> I mark this thread as finished although mail transmission without encryption is not very secure.

Mail transmission with encryption just between client and server does not help all that much anyway sense it's been traveling over the internet unencrypted.  ;-) To make e-mail secure the content must be encrypted.

Hi,

We are presently using Mercury 4.72. It reliably runs since many years. Beside Mercury S, C, D and I also the Task Scheduler MercuryX is activated. It starts the retrieval of e-mails for all pop3 accounts every 10 minutes for a cycle duration of 90 seconds. Sending and retrieval processes are kept on running as long as all queues are drained. It works fine.

Now I have to minimize the poll cycles so that e-mails reach us much faster, without a delay of 10 minutes between the retrieval periods. Therefore I have set the MercuryX field: "start processes every ?? minutes" to 0 minutes. "0 minutes" means that MercuryX is permanently connected to the internet and checks all of the e-mail accounts permanently one after another. So far so good. It also works but from time to time (one or two times a week) Mercury disappears from the Windows Server 2003 desktop and creates the following error message: "Failed application mercury.exe, Version 4.7.2.0, Failed mercury module mercuryd.dll, Version 4.7.2.0, Error address 0x00019163".

Although Mercury doesn't work anymore, Windows shows that the Mercury Service is still running. Now I have to stop and retstart the Mercury service and all is fine again for the next couple of days until this error repeats.

To solve this problem for the moment, I have set the retrieval frequence to 1 minute for a duration of 20 seconds. It works until now.

Has anybody similiar problems when retrieving e-mails permanently?

Brgds

Joerg

There is a problem with generating file names for temporary files in v4.72 that might cause errors in MercuryD, so I would suggest upgrading to 4.74 as soon as that is out. If you want Mercury to be online constantly you can probably disable MercuryX. MercuryD has a setting for how often it should check for new mail.

/Rolf 

Thanks a lot Rolf. Now I have updated to 4.73 because 4.74 is presently not yet available.

And thanks for the hint that different modules have own timer where the MercuryX Scheduler could be deactivated. I have removed the MercuryX now and set the timer of Mercury C and D to 30 seconds each. It works fine.

Brgds

Joerg

That's me again,

After a few days where Mercury worked fine, it crashes again. I have re-activated Mercury X and it works - for one week. And just in this minute I didn't get access from home to Mercury I (IMAP server) when connected via VPN to the Mercury server at work. After checking the Mercury service I experienced that it was crashed again. But it was not my attempt to get a connection via IMAP because the Windows log said that it crashes much earlier.

The last thing what I had changed in last time was the Mercury D Module where I have changed the retrieving mode from port 110 (unencoded transmission) to protected transmission via port 995 and "SSL with direct connection". May be a bad connection or SSL encryption causes to the Mercury crash. Now I have activated the pop logging of Mercury. Will check the log on the next crash.

Regards

> After a few days where Mercury worked fine, it crashes again. I have re-activated Mercury X and it works - for one week. And just in this
> minute I didn't get access from home to Mercury I (IMAP server) when connected via VPN to the Mercury server at work. After checking the
> Mercury service I experienced that it was crashed again. But it was not my attempt to get a connection via IMAP because the Windows log
> said that it crashes much earlier.

You really do not need to use MercuryX, just set both MercuryD and MercuryC to something other than zero and they should work just fine. I've got MercuryC polling every 30 seconds and MercuryD at 60 seconds.  FWIW, many POP3 servers do not like their client hogging all of the server time and I've found that a number of SMTP host work the same way.  The MercuryP, MercuryI and MercuryS can be on full time waiting for connections from clients.  If you are having problems maintaining a connection to the outside world using a dial-up system though this could be a different story.

Hi Thomas,

this night the Mercury service crashes again at 02:18 during SSL connection to our ISP by Mercury D (POP3 Client). Fortunately I have the log files as follows:

This is a standard connection protocol for a successful connection (user names, password , fingerprint and domain name has been changed by me):

02:18:12.140: --- Sat Nov 26 02:18:12 2011 ---
02:18:12.140: Connect to 'pop.1und1.de', timeout 30.
02:18:13.234: [*] SSL/TLS session established: 3DES, CBC mode, keysize 192 bits
02:18:13.234: [*] Certificate user is cn=pop.1und1.de, o=1 und 1 Internet AG, l=Montabaur, sp=Rheinland-Pfalz, c=DE
02:18:13.234: [*] Certificate is valid from Mon Mar 28 00:00:00 2011 to Mon Apr 02 23:59:59 2012
02:18:13.234: [*] Certificate fingerprint is 0152634CEF86494F1*************
02:18:13.421: >> +OK POP server ready H mibap12<cr><lf>
02:18:13.421: << USER *******@ourdomain.com<cr><lf>
02:18:13.453: >> +OK password required for user "user@ourdomain.com"<cr><lf>
02:18:13.453: << PASS ********<cr><lf>
02:18:13.500: >> +OK mailbox "user@ourdomain.com" has 0 messages (0 octets) H mibap12<cr><lf>
02:18:13.500: << STAT<cr><lf>
02:18:13.531: >> +OK 0 0<cr><lf>
02:18:13.531: << QUIT<cr><lf>
02:18:14.562: >> +OK POP server signing off<cr><lf>
02:18:14.578: --- Connection closed normally at Sat Nov 26 02:18:14 2011. ---
02:18:14.578: 

