On Wed, 30 Dec 1992 09:46:06 -0400 <MRUPS@BROOK> said:
>Can someone among you, in plain English, tell us what, exactly, "unknown
>mailer error 5" is or might be? ...
 
 ...text deleted...
 
>   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
>mail: Options MUST PRECEDE persons
>554 <[log in to unmask]>... unknown mailer error 5
 
 It means that hsuseq.humboldt.edu has a mail system that is/was broken.
 You knew that already, but that's about all it means.  It's a sad state
 of affairs, and the only viable option you have is to try to contact
 the postmaster at the indicated system.  Hopefully the cause of the
 mail delivery problems won't prevent you from doing so...
 
 I will resist the temptation to rant about the absurdity of mailing a
 non-descriptive "unknown error XX" message back to the source of the
 mail, and not the local mail maintainers.
 
 -jj
 
 PS - In all fairness, "Options MUST PRECEDE persons" does give some
 additional information about the problem, but it's a problem on the
 receiving system, not yours.  The folks at hsuseq.humboldt.edu are
 the only ones that can fix the problem, and unless the note you've
 included was CC'd to them, they may not even know there is a problem.