Mail duplication, hangs, self restarts….I am in hell……

HI Everybody,

OK Here is the deal. I set up a mirror drive door 1Ghz PowerMac with 512MB to run mail. Only Directory service and Mail are running. All other services are turned off. i have about 55 user accounts and my old QuickMail server did a better job. Mind you, that all that i am about to describe is intermittent, sometimes my AMS runs exactly as it should and at others, well…..The machine will not respond to mail requests from users for a few seconds to a few minutes. Mail sent to unqualified hosts (i.e. someplace.comm) will churn through being resent for the full 4 days and leave an active connection in server status > overview tab. It will continue to add an active connection for each retry until it looks like it is trying to send hundreds of messages simultaneously. It isn’t according to the logs. In addition if the mail service is restarted, weather by the server ( I assume watchdog thinks it is stuck), or myself, it is a crap shoot that it may or may not send every message left on the server to every user AGAIN. Is it me or is this software just not ready for use in a small company? Should I be buying CommuniGate pro? Is there some documentation I missed somewhere on how to make this work right? Basically is it me or is this software a sick joke from Apple. I mean even Apple recommends CommuniGate Pro, and Apple themselves use a Sun mail solution.

Desperately seeking answers.