DELETED FROM AUTOCAT, distribution changed to Digest (or other problems with your subscription) ?

If you fail to receive AUTOCAT messages over a several day period, use the QUERY command (as described in the list of AUTOCAT command options) to find out if your name is present on the distribution list. If you are experiencing problems with your subscription and need human intervention, send an e-mail message to: autocat-request@listserv.syr.edu and we'll respond as soon as possible.

* What kinds of complications can arise and how do the listowners react to them?

The major problems are:
1. the subscriber is unable to manage his or her subscription, and
2. the list mail fails to reach the subscriber.

How do these problems reveal themselves?
1. If you send a command to LISTSERV and get back the response that you are not a subscriber, that usually means that your e-mail address has changed and no longer matches the one under which you subscribed. The change may have occurred months earlier but you were unaware of it because your computing center had provided a forward link between your old address and the new one, thus making the change invisible when you receive mail. It is only when you attempt to send a command to LISTSERV, which requires an exact match between your return address and that shown in the Autocat subscription list before it will implement your command, that the change becomes obvious.

   If you can still access the earlier account, logon to it and unsubscribe from Autocat (see How to Subscribe/Unsubscribe to Autocat) then logon to your new account and subscribe again to Autocat. The order in which you perform these steps is immaterial.

   If your old account is no longer accessible send a message to one of the listowners, tell them your address has changed, and ask them to delete your old subscription. Subscribe to Autocat from your new account.

2. Every day some messages distributed to Autocat fails to reach one or more subscribers. This failure occurs for a variety of reasons:
   • the subscriber has a full mailbox which cannot accept any new mail,
   • the subscriber's local computing center is experiencing hardware or software difficulties,
   • there is a problem somewhere on the route between LISTSERV in Buffalo and the subscriber's site,
   • the subscriber no longer has an account on the local host, etc.

While private messages that cannot be delivered are returned to the poster, undeliverable list mail is returned to the listowner and not to the poster. (Some mailers are improperly configured and cause such errors to be sent to the poster. If you receive such an error message forward it to autocat-request and then discard it.

If, however, there are numerous error messages emanating from a specific address, the listowner must take action to prevent being flooded with error messages related to that subscription. The listowner's options, in terms of decreasing severity, are to delete the subscription, set the subscription to NOMAIL, or to set the subscription to DIGEST.

Only after error messages have been received for several daily DIGESTs will the listowner take the next steps of either setting your subscription to NOMAIL or DELETING your subscription.

When the listowner changes your distribution option a message of notification will be sent to you but it will probably bounce and generate an error message in its turn. The only sign you will have of a problem is a period in which you haven't received any Autocat mail followed by sudden receipt of a DIGEST.

What should you do if you suddenly find yourself receiving a DIGEST that you have not requested? Send LISTSERV the command SET AUTOCAT MAIL

It should be noted that not all problems in AUTOCAT mail distribution result in the above steps. LISTSERV has a feature that is called AUTO-DELETE. With this feature in operation error messages that are formulated according to fixed standards that LISTSERV can deal with are sent to LISTSERV and not to the listowner. After either 100 error messages or error messages received over a consecutive 4 day period, LISTSERV will automatically delete the subscription and notify the listowner of that action.

When you receive a notice that your AUTOCAT subscription has been deleted, feel free to resubscribe by sending LISTSERV the command:
SUBSCRIBE AUTOCAT (Yourfirstname) (Yourlastname)

This page has been accessed times since 8 September 1997.

Last revised 11 January 2007

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