Away Message not working?

[alte]

Hello!

We have a user who has set their away message, and yet it appears that no away message is being sent in return to folks who email the user. The away message has worked just fine for other users, but for this user it doesn't seem to be working at all. Any insight into why the away message wouldn't be sent? Any way I can debug what is going on?

Thanks for your time,
-Nick

[mmorse]

Well for starters check the logs during your tests - by default only 1 away message is sent per incoming message address.

You could try:
zmprov ma user@domain.com zimbraPrefOutOfOfficeCacheDuration 0
(you could also modify it on the COS)
Setting to 0 would send an out-of-office notification in response to every email received. (You want this while testing-but it's generally not a good idea, as your sending responses to spam etc...)

Plus, if you have user A with an away message up, user B sends an email, and immediately puts up their away message (with the attribute set to 0) you could technically get a loop. Therefore at a minimum use 1 day:
zmprov ma user@domain.com zimbraPrefOutOfOfficeCacheDuration 1d
Thus duplicate away messages will not be sent to the same user in the given interval of 1 day. On day 2, if they send that account an email, they would again get back one notification, then no notifications for another day.

I prefer 3d or every week 5/7d depending upon how long the user is gone. ie: If their gone a month-then every week, (this is what I set the COS to) unless they specifically ask for 3 days.

You also might be interested in:
zimbraPrefOutOfOfficeDirectAddress
zimbraPrefOutOfOfficeFromDate
zimbraPrefOutOfOfficeReply
zimbraPrefOutOfOfficeReplyEnabled
zimbraPrefOutOfOfficeUntilDate

[soxfan]

We have a user who has set their away message, and yet it appears that no away message is being sent in return to folks who email the user. The away message has worked just fine for other users, but for this user it doesn't seem to be working at all. Any insight into why the away message wouldn't be sent? Any way I can debug what is going on?

A couple of other things to check beside what mmorse suggested. I don't believe the "away message" gets sent if the user is CC'd, instead of being the primary recipient. Also, if you have any aliases set for this user it's possible that could be the cause of the problem.

You also might be interested in:
zimbraPrefOutOfOfficeDirectAddress
zimbraPrefOutOfOfficeFromDate
zimbraPrefOutOfOfficeReply
zimbraPrefOutOfOfficeReplyEnabled
zimbraPrefOutOfOfficeUntilDate

Unless I'm missing something, I believe these attributes are only available in version 5.0 Beta. I know the plan is to add start date, end date, etc., but I didn't think that was in any stable release yet.

[alte]

Thanks for all the informative replies! We do have an alias setup for this user, but we had tested the non-aliased address with the same lack of a response.

Embarrassingly enough I wasn't away of the very useful zimbra/log directory. Heh. However, I now see the outofoffice not being sent out in the logs. However I'm trying to understand the data logged. Is the 'from' address that would be sent a reply logged? Here is what I am seeing:

2007-08-15 13:09:39,841 INFO [LmtpServer-4492] [name=kristen@altstore.com;] mailbox - outofoffice not sent (already sent) mid=26471 rcpt='kristen@altstore.com' dest='kristen@linux.altstore.com'

And digging further, I see the log files for the user who has a working out of office reply:

2007-08-06 04:08:40,846 INFO [LmtpServer-1945] [name=kerry@altstore.com;] mailbox - outofoffice not sent (already sent) mid=7014 rcpt='kerry@altstore.com' dest='perldesk@linux.altstore.com'

And in that one I see the from address 'perldesk@' that I would expect to see. However, the kristen@ one is definitely not finding the correct "From :" address that should be replied to. I have the raw headers in front of me, and the kristen@linux email address is listed in the X-Original-To: and Delivered-To: headers, but have no idea why the out of office thinks that the response should be sent there..?

Any insights? Thanks for your time,
-Nick

P.S. The Cache Duration is a great feature! Very nice! = )

[soxfan]

Sounds like a strange one. Does either the sender or the recipient have any type of forwarding address setup?

[alte]

Sounds like a strange one. Does either the sender or the recipient have any type of forwarding address setup?

The sender in this case was a gmail account/external. (Though, it doesn't work for any internal addresses either). And no forwarding address either.

We are doing alot of rerouting of email, etc.. But none of which should really effect finding the proper "From:" address. I'd be glad to send the full email (headers included) to a zimbra folk who may be able to use it to debug what is going on?

Peace,
-Nick