And here the log of the crashed connection:

02:18:14.578: --- Sat Nov 26 02:18:14 2011 ---
02:18:14.578: Connect to 'pop.1und1.de', timeout 30.
02:18:15.640: 22: Error -10 activating SSL session (locus 6014, type 4, code 0, '')
02:18:15.640: --- Connection closed normally at Sat Nov 26 02:18:15 2011. ---
02:18:15.640:

Any idea why Mercury D crashes when such an error occurs during a SSL connection? May be I should change the connection type from "SSL connection using direct connection" to "SSL encryption using STLS command"  within the user settings of Mercury D?

So far

Brgds

Joerg

> 02:18:14.578: --- Sat Nov 26 02:18:14 2011 ---
> 02:18:14.578: Connect to 'pop.1und1.de', timeout 30.
> 02:18:15.640: 22: Error -10 activating SSL session (locus 6014, type 4, code 0, '')
> 02:18:15.640: --- Connection closed normally at Sat Nov 26 02:18:15 2011. ---
> 02:18:15.640:
>
>
> Any idea why Mercury D crashes when such an error occurs during a SSL
> connection? May be I should change the connection type from "SSL
> connection using direct connection" to "SSL encryption using STLS
> command"  within the user settings of Mercury D?

No idea why the crashes but I would increase the timeout to at least 120 seconds; I use 300 seconds as the default.

In addition you can try using the STLS but it might be that the server finds something wrong with the Mercury SSL/TLS self -signed certificates.  If using STLS does not work then I'd try using Stunnel for Windows with OpenSSL and see if this helps at all.

FWIW I use MercuryD with all sorts of servers using secure connections (my ISP, GMail, Yahoo, Mercury) and I never have a problem with the MercuryD crashing.

Good Morning Thomas,

This night I experienced a crash again. Same problem, same log.

I have searched the forum for that issue and found a lot of other threads in connection with SSL failures and Mercury D:

http://community.pmail.com/forums/thread/8216.aspx

http://community.pmail.com/forums/thread/15955.aspx

http://community.pmail.com/forums/thread/29638.aspx

http://community.pmail.com/forums/thread/21746.aspx

... And this list is not exhaustive! It seems there are some problems in Mercury when attempting to connect to different ISPs via SSL. The problem is that this error occurs only from time to time. Sometimes it works fine over a few weeks, and sometimes it occurs 7 times a week.

Now I switch back to a standard POP3 connection via port 110 without SSL encryption. Could you foreward this issue to David? At least the stability of Mercury should be increased when such error occurs. Mercury should not completely crashing.

Brgds and a nice Sunday

Joerg

Good Morning Thomas,

This night I experienced a crash again. Same problem, same log.

I have searched the forum for that issue and found a lot of other threads in connection with SSL failures and Mercury D:

.../thread/8216.aspx

.../thread/15955.aspx

.../thread/29638.aspx

.../thread/21746.aspx

...

And this list is not exhaustive! It seems there are some problems in

Mercury when attempting to connect to different ISPs via SSL. The

problem is that this error occurs only from time to time. Sometimes it

works fine over a few weeks, and sometimes it occurs 7 times a week.

Now

I switch back to a standard POP3 connection via port 110 without SSL

encryption. Could you foreward this issue to David? At least the

stability of Mercury should be increased when such error occurs. Mercury

should not completely crashing.

Brgds and a nice Sunday

Joerg

sorry for double posting. The last reply should be deleted by the Admin please

> Now I switch back to a standard POP3 connection via port 110 without
> SSL encryption. Could you foreward this issue to David? At least the
> stability of Mercury should be increased when such error occurs.
> Mercury should not completely crashing.

David knows about this problem with the crypto library and self-signed certificates, that's why it is implementing OpenSSL for the next major version of Mercury and Pegasus Mail.  That said, I never see crashes with Mercury using the SSL/TLS even when it fails to connect.  I'm not all that sure that your problem is really related to the SSL/TLS though.

Thanks for your reply and good luck to David.

In case he need our user settings for reconstructing the problem he could get in contact with me. In case it would be helpful, I could also create an e-mail account at our ISP for him for testing.

Since I have switched back to standard POP3 without encryption via port 110 on yesterday afternoon, Mercury runs stable. Will see what happens during the week.

Greetings

Joerg

Hi Thomas,

Last comment for this thread. Since 2 days when I have switched back to port 110 without encryption, Mercury D runs stable without any crashes.

I mark this thread as resolved although mail transmission without encryption is not very secure.

So far.

Brgds

Joerg