A list of Known Issues with Maileater in CA Service Desk Manager 17.1

Products

• SUPPORT AUTOMATION- SERVER
• CA Service Desk Manager - Unified Self Service
• CA Service Desk Manager
• CA Service Management - Asset Portfolio Management
• CA Service Management - Service Desk Manager

Issue/Introduction

See below the list of known issues with Maileater in CA Service Desk 17.1 and 17.1 RU1:

Maileater does not send a reply message
Description:

Maileater is not able to sent the reply messages

Symptoms: 

Users do not receive an email reply from maileater when 
ERROR  [Thread-4] c.c.S.m.c.PdmMailUtils - Unable to send reply without Email Address. 

Basically when an email is received by maileater, from address header might be in the format:  "lastname, firstname <[email protected]".  Maileater then attempts to send an email to this address via pdm_mail program, but creates the Mail To address as  ""lastname, firstname <[email protected]"".

The first two double quotes are perceived as empty mail address and so mail send errors out. 

CA Defect #: DE39959

Maileater merges lines into one line if the email is in Rich Text Format
Description:

Lines in the Message Body of an incoming mail are merged to one line, if the mail is in Rich Text Format

Symptoms:

Send a mail to the maileater in Rich Text Format below content, making sure that they exists in two different lines:
line1
line2

A ticket opened with this has a description with both lines merged into one line:
line1 line2

CA Defect #: DE41471

Maileater is unable to process emails with null subject (no subject)
Description:

Maileater is unable to process emails with null subject (no subject)

Symptoms:

Maileater logs have entries like below:
ERROR [ForkJoinPool-1-worker-1] c.c.S.m.ConnectSession - [mailbox:SDESK:100] Error processing email from: MailServer:143
java.lang.NullPointerException: null
 at java.util.regex.Matcher.getTextLength(Unknown Source)
 at java.util.regex.Matcher.reset(Unknown Source)
 at java.util.regex.Matcher.(Unknown Source)
 at java.util.regex.Pattern.matcher(Unknown Source)

.CA Defect #: DE41501

Maileater does not work when a custom textapi.cfg file exists in site/mods folder
Description: 

Maileater does not work when a NX_ROOT/site/mods/textapi.cfg exists

Symptoms:

Maileater log shows:
ERROR [ForkJoinPool-1-worker-1] c.c.S.m.ConnectSession - [mailbox:Mail_Eater:400001] Error processing email from: outlook.com:143
java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: 15
at java.lang.AbstractStringBuilder.deleteCharAt(Unknown Source)
 at java.lang.StringBuilder.deleteCharAt(Unknown Source)
 at com.ca.ServicePlus.mail.common.PDMMailerUtil.getTextAPIMultiLineCommands(PDMMailerUtil.java:883)
 at com.ca.ServicePlus.maileater.MailboxRule.feedToTextApi(MailboxRule.java:1640)
 at com.ca.ServicePlus.maileater.MailboxRule.processResult(MailboxRule.java:919)

CA Defect #: DE40247

Maileater does not process some emails
Description:  

maileater does not process some emails, specially when they have message body / subject with characters like:
????
or 
*****

Symptoms:

Below error messages are seen in Maileater logs 

ERROR [ForkJoinPool-1-worker-2] c.c.S.m.ConnectSession - [mailbox:Mail_Eater:400001] Error processing email from: outlook.com:143
java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Dangling meta character '?' near index 800

or

ERROR [ForkJoinPool-1-worker-3] c.c.S.m.ConnectSession - [mailbox:Mail_Eater:400001] Error processing email from: outlook.com:143
java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Dangling meta character '*' near index 0 **

CA Defect #: DE41616

Unique Attributes/values get merged into one via maileater
Description:

When reading an email in Rich Text Format, maileater jumbles up attributes/values during parsing.  This results in SDM TextAPI attempting to read parameter/values improperly resulting in an Unknown attribute error.

Symptoms:

Here's an example email sent in Plain text format, it separates %INCIDENT out as invalid and starts differentiating rest of the parameters+values properly into appropriate fields

%INCIDENT=
%summary=testing diff with 14.1
%category=Email
%REQUESTOR=servicedesk
%CUSTOMER=casmadmin
%STRING1=Footprints
%STATUS=Open
%GROUP=group1
%ASSIGNEE=servicedesk
%DESCRIPTION=testing Description diff with 14.1

AHD58041:Invalid Input (%INCIDENT=). Input will be ignored.

Send similar email in HTML/RTF format:

%INCIDENT=

%SUMMARY=testing summary
%CATEGORY=email

%REQUESTOR=servicedesk

%CUSTOMER=casmadmin

%STRING1=string1 text

%STATUS=Open

%GROUP=group1

%DESCRIPTION=testing HTML formatted email

Result would be an error in maileater logs:
AHD58041:Invalid Input (%INCIDENT= %SUMMARY=testing summary). Input will be ignored.AHD58007:Problem Occurred trying to set CATEGORY=email %REQUESTOR=servicedesk||PERL_SDM_CATEGORY_SEPARATOR||casmadmin. See log for info.

CA Defect #:  DE40788

Maileater Attachment Performance
Description:

Performance of maileater when processing attachments is slower in 17.1 release compared to older releases. When the mail server in question is Office 365/Outlook.com type of account, it is much slower than an in house mail server. 

