PSCS Wiki

Copy Outgoing mail

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Copy Outgoing mail Sometimes people need to copy outgoing mail for various reasons. There are several ways of doing this in VPOP3 depending on your exact requirements: * Message Monitoring - this copies all outgoing, incoming and/or internal mail sent by/to specific users to another specific user

VPOP3 Not Starting Properly

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

VPOP3 Not Starting Properly If VPOP3 is not starting properly, then the first thing to check is whether the database server is starting. In VPOP3 v3 and later, VPOP3 uses a PostgreSQL Database server for data storage, so if the database server is not running, VPOP3 will not be able to start properly. In this case, the VPOP3.EXE process may appear in Task Manager, but it won't respond to anything, or it may appear in Task Manager and then stop after a short period.

Database Backup Failed

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Database Backup Failed VPOP3 version 3 and later will, by default, make a backup of the database used by VPOP3 into a file. This uses the PostgreSQL utility 'pg_dump' If an error occurs whilst running this program, VPOP3 will create a 'Database Backup Failed' error message to the administrator.

VPOP3 Database Size

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

VPOP3 Database Size The VPOP3 directory is stored in the VPOP3\pgsql\data folder and subfolders. If you are concerned about the size of the VPOP3 database, there are several factors which may make the database larger than you would expect: * The VPOP3 database contains a lot more information than just messages in mailboxes. This can include settings, outgoing messages, historical logging information, statistical information for the spamfilter, information about archived messages, etc. Also,…

Error Messages

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-10-06T15:21:37+00:00

Error Messages This is the place to look if you are trying to trouble shoot a problem and you have received or have access to a specific error message or error code. If instead your problem is that something you think is set up correctly is not working then the best place to look would be the

Exceptions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Exceptions An exception happens if VPOP3 encounters a problem it did not expect. In some cases it can recover automatically, but in other cases that isn't possible. Common causes VPOP3 2.6 and earlier In VPOP3 2.6 and earlier it was quite common for there to be database corruption problems with the SQLite database which was used in those versions.

Find the IP address of the VPOP3 Computer

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Find the IP address of the VPOP3 Computer To find the IP address of the VPOP3 computer, in Windows go to Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center. Press the Local Area Connection link Then press 'Details'. Look for the 'IPv4 Address' setting.

SMTP error 'Invalid HELO name'

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

SMTP error 'Invalid HELO name' When sending mail you may get an error from the remote SMTP server saying something like 'Invalid HELO name' This happens if the host name configured in VPOP3 does not look like a valid Internet host name (e.g. 'mail.domain.com'). Some SMTP servers don't bother checking this value because it has no authentication value at all, but a few do check that it looks correct.

Outlook/Windows Messaging reports "No transport provider is available"

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Outlook/Windows Messaging reports "No transport provider is available" If Outlook or Windows Messaging reports No transport provider is available when trying to connect to VPOP3, it can mean several things. (This must be a contender for “the world's most meaningless error message

Outbound Messages Not Appearing in Monitor Target Mailbox

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Outbound Messages Not Appearing in Monitor Target Mailbox For VPOP3 to monitor outbound messages it needs to be able to work out that the message is FROM: a user whose mail should be monitored. To do this it has to examine the FROM: address in the message header.

Performance Requirements

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Performance Requirements The performance requirements for VPOP3 depends on many factors, so we can't give specific details for any scenario. How to detect limiting factors * Use the Windows Performance Monitor (perfmon.msc) * Add counters for:

RBL Checking not working in VPOP3 Enterprise

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

RBL Checking not working in VPOP3 Enterprise VPOP3 Enterprise has an RBL checking feature which is configured in the VPOP3 Settings at Services -> SMTP Server -> SPAM Reduction -> Realtime Blacklist Rules If it does not seem to be working properly, there are a few reasons why the RBL feature may not work.

Sender Policy Framework / SPF

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Sender Policy Framework / SPF SPF is a system used to tell mail servers which IP addresses can send mail from which domains. It is designed to reduce 'spoofing' of email addresses. For instance, if you receive an email message from your bank, your mail software can check that it came from an IP address authorised to send mail from your bank, and treat the message with suspicion if it didn't come from an authorised IP address.

Spam filter not working

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Spam filter not working If the VPOP3 spam filter appears not to be working at all, the first thing to do is to look at the message headers of an incoming message to see if the spam filter is being run at all. Check to see if a header line beginning with X-VPOP3-Spam

How to upgrade VPOP3 to version 7 or later from version 6 or earlier

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-29T10:43:58+00:00

How to upgrade VPOP3 to version 7 or later from version 6 or earlier As usual the process to upgrade is simply to install the later version over your existing installation (do not uninstall anything first). The below is technical information detailing an extra step performed by the installer in this particular upgrade step.

Upgrading VPOP3 to version 8.x from v7 or earlier

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-09-03T15:07:34+00:00

Upgrading VPOP3 to version 8.x from v7 or earlier VPOP3 v8.x uses PostgreSQL 10 as its database engine, which is the latest supported 32 bit version of PostgreSQL. Later versions of PostgreSQL are 64-bit only, which means we cannot use them while continuing to support 32 bit versions of Windows.

