Another 'Warning: Mail Queue Size Exceeded' problem

Hi,

I’ve been getting this problem too, but in my case it’s not because I’m sending a lot of emails. The local queue is filling up with system-generated emails saying that some processes are running for a long time. The rate at which these emails are being generated is around 40 per hour. None of them are being delivered, so they just stay in the queue.

Once the queue reaches the 1000 limit, I start getting emails telling me that the queue size has been exceeded. So, my problem is two-fold:

1: The system-generated emails are not being delivered, and hence filling up the queue.

2: Why is the system generating these emails in the first place? I don’t really know if it is an actual problem to have the processes running for a long time.

Can anyone help me find out why the emails aren’t being delivered? Here are the details:

The system is addressing the emails to root@mail.xxxxxx.com, where mail.xxxxxx.com is the (censored) hostname of my server. The emails are from root@mail.xxxxxx.com, as well.

Running qmail-showctl shows both ‘me’ and ‘defaulthost’ as mail.xxxxxx.com

There’s a .qmail-root file in /var/qmail/alias that says &nobody. I’ve tried changing it to an actual email address, but that doesn’t work.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

We don’t have the warnings for “processes running too long” anymore, so this kind of feedback loop shouldn’t happen nowadays.