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Old 26 Feb 2022, 11:36 AM   #1
ellentk
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Turning off Custom Spam Filter

If I turn off my custom spam filter to troubleshoot a delivery problem, will my 19921 "spam learned" and 4651 "non-spam learned" be erased?

Thanks.
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Old 26 Feb 2022, 02:31 PM   #2
BritTim
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Unfortunately, yes. This is the way to reset your spam filtering when (for whatever reason) your learned spam/ham is corrupt and causing problems. As a result, it is desirable to keep a certain number of known accurate spam/ham messages in special folders that you can use in the future to immediately retrain your custom Bayes after such a reset.
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Old 26 Feb 2022, 02:53 PM   #3
ellentk
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Thanks, BritTim. I wish there was a way to keep them. I'll go into more detail about what's happening and maybe there's something or in addition else to try.

Quite a few messages that are automatically forwarded to my fastmail account are suddenly not being delivered. I can see them on the other server and from the headers, it looks like they are being forwarded (although I'm waiting for that company's tech support to verify that) so I'm figuring that perhaps my fastmail spam filters are blocking them.

Why this suddenly started happening after being with fastmail for 14 years, I don't know. When I looked at my spam filter settings, which I haven't looked at in close to 14 years, I noticed a new setting: "Forwarding hosts." I added smtp.___.com (the ISP forwarding the messages) and that seemed to help somewhat.

I'm also wondering if the "personal spam filter" in my settings is my sieve script and if so, or if not, is there a way to get into my sieve script or see if I have one, and modify it? Then I can remove any servers the undelivered email passes through and see if that will help.

I've been waiting for a higher level of fastmail support to get back to me but in the meantime I figured I'd try some troubleshooting on my own.
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Old 26 Feb 2022, 03:35 PM   #4
BritTim
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ellentk View Post
Thanks, BritTim. I wish there was a way to keep them. I'll go into more detail about what's happening and maybe there's something or in addition else to try.

Quite a few messages that are automatically forwarded to my fastmail account are suddenly not being delivered. I can see them on the other server and from the headers, it looks like they are being forwarded (although I'm waiting for that company's tech support to verify that) so I'm figuring that perhaps my fastmail spam filters are blocking them.

Why this suddenly started happening after being with fastmail for 14 years, I don't know. When I looked at my spam filter settings, which I haven't looked at in close to 14 years, I noticed a new setting: "Forwarding hosts." I added smtp.___.com (the ISP forwarding the messages) and that seemed to help somewhat.

I'm also wondering if the "personal spam filter" in my settings is my sieve script and if so, or if not, is there a way to get into my sieve script or see if I have one, and modify it? Then I can remove any servers the undelivered email passes through and see if that will help.

I've been waiting for a higher level of fastmail support to get back to me but in the meantime I figured I'd try some troubleshooting on my own.
It is possible to modify the sieve script, using custom sieve changes, such that all messages that would normally be discarded as a result of failing spam checks are instead delivered to a special folder. It is a long time since I did this, but someone else who has done it more recently will hopefully be along to give you detailed instructions.

EDIT: Actually, as I recall, you can achieve the same result by changing the protection level such that deleting messages with greater than a certain spam score is disabled. You should still also check your Rules to ensure that you do not have any situations where messages are discarded anyway.

Last edited by BritTim : 26 Feb 2022 at 03:43 PM.
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Old 27 Feb 2022, 03:58 AM   #5
ellentk
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Thanks again, Tim. I found and exported my sieve file in settings: "Edit Custom sieve code." It appears to contain all my rules. To be sure I understand how this works, if I change the Protection Level from Custom to Off or Standard will that delete my rules and/or the sieve file? Does the "Custom" setting point to the Rules/sieve file?

I've already unchecked "Permanently delete messages with a score of" (It had been 10) and not sure if it made much of a difference.
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Old 27 Feb 2022, 05:17 AM   #6
ellentk
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Duh! Things are slowly beginning to occur to me.

I exported the sieve file and just remembered seeing an import button
next to it.

So I'm thinking that if I have the "Fastmail mailrules.json" file, I can
import it if I want to restore my rules and sieve file, if changing my
spam level erases them?
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Old 27 Feb 2022, 11:30 AM   #7
Terry
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ellentk View Post
If I turn off my custom spam filter to troubleshoot a delivery problem, will my 19921 "spam learned" and 4651 "non-spam learned" be erased?

Thanks.
No I just changed mine to check....

Also you cant delete them it has to be done by Fastmail.
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Old 27 Feb 2022, 12:08 PM   #8
xyzzy
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ellentk View Post
Duh! Things are slowly beginning to occur to me.

I exported the sieve file and just remembered seeing an import button
next to it.

