Conference forty2::mailbus_400

3123.0. "MTA NCL command hangs, max mess processors workaround" by ZUR01::ASHG (Grahame Ash @RLE) Wed Jan 29 1997 15:14

Has anyone seen anything like this before?

Running the V2 MTA on VMS V6.2 and DECnet V6.3 ECO5.

Any NCL command to the MTA hangs. The MTA$SERVER process is in HIB. 

When I first looked at this there were about 100 message files in the STABLE 
directories. I stopped the MTA and restarted it. It worked for only a few 
seconds (if that) and stopped.

No events, the MTA seemed to think it had nothing to do. 

Evetually I tried starting the MTA with Maximum Message Processors set to 1 
(previously it was set to the default 6). This time it was OK, and eventually 
the backlog was cleared.

Can anyone explain this? Can the MTA get into this state if it has a backlog 
in the stable directories?

Any suggestions as to what to look at if it happens again? e.g. in SDA?

Thanks,

grahame