How many VM sites run the MAILER? I guess it's well over a few dozens. If they all have to retrieve a 3,000 lines file from CUVMA, especially from Europe, we'll be able to take funny bets on the various file queues in the various backlogs of the network :-) I think it would be easy to write a program that creates a DISTRIBUTE job header for all 823,237 :infoN.MAILER subscribers and thrust it at the nearest LISTSERV (with Ack=MAIL) to see what happens. Eric