Upgrading VPOP3 to version 9.x from v7 or v8

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-03-18T20:49:54+00:00

Upgrading VPOP3 to version 9.x from v7 or v8 VPOP3 v9 and later requires a 64 bit version of Windows 8.1 or later VPOP3 v9.x uses PostgreSQL 18 as its database engine. This can only easily be upgraded from PostgreSQL 9.3 or later, which means it must be an upgrade of VPOP3 v7 or later. If you are using an earlier version of VPOP3, then upgrade it to v8.7 first, then upgrade to v9 or later

Spamfilter Whitelist & Blacklist

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Spamfilter Whitelist & Blacklist The VPOP3 spamfilter has a whitelist and a blacklist for sender addresses. It also has a whitelist and blacklist for words/phrases. You can view these lists in the VPOP3 settings by going to Settings -> Spamfilter ->

421 4.3.2 VPOP3 SMTP Server access disabled - content scanner problem!

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

421 4.3.2 VPOP3 SMTP Server access disabled - content scanner problem! This usually happens if the “VPOP3 AV” virus scanner has a problem it can't automatically recover from. This may be a fatal error, or a licencing issue. You can check this on the Settings

421 4.3.2 VPOP3 Too many connections from your IP address - try later

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

421 4.3.2 VPOP3 Too many connections from your IP address - try later If you see this error message when you are sending messages, then it means that VPOP3 has detected too many simultaneous connections from your IP address. This would usually happen if the sender is another mail server as they can make many simultaneous connections when there are lots of messages to send. The error code that VPOP3 gives means that the sender should try sending the messages later, so it should be possible to e…

550/553 Not Permitted error from BT Internet's mail servers

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

550/553 Not Permitted error from BT Internet's mail servers BT Internet's mail servers only allow messages to be sent from 'approved' email addresses. If you try to send messages from other addresses BT's mail servers may return a '550 Not Permitted' error, a '553' error, or may silently discard the message depending on what their server feels like doing today.

Socket Error 10049 - The specified address is not available from the local computer

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Socket Error 10049 - The specified address is not available from the local computer This error normally means that you have entered an invalid address on the IP Address to Bind To entries on the Services page in the VPOP3 settings. The addresses entered here should be either

Socket Error 11002 - Host not found (Non-Authoritative answer)

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Socket Error 11002 - Host not found (Non-Authoritative answer) This means that VPOP3 is not getting a response from a DNS server when it is trying to look up the name of the ISP's mail server(s). Usually this means that Windows either does not know the address of a valid

Attachments have been removed or renamed

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Attachments have been removed or renamed If you have received an email and one or more of its attachments have been removed or renamed, it might be a result of Attachment Filtering. You can inspect the filtering rules by going to Administration Settings -> Settings ->

C++ Error Popup

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

C++ Error Popup If VPOP3 crashes with a C++ error popup window, that means that an 'exception' has been thrown - something unusual has happened, and VPOP3 doesn't know how to recover automatically. Often these are due to database errors. There are two places you can look for the cause of the error:

How to create an SSL Certificate

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-03-23T10:18:43+00:00

How to create an SSL Certificate VPOP3 Enterprise supports SSL certificates for encrypted sessions. The basic mechanism to create an SSL certificate is that you have to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) then send that to a CA (Certificate Authority) who will sign your certificate and give you the certificate back.

Daily Summary is not reporting all Sent messages

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Daily Summary is not reporting all Sent messages For VPOP3 to log outbound messages it needs to be able to work out that the message is FROM: a user whose mail is handled by the local VPOP3. To do this it has to examine the FROM: address in the message header.

Database Maintenance

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Database Maintenance VPOP3 uses the PostgreSQL database server for most of its data storage. Normally this will not require any special maintenance, because it will manage itself. To do any special database maintenance you will need to close down VPOP3 first, because PostgreSQL needs exclusive access to the database to perform any operations such as decreasing the size of database files. Note that these operations may take some time! There are some PostgreSQL utility programs in the VPOP3\pgs…

How to Delete a User

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

How to Delete a User To delete a user from VPOP3, go to Users -> Accounts, select the user you wish to delete, and press the Delete button. Deleting an administrator You cannot delete the user as whom you are currently logged into the VPOP3 settings (e.g.

How to filter attachments

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

How to filter attachments VPOP3 can filter attachments in several ways. The most general is to use the Settings -> Attachment Processing -> Filtering tab as described below. VPOP3 can also filter attachments using the content/spam filter, or by using an integrated virus scanner.

