mailinglist.db loading during SmarterMail startup - making startup process quite long

Problem reported by Webio - 4/10/2016 at 9:32 PM

Submitted

Hello,

I'm almost sure that I was reporting this but it was probably on previous forums. I would like to ask about and report that when SmarterMail is starting it reads all mail domain mailinglist.db files. I'm wondering if we could just skip this process and load this file on demand? I have 4.3k mail domains and startup process is taking 15-20 minutes only because SmarterMail reads all of this files. Funny thing is that almost (I would say 99%) of my users are not using this function of SM at all. Their domain folders hold the same mailinglist.db file which size is about 43kB. Probably it's empty sqlite DB. Can SmarterMail be changed to check if mailinglist file has been modified from list time it was accessed (so maybe store last modification date) and then load this file during startup? From time to time when I'm having some problems with SM and I need to restart it during the day having 15 minute gap in mail server functioning is causing few calls and support tickets (32k mail accounts) and this is only because of mailinglist.db fiel loading during startup.

Regards

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Webio Replied

4/17/2016 at 12:36 PM

Anyone from ST SM devs?

Wei Feng Ding Replied

4/20/2016 at 3:37 PM

I have the same concern. What I did was to split the domains onto multiple disk array. In domainlist file, randomly the order so that Smartermail can load multiple domains from different array at the same time. The start up time is similar to yours, but I have 30k+ domains on one server.

Webio Replied

4/21/2016 at 3:45 AM

And this is the time when I must restart SmarterMail service during working hours. CPU and memory almost idle, disk queue length below 1 and I'm waiting. I had to restart mail service because I had issue with mailbox locked error (problem accessing grp files). Some entries here and there reported that this is caused by active POP3 connection so I stopped only POP service from smartermail GUI but I could not enable it again so my only solution was to restart whole mail server.

Does this really need to be reported using paid support ticket if this is so obvious issue?

Sérgio Rocha Replied

4/21/2016 at 4:24 PM

I have the same problem, but i never figure why it take so many time to startup. When we have a less domains it was possible to restart the service any time without our clients figure that the service stop.
Now every time we need to restart the service we receive a huge wave of phone call, its not good for business. ST should take a look on this problem.
Sometime i think that 99% of SM user only have 1 domain on server, its good to know that are large hosts with same problems that we are seeing grow with the number of accounts and domains

Tim Uzzanti Replied

4/22/2016 at 6:31 AM

Employee Post

Wei, You have 30,000 domains or 30,000 users on a server? Or are you talking about having 30,000 domains with many servers and centralized storage? We don't advise any single server to have 30,000 domains.

Tim Uzzanti CEO SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Tim Uzzanti Replied

4/22/2016 at 6:31 AM

Employee Post

Will have a response shortly.

Tim Uzzanti CEO SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Tim Uzzanti Replied

4/22/2016 at 9:44 AM

Employee Post

Yes, because we need something to duplicate. I believe the perception is that its mailinglist.db but its something else. We we have a significant number of customers with large installs and its not a common issue. Most issues in SmarterMail must be looked at individually because each issue is unique.... If its a bug, we refund it...

Tim Uzzanti CEO SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Webio Replied

4/23/2016 at 9:12 AM

I have partially mentioned about this issue in ticket: 2FE-17983828-06FF from 2012 where I've mentioned:

"I have some thoughts why this can happen. Since my main SM instance is starting about 10-15 minutes (mailinglist.db file checking for all domains - has this been changed in SM 10?)" or 267-17A1D19B-0861 also from 2012 where I've asked question at the end of some message:

P.S. Have you maybe looked on mailinglist.db file checking during service startup?

so if you want something then you can reopen this ticket. If this can't be done then I'll wait to my license renewal where I will receive new support ticket with renewed license.

For replicating this issue you don't need anything particular. Just create x * 1000 of domains. Each domain has default mailinglist.db SQLite database and each of this database is being checked during startup. Just open Windows Resource Monitor and go to "Disk" tab and look for current Read operations. You will see that each mailinglist.db is being accessed (even for domains which has no mailing lists and their SQLite database are empty/default size).

Webio Replied

5/30/2016 at 5:36 AM

Support ticket has been sent

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