>I added someone with a @midway.uchicago.edu address to my list a few >weeks ago. For the next ten days, I got "Service unavailable" >messages, so I deleted him. > >I simply cannot contact him and have NO reason why. > >Any takers? Sure! You have a reason, but it's buried in the error messages. > ----- Transcript of session follows ----- >mail: /var/spool/mail/dswilson: cannot append >mail: cannot open dead.letter >554 <[log in to unmask]>... Service unavailable The "cannot append" message is the key. On Unix systems, this message can indicate several different things: 1 his personal mailbox (/var/spool/mail/dswilson) has become so large that new mail cannot be added. This problem is usually found on System V Unix and its variants. 2 the mail directory/partition (probably /var, although some sites use separate disk partitions for /var/spool/mail) is full, so no one on that system is getting mail. This one can happen to any Unix system. 3 dswilson has, for whatever reason, changed the access permissions on his mailbox in such a manner that the mail program no longer has write access to it. There are a few other possibilities, but they are rather obscure; I'll bet on one of the three scenarios listed above. You may wish to drop a line to [log in to unmask]; if that message is delivered successfully, you can eliminate scenario 2 from the list above. The postmaster should be able to fill you in on the details. [log in to unmask] needs to be educated in the importance of *routinely* reading/clearing one's mailbox when subscribed to heavy- traffic lists. 8) --Wes