Initial Configuration Tasks

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Initial Configuration Tasks After installing VPOP3, you will need to get into the VPOP3 settings. The easiest way of doing this is to find the VPOP3 Status Monitor in the Windows task tray. Right-click this icon, and choose 'VPOP3 Settings'. (If that doesn't work, see this article to troubleshoot Status Monitor problems). Alternatively, on the VPOP3 PC, you can go to Start

Incoming SMTP Feed

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Incoming SMTP Feed An incoming SMTP feed is where incoming mail is sent directly to your mail server without going through your ISP's POP3 mail server on the way. Advantages An incoming SMTP feed has several advantages over going via a POP3 mailbox:

Mail Not Downloading From ISP

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-04-06T17:59:47+00:00

Mail Not Downloading From ISP This normally happens because you have told VPOP3 to Leave Messages On Server (on the Mail Connectors -> Mail Collectors -> (name) -> POP3 General tab). If you do this, VPOP3 will leave messages on the ISP's mail server for several days, and remember that it has already downloaded them. Then, the next time it connects it will see that there are some messages waiting, but it may find that it has already downloaded them, so it won't download them again.

How to make VPOP3 re-download POP3 messages from the ISP

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-04-06T17:57:00+00:00

How to make VPOP3 re-download POP3 messages from the ISP If you have the VPOP3 Mail Collector setting Leave Mail On Server enabled, then VPOP3 will leave your messages on the ISP POP3 server for the specified number of days after downloading it. If, during this time, you want to make VPOP3 download those messages again, then you can do so.

Make VPOP3 retry outgoing messages immediately

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Make VPOP3 retry outgoing messages immediately If VPOP3 has a temporary problem sending a message it will retry it later. When it will retry it depends on how many times it has already tried to send it, and is based on the 'Sender Retry' setting in the Mail Connectors

Many instances of Postgres.exe are running

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Many instances of Postgres.exe are running If you are running VPOP3 3.0 or later, and look in the 'Processes' list in Windows TaskManager you will probably see multiple instances of postgres.exe running. This is perfectly normal, and does not indicate a problem. The PostgreSQL database works by having a separate instance of postgres.exe for each connection to the database (as well as a few extra for management and house keeping). This behaviour is documented on the

Not Working As Expected

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Not Working As Expected This is the page to come to if you think you've set something up correctly but it isn't doing what you think it should be doing. If you're getting an error message or some other concrete indication that something has actually 'gone wrong' then the

Problems with installing PostgreSQL during VPOP3 Installation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Problems with installing PostgreSQL during VPOP3 Installation Sometimes people have problems with the PostgreSQL installation part of the VPOP3 installation. Below are some things to look at. * Check that 'Local System' (or 'System') has full access to the VPOP3 installation directory

Repairing corrupted database

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-01-15T11:35:45+00:00

Repairing corrupted database With PostgreSQL (as with most high-end databases) the database system will automatically recover after power failures etc, if it can. If it can't then there is no manual 'repair' function, because the data cannot totally be recovered (or it would automatically have been recovered).

Router Problem error messages

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Router Problem error messages If you get an error message to the VPOP3 administrator with subject Router Problem and text Local Distribute to Failed Error: Database Error "ERROR: could not open file "base//": Permission denied"

Seeing where a message came from

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Seeing where a message came from Sometimes you need to check to see where a message really came from. The 'From:' email address is easily forged, so that cannot be relied upon. The first thing you have to do is to get the full message headers. These may look daunting, but are very useful for problem diagnosis.

Spam filter / Content filter scripts

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Spam filter / Content filter scripts The spam filter system uses basic scripting language for processing messages. This can be used for custom content filtering as well if you need to look inside the messages (e.g. at message content, attachments) as well as at the message headers etc.

The message could not be loaded. Please return to the Quarantine page and try again

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

The message could not be loaded. Please return to the Quarantine page and try again This error normally means the message file has been deleted from the hard disk (probably by a virus scanner or something else on the PC). If you can find the message in the VPOP3 settings (Settings

Training the VPOP3 Spam Filter

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Training the VPOP3 Spam Filter The VPOP3 spam filter has a couple of mechanisms which can be used to 'train' it to distinguish between spam and not-spam. Bayesian Filter The Bayesian filter this looks at words in messages sent and received and their probabilities of being contained in spam and not-spam, and works out an overall probability of the message being spam or not-spam based on the combination of those probabilities.

Error message: VPOP3 Alert - Non-existent user -

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

Error message: VPOP3 Alert - Non-existent user - If you receive an error message like: Subject: VPOP3 Alert - Non-existent user - Delivery Failure Report. There was incoming mail for non-existent user "". This means that VPOP3 downloaded a message using POP3 and it was addressed to an email address which does not exist.

VPOP3 re-downloading old messages from the ISP POP3 server

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-01-05T09:31:47+00:00

VPOP3 re-downloading old messages from the ISP POP3 server If you tell VPOP3's POP3 mail collector to leave messages on the ISP's server for a few days, you may find that sometimes VPOP3 will redownload all the messages from the ISP mailbox again.

SMTP Relay Protection in VPOP3

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-14T10:45:49+00:00

SMTP Relay Protection in VPOP3 SMTP Relay Protection should be used on ALL SMTP mail servers (such as VPOP3) which have a permanent connection to the Internet. You may also want to use it on servers which are only connected occasionally via a dial-up connection.