the system was lagging real bad.
I don't see any pickup events in the MTA log. Should I?

I will let it run and see if my alert app, which also restarts the MTA service and notifies me, happens again.
The pickup is an attachment filter from your add-in page - pickup2.vbs. Just modified the folder names.

MailEnable-Ian
Site Admin
Posts: 9738
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2004 4:44 am
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Re: MTA process running high

Post by MailEnable-Ian »

Hi,

Is the pickup event simply triggering on specific attachment types in messages? If so then why not disable the pickup event and create filter instead using criteria "where message contains attachments"?
Regards,

Ian Margarone
MailEnable Support

dcol
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri May 26, 2017 11:25 pm

Re: MTA process running high

Post by dcol »

The attachment filter does not have the ability to strip the attachment. But I setup one that quarantines the email and sends a notification to the recipient. If there was a move attachment action, that would solve having to use the pickup event.

Do you not recommend using pickup events?

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