Frustrated - non-spam continually reported as spam

[NumberSix]

Thanks Sierran, I look forward to hearing what you find out.

[ezfig]

Thanks for all the info, and I hope my asking the question has provided help for others. In my case, it appears that correctly identifying the source of the email - the email forwarding account I set up - has taken care of the problem (my bad).

[NumberSix]

My personal Bayes database has returned, and the 'learned' numbers are high - seems like it was simply restored to the point it was at when "something" went wrong....

[Sierran]

My apologies for not posting earlier. Tech support got back to me and stated that after an upgrade, a server process was not restarted. This process had nothing to do with the *functioning* of the Bayes spam system, but was specifically used to provide the 'status numbers' used in the option screen. So the system was working properly the whole time, just reporting zeroes incorrectly, and (as has been noted) has been fixed.

[NumberSix]

Thanks for the new, Sierran.... this still seems a bit suspicious to me... that one sender kept being classified as "spam" even though I reported it as non-spam, at least.... geez... probably 30 times.

Also, here's another problem - as a result of looking at that screen, I noticed the "Mark spam as read" function, which was welcome, because I can't stand seeing my Junk Mail folder bolded with unread messages.. Problem is - it's not working either! I'm still getting spam marked as unread.

C'mon FM guys... what's the deal? Are we too distracted by the Opera buyout?

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by NumberSix

.... this still seems a bit suspicious to me... that one sender kept being classified as "spam" even though I reported it as non-spam, at least.... geez... probably 30 times.

As I explained earlier in this thread, reporting a message as non-spam will not force future messages from the same source to be accepted in the future.

• Reporting a message as spam trains the spam database on the contents of the message, not on the sender address.
• Even if the Bayes score is zero after training, if the message has a high spam score due to other factors it will be marked as spam.
• Address book whitelisting is what you need to use to force a particular sender address to be not marked as spam.
• You must look at the X-Spam-score and X-Spam-hits headers to see what is going on with false positives (messages incorrectly marked as spam).

Originally Posted by NumberSix

... Also, here's another problem - as a result of looking at that screen, I noticed the "Mark spam as read" function, which was welcome, because I can't stand seeing my Junk Mail folder bolded with unread messages.. Problem is - it's not working either! I'm still getting spam marked as unread.

This new feature (which was just added) works fine for me. Of course, you must save your changes on the Spam/Virus Protection screen after you click that checkbox. And it only changes new messages filed into your Junk Mail folder by the spam filter. It will not change the read state of messages moved into Junk Mail by the backscatter filter -- these are messages with your address used as the From address, and it's a good idea to look at them before discarding them, since they might be messages bounced back to you by someone else in some cases.

Bill

[NumberSix]

Originally Posted by n5bb

• Reporting a message as spam trains the spam database on the contents of the message, not on the sender address.
• Address book whitelisting is what you need to use to force a particular sender address to be not marked as spam.

I see... thanks for the clarification.

It will not change the read state of messages moved into Junk Mail by the backscatter filter -- these are messages with your address used as the From address, and it's a good idea to look at them before discarding them, since they might be messages bounced back to you by someone else in some cases.

I am still getting mail marked unread in my Junk Mail folder which is not apparently backscatter, i.e. it doesn't have one of my addresses as the From. And I have certainly saved the setting correctly. This is still looking "broken" to me.

Dave

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by NumberSix

... I am still getting mail marked unread in my Junk Mail folder which is not apparently backscatter, i.e. it doesn't have one of my addresses as the From. And I have certainly saved the setting correctly. This is still looking "broken" to me.

This feature works by setting the \\Seen flag on messages moved to your Junk Mail folder using the spam score. If your spam protection setting is Normal, you will have this Sieve code (assuming you have no other rules or automated filing active):

if not header :contains ["X-Spam-known-sender"] "yes" {
if allof(
  header :contains ["X-Backscatter"] "yes",
  not header :matches ["X-LinkName"] "*" 
) {
  fileinto "INBOX.Junk Mail";
  stop;
}
if  header :value "ge" :comparator "i;ascii-numeric" ["X-Spam-score"] ["5"]  {
  setflag "\\Seen";
  fileinto "INBOX.Junk Mail";
  stop;
}
}

So you should check the following:

• Look at the full headers of the messages arriving in Junk Mail which are marked unread (bold). If you see a X-Backscatter header (with the value yes), then the message was placed there by the Fastmail backscatter protection feature.
• Look at all of your rules. If you have any File into folders rules which file into the Junk Mail folder, they should have the Read box checked if you want them to appear that way.
• If you have any Advanced Rules, they can also file messages into the Junk Mail folder without marking them as read.
• And, of course, if you move an unread message to the Junk Mail folder using the Fastmail web interface or an IMAP client, the message will appear there unread.

Bill

[NumberSix]

Thanks for the hint. In fact I do have my own Sieve script that (I had forgotten) was filing spam into the Junk folder, so I added the \\Seen flag.