So I'm thinking that if I have the "Fastmail mailrules.json" file, I can
import it if I want to restore my rules and sieve file, if changing my
spam level erases them?
If that Rules Export button works (and I cannot confirm that because it doesn't seem to do anything for me) then I assume it's only going to save your explicit rules list. Any additions you make to the Sieve script itself will not be saved. FWIW you can always make a copy of the entire Sieve script by copying it to the clipboard (button) when you "Edit custom Sieve code". I do this to always keep a backup copy of my latest changes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry View Post
No I just changed mine to check....http://www.emaildiscussions.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Also you cant delete them it has to be done by Fastmail.
Correct. Turning Spam Protection's Protection Level completely off's only effect is to do just that. It suppresses the generation of the "X-Spam-hits" and "X-Spam-score" headers, i.e., even the server side spam evaluation appears disabled (probably doesn't even invoke SpamAssassin). As stated by Terry, aside from that it has no affect on Spam Learned and Non-spam learned counts and only FastMail support can reset those.

Update:
By the way, and FWIW, those Export/Import buttons and the script's "Copy to clipboard" don't seem to exist in the mobile versions of FastMail - it's app or using a browser. At least I don't see them on my iPhone.

Last edited by xyzzy : 27 Feb 2022 at 12:17 PM.
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Old 27 Feb 2022, 12:08 PM   #9
ellentk
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Thank you Terry!

And if I change my protection level to Off or Standard from Custom, my rules and sieve file will not be removed and will be used when I turn Custom back on again?
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Old 27 Feb 2022, 12:31 PM   #10
xyzzy
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ellentk View Post
Thank you Terry!

And if I change my protection level to Off or Standard from Custom, my rules and sieve file will not be removed and will be used when I turn Custom back on again?
All the spam Protection Level settings do is control whether your rules are executed or not. Your rules are always there so you don't have to worry about that and play around all you want with those Protection Level settings.
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Old 27 Feb 2022, 12:45 PM   #11
ellentk
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Thank you for checking into this, xyzzy!

And thanks for telling me about the "copy to clipboard" button. Might as well use it in addition to Export just to be safe(er).

When I clicked Export on a windows laptop it generated a file called "Fastmail Mailrules.json" that contains all my rules written in some kind of script but isn't the sieve file. I can open the file and search it in wordpad and sublime text, both windows programs. The rules look like this:
{
"lookHow": "contains",
"lookFor": "nytimes.com",
"lookIn": "toCcBccEmail"
}
],
"updated": "2020-05-20T06:55:54Z",
"combinator": "all",
"skipInbox": true,
"fileIn": "NYTimes",
"created": 0,
"markRead": false,
"snoozeUntil": null,
"markFlagged": false
},

I apologize for repeating myself, but I'm nervous about losing my rules, and want to confirm that in addition to not erasing spam and non-spam learned, turning off Custom protection also will not erase my rules and they'll all be there when I turn Custom protection back on?
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Old 27 Feb 2022, 12:47 PM   #12
ellentk
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Ah xyzzy. I was writing my post while you were writing yours. Just saw it.

Thank you!

I shall go back to troubleshooting now that I'm properly reassured.
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Old 27 Feb 2022, 01:57 PM   #13
Terry
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Right click and save to word....or note pad
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Old 27 Feb 2022, 02:54 PM   #14
xyzzy
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry View Post
Right click and save to word....or note pad
Must be a windows thing. I'm on a Mac, not the current OS and not the latest (Firefox) browser (because I'm not using a later Mac OS). There's lots of sites and stuff that fail with my browser. I'd be more in a hurry to update the OS and Firefox if it wasn't for my "inertia" and having a iPhone as an "escape valve"! That's why I pointed out earlier that those buttons aren't there in the mobile version. I was looking for that export just to verify it was yet another browser problem for me.

Quote:
When I clicked Export on a windows laptop it generated a file called "Fastmail Mailrules.json" that contains all my rules written in some kind of script but isn't the sieve file. I can open the file and search it in wordpad and sublime text, both windows programs. The rules look like this:
I would expect that the exported rules list to be in some kind of private Sieve independent syntax to cover the possibility of changes to Sieve. Sort of like exporting email contacts as a vcard to make it independent of any one mail app's contact list. This way the import can use those instructions to map back into whatever is required by future FastMail UI's.

Quote:
I apologize for repeating myself, but I'm nervous about losing my rules, and want to confirm that in addition to not erasing spam and non-spam learned, turning off Custom protection also will not erase my rules and they'll all be there when I turn Custom protection back on?
I understand.

Last edited by xyzzy : 27 Feb 2022 at 03:08 PM.
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Old 27 Feb 2022, 05:29 PM   #15
ellentk
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Smile

Quote:
Originally Posted by xyzzy View Post
I understand.
Thank you. 🙂
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