Symptoms:

An example email with a 25MB attachment was received could take up to 6 minutes to process. During this time other emails received by the same mail box are held up in queue.

CA Defect #: DE42026

Maileater cannot process a blank filter string on the Mailbox Rules.
Description:

Exceptions are seen on Maileater when an email sent to maileater ends up getting processed by a rule containing a blank filter string

Symptoms: 

Errors seen in the maileater logs:
ERROR [ForkJoinPool-1-worker-0] c.c.S.m.ConnectSession - [mailbox:Test Mailbox:400001] Error processing email from: localhost:1110
java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: 0

CA Defect #: DE40545

Maileater does not process emails if the mail box has Inclusion/Exclusion lists with wild card characters in the values.
Description:

When a mailbox has Inclusion List / Exclusion List with a wild card character in its value, example: *.ca.com, maileater cannot process that email.

Symptoms:

The mail is not processed and is left behind on the mailbox. Below errors are seen in the maileater logs:
 

TRACE [ForkJoinPool-1-worker-1] c.c.S.maileater.Mailbox - Searching for World domain <*> in Allow list. 
TRACE [ForkJoinPool-1-worker-1] c.c.S.maileater.Mailbox - Searching for entry "*" in list "*.ca.com". 
ERROR [ForkJoinPool-1-worker-1] c.c.S.m.ConnectSession - [mailbox:TEST:400001] Error processing email from: test.company.com:143 
java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Dangling meta character '*' near index 0 
* 
^ 
at java.util.regex.Pattern.error(Unknown Source) 
at java.util.regex.Pattern.sequence(Unknown Source) 
at java.util.regex.Pattern.expr(Unknown Source) 
at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Unknown Source) 
at java.util.regex.Pattern.<init>(Unknown Source) 
at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Unknown Source) 
at com.ca.ServicePlus.mail.common.PDMMailerUtil.substringAfter(PDMMailerUtil.java:940) 

CA Defect #: DE42405 

Intermittent hang issues with maileater
Description:

When a mailbox is setup in SDM, attachment repository option is optional. Having this to an empty value makes maileater A working 17.1 maileater eventually might get into a state where it doesn't update maileater logs nor process any emails anymore.  A restart of maileater is needed to get this resolved. This was observed to be a random occurrence, no specific steps were seen to reproduce the issue so far.

Symptoms:

Maileater produces a set of logs for each day and backs them up zipped to NX_ROOT/maileater_nxd  folder.  When the behavior of maileater not responding is observed, a gap in the log file names is seen. Example: day1, day2, day3.... day6    (where day6 gets created after restart of maileater, and day4,day5 are totally missing)

CA Defect #: DE40505 


Maileater does not connect to Mailbox if Attachment Repository is not specified on the SDM mailbox settings
Description:

When a mailbox is setup in SDM, attachment repository option is optional. Having this to an empty value makes maileater.

Maileater logs in debug/trace show entries like:

2018-08-16 15:37:47:547 TRACE  [Thread-3] c.c.S.maileater.Mailbox - [mailbox:Default:100] ([email protected]@imap-mail.outlook.com/Inbox) received GO signal.  Initializing Mail Polling and Parsing...
2018-08-16 15:37:47:547 DEBUG  [Thread-3] c.c.S.maileater.Mailbox - [mailbox:Default:100] ([email protected]@imap-mail.outlook.com/Inbox) creating IMAP4 Mail Fetch.
2018-08-16 15:38:43:912 TRACE  [pool-2-thread-1] c.c.S.m.NXMailEater - NX_EMAIL_NO_DELETE option is not set
2018-08-16 15:38:43:913 TRACE  [pool-2-thread-1] c.c.S.m.NXMailEater - MailEater Stats: Msgs Received(0) Msgs Processed(0) Unknown Msgs(0) Attachments(0) Protocol Errors(0) Parse Errors(0) Tracing(false) 

CA Defect #: DE43454

Maileater is not able to parse special characters properly
Description:

In certain conditions maileater is not able to parse special characters and messages like below can cause issues:

%z_asi_descricao=Owner: OWNER NAME C006945

Details: Tests Pending. [testing br testing

Symptoms:

The mail is not processed and is left behind on the mailbox.

Below errors are seen in the maileater logs:

java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Unclosed character class near index 43
Details: Tests Pending. [testing br testing

^
at java.util.regex.Pattern.error(Unknown Source)
at java.util.regex.Pattern.clazz(Unknown Source)
at java.util.regex.Pattern.sequence(Unknown Source)
at java.util.regex.Pattern.expr(Unknown Source)
at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Unknown Source)
at java.util.regex.Pattern.<init>(Unknown Source)
at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.String.replaceFirst(Unknown Source)

Environment

CA Service Desk 17.1 RU1
CA Service Desk 17.1

Resolution

There is a combo fix available to be applied on top of Service Desk 17.1 and 17.1 RU1.

See details below:

PRODUCT: Service Desk RELEASE: 17.1
APAR #:  SO05289 DATE: 5 SEP 2018
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: WIN-MAILEATER COMBO FIX

Make sure your environment runs the correct version (17.1 and 17.1 RU1), go to the link below and download the combo fix:

https://support.broadcom.com/download-center/solution-detail.html?aparNo=SO05289&os=WINDOWS


If you have any problem when downloading it, please, open a case at CA Support asking for the available combo fix.