JunkMatcher problems
JunkMatcher is a free spam filtering app that works either with or in place of Mail.app’s inbuilt Junk filter.
It’s popular and very good (Andreas Amann in his “Talking Mail.app” interview says he “can’t live without it”).
Two reports of problems have surfaced in recent days that are worth recording:
- Coelomic at Word Works reports a problem with white lists longer than 200 lines. He describes the symptoms and the fix (UPDATE: in a post that used to exist but has now disappeared).
- On MacInTouch, David Schultz notes a conflict
between JunkMatcher and GPG Privacy Guard 1.4.1 . He resolved it by removing the GPGMail bundle.
Similar Posts:
- Microsoft: Spam problem is solved
- JunkMatcher: free extra spam protection
- Gmail, AOL and Privacy
- Mail.app’s blue and white folders explained
- Mail.app’s Junk Filter is not like the others
Tags: Apple Mail, conflicts, GPG privacy guard, junkmatcher, mail.app, plugin, spam, white list
February 27th, 2006 at 9:13 am
From David’s description it sounds like the conflict is with JunkMatcher and the GPGMail bundle, not the GPG application.
February 27th, 2006 at 9:45 am
Quite so. Thanks.
February 27th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
As noted on my “Talking Mail.app” referenced above, I have both – JM and GPGMail – bundles installed with zero problems. I guess David’s problem has more to it than simply those two bundles…
March 1st, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Slightly related — some more good reads for fighting spam:
http://paulgraham.com/antispam.html
Paul Graham (of ANSI Common Lisp fame) is the guy who came up with the idea of using Bayesian filters to automatically classify spam.
Before installing/configuring a filter, you may want to read some of those links (including all the methods that spammers use to spam) to get an idea about how your filter will/should work.
June 12th, 2006 at 2:50 am
I just had to remove JunkMatcher from my system when I identified it as the problem that was gumming up my Mail.
Basically, everything related to Junk (moving to Junk, filtering, auto-removal of junk messages) was taking so long I had to keep using the Force Quit.
Once I removed all traces of JunkMatcher, Mail returned to its old speedy self.
I’m sorry to have had to do that, as JunkMatcher caught most of the spam that Mail missed.
June 12th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
That’s interesting, Mark. Just yesterday Mail had similar symptoms to what you’ve described and disabling JunkMatcher “fixed” it. First time I can remember having to Force Quit Mail or seeing JM seriously misbehave.
Do you happen to have Xcode 2.3 installed on your system? If you do, I can explain a long shot hunch about what might be behind the Mail/JM lockups, although it could just be purely coincidental.
June 12th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Mail must have been having a bad day!
I can only assume I don’t have Xcode 2.3 as I have no idea what it is…
Just realized a bit ago that my JM rule was still in effect, effectively junking everything not in my address book or from a “previous recipient.” Which was fine until, for some reason, it retroactively filtered my inbox and moved hundreds of messages to Junk.
I just junked that rule…
June 12th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
Hopefully you recovered those accidentally junked messages okay. I had a “rules gone wild” incident while configuring my wife’s mail filtering last month but fortunately nothing was lost.
Borrowing MacUpdate’s description, “Xcode is Apple Computer’s integrated development environment (IDE) for Mac OS X”. It’s not commonly installed by most users. My hunch that something I’d noticed in the Xcode 2.3 release might be related to the Mail/JunkMatcher problem is probably a coincidence, but there’s still an unsolved Xcode mystery.
I’ve just re-enabled JunkMatcher and maybe it’ll automagically work normally again. It’s not really a necessity since I’m primarily using server-side spam filtering that’s mostly effective and could be improved if I tuned it. The combination of client/server anti-spam tactics I settled on awhile ago turned out to be more convenient to manage with the best overall results so I haven’t wanted or needed to fuss with it.
June 12th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
Back once more with positive news …
When JunkMatcher locked up again after reenabling it I remembered this problem:
Users of all versions: Long whitelist causing process Python to take 100% CPU time.
Indeed, my whitelist file had over 200 lines and once it was trimmed down JunkMatcher behaved normally again.
And that might be the problem and solution for you, Mark.
June 12th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
PS: I just noticed item #1 of this blog entry mentions the +200 line whitelist problem but the link to Coelomic’s site in invalid now.
June 12th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
Hmmm… So it is. And it’s not the result of reorganisation either, the post just doesn’t seem to be on the blog anymore. I’ll email Coelomic and find out what happened
June 13th, 2006 at 3:47 am
Just doesn’t seem? :-)
Yeah, the search I did there for JunkMatcher before my “PS” post here came up dry.
June 14th, 2006 at 8:51 am
No reply from Coelomic, so we lucked out there. :(
November 2nd, 2006 at 7:38 pm
I installed JM a few weeks ago. Standard config. I found that most junk mail was turning up in my inbox instead of the junk mailbox. I’ve since taken out the JM rule from Mail but it doesn’t seem to have made a difference. Tell me, should the Mail built in filter rule be at the top of the rules list?
Thanks
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Lee, I don’t use it myself, but there is plenty of good material on JunkMatcher rules and how to configure them in JunkMatcher’s online documentation
November 3rd, 2006 at 4:47 am
It can be though it would might get too aggressive that way.
I have over 20 rules before the Built-In Junk Filter, JunkMailer, FullStop, and Mail Act-On rules (in that order). It’s worked surprisingly well considering how finicky Mail can be. Aside from a few false positives/negatives a week, two other infrequent JM-related issues:
• The “Set Color of Background Red” action in the JM rule mysteriously colors messages that haven’t been moved to the Junk mailbox.
• The infamous Long whitelist causing process Python to take 100% CPU time bug mentioned in my June 12th post here.
Basic configuration, with a few overzealous JM matching tests disabled.
February 29th, 2008 at 6:13 am
A while ago I had a problem with mail freezing when clicking the junk button. Anthing I did related to junk caused mail to freeze. At first, I tried to quit mail, but it wouldn’t, so I had to force quit. But when I restarted mail it happened again. I then noticed a process in activity monitor called python which was using almost all cpu time. I scoured the internet to find a fix and found the whitelist fix above. The only thing is, when I open the whitelist, it is only one line long. I’m not even running junkmatcher any more, I removed the rule from mail, so what’s going on? I can’t find a fix for this anywhere.
Anyone?
May 17th, 2008 at 4:18 am
Does anyone have any answers to this? Everytime I manually junk a mail, I get the spinning beach ball, and the Python process revs up to upwards of 90%. I have to force quit it every time.
Arrrgh