On Tue, 3 Sep 1991 20:00:00 EDT John F. Chandler said:
>Perhaps the problem is not at Harvard after all, and perhaps your
>(possibly wrong) assertion was made in such a way as to irk the
>postmaster(s) you sent the reports to.
 
 My notes to the postmasters at Harvard have been very polite and as
 informative as I could make them.  I also offered to help troubleshoot
 the problem if I could be of any assistance.  I only posted to this
 list after a number of such instances.  The last one I sent may not
 have been that nice, but it was about the 8th time I'd reported the
 problem and it wasn't unreasonable either.
 
>                                        The sample mail file you
>included proves nothing but that the missing line got dropped before
>or when it reached the mailer daemon at HARVARD.BITNET.  On its own
>showing, the message had passed through BUACCA along the way, presumably
>via LISTSERV@BUACCA and [log in to unmask]  Did you take any steps to
>eliminate both of those as possible culprits?
 
 Yes, I believe that's it fairly clear that the trouble is at Harvard
 since there are two Harvard address on the list, and only one has this
 problem.  And I believe that they leave JHUVM as one file and are
 exploded into separate files close to Harvard.  While that's doesn't
 completely rule out other sites, it seemed reasonable to start looking
 for the problem at Harvard under those circumstances.  And after
 several letters went unacknowledged, it seemed entirely possible that
 e-mail problems may well be ignored at Harvard.  I mean, if requests
 for help in finding/fixing bugs are ignored (which is what I sent
 initially), then it seems plausible that e-mail functionality is not
 a high priority.
 
>                                               If you managed to
>eliminate them, then you should restate the problem in more succinct
>form and send the report to the postmaster(s) again.  If you tried but
>failed, then you should restate the problem and report it instead to
>the postmaster at BUACCA.  If you didn't even try, then it's not really
>surprising that you got ignored.
 
 As I said before, I've sent many letters to Harvard postmasters and got
 no response.  I completely agree with you about not complaining about a
 specific site causing a problem without attempting to isolate the
 problem first.  I believe that it was/is reasonable to assume that the
 mis-handling of the e-mail is at Harvard.  Therefore, I was attempting
 to find a better contact at Harvard by posting to this group.  My
 apologies if any of you feel this has been an inappropriate use of this
 list.  But for what it's worth, I *did* get the name of a good contact
 at Harvard, and quite independently received the following note from
 Harvard.
 
>                                    John
 
 Many thanks to those (including Scott) who sent the prompt replies,
 -jj
 
 -------------- forwarded mail follows:
*Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 20:32:40 -0400
*From: [log in to unmask]
*To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
*Subject: mailer problems at Harvard
*
*
*We are just about to replace that software with a new version that should
*Fix the addressing problems.  The current schedule (revised this am,
*calls for this to be done within about 2 weeks)
*
*Scott