Messaging Gateway delivery retry schedule
Article ID: 159284
Updated On:
Products
Issue/Introduction
The Symantec Messaging Gateway (SMG) is retrying to deliver a message, and the timing of the delivery attempts needs to be known.
Resolution
The Symantec Messaging Gateway attempts to deliver messages immediately and failing immediate delivery, queues undeliverable messages and attempts delivery beginning at 15 minutes with an exponential back off, meaning that the delay between delivery attempts doubles with each attempt, until an upper limit of seven (7) hours is reached. Redelivery is then attempted every seven hours until the maximum queue lifetime is reached and the message is bounced.
Note: Attempting to flush a message from the delivery queue or flushing the entire queue will not reset or change the delivery attempt schedule but will artificially increment the number of delivery attempts for messages that cannot be delivered.
The following table describes the lifetime of a message in the SMG delivery queue beginning with the initial delivery attempt at zero minutes. This table is based on the default configuration of the SMG delivery MTA.
| Minimum retry interval | 15 minutes |
| Maximum retry interval | 7 hours |
| Sent message time-out | 5 days |
| Bounce message time-out | 1 day |
| Message delay time in queue before notification | 4 hours |
| 0 seconds | Initial delivery attempt |
| 15 minutes | First retry |
| 45 minutes | Second retry |
| 1 hour 45 minutes | Third retry |
| 3 hours 45 minutes | Fourth retry |
| 4 hours | DSN delivered to sender |
| 7 hours 45 minutes | Fifth retry |
| 12 hours | DSN delivered to sender |
| 14 hours 45 minutes | Sixth retry |
| 21 hours 45 minutes | Seventh retry |
| 1 day 4 hours | DSN delivered to sender |
| 1 day 4 hours 45 minutes | Eighth retry |
| 1 day 11 hours 45 minutes | Ninth retry |
| 1 day 18 hours 45 minutes | Tenth retry |
| 1 day 20 hours | DSN delivered to sender |
| 2 days 1 hour 45 minutes | Eleventh retry |
| 2 days 8 hours 45 minutes | Twelfth retry |
| 2 days 12 hours | DSN delivered to sender |
| 2 days 15 hours 45 minutes | Thirteenth retry |
| 2 days 22 hours 45 minutes | Fourteenth retry |
| 3 days 4 hours | DSN delivered to sender |
| 3 days 5 hours 45 minutes | Fifteenth retry |
| 3 days 12 hours 45 minutes | Sixteenth retry |
| 3 days 19 hours 45 minutes | Seventeenth retry |
| 3 days 20 hours | DSN delivered to sender |
| 4 days 2 hours 45 minutes | Eighteenth retry |
| 4 days 9 hours 45 minutes | Nineteenth retry |
| 4 days 12 hours | DSN delivered to sender |
| 4 days 16 hours 45 minutes | Twentieth retry |
| 4 days 23 hours 45 minutes | Twenty-first retry |
| 5 days | Message is bounced |
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