Postfix send error: queue file write error

Long time no technical post; here’s a solution to a small but frustrating error I saw today.

I got this while sending a mail with a huge attachment:

postdrop: warning: uid=1000: Illegal seek
sendmail: fatal: amit(1000): queue file write error

Now this is because postfix (according to their man page) defaults to a 10MB file size limit. Though my attachment was much smaller than that, it was blocked. So I’m guessing the manpage and the real default are out of sync. I set the ‘message_size_limit’ to 15000000 (slightly less than 15MB) in /etc/postfix/main.cf. This worked.

(I use postfix 2.3.3 on Kubuntu.)

9 thoughts on “Postfix send error: queue file write error”

  1. >I had the same problem / error as you, with a 7.3 MB attachment.

    I set the message_size_limit to 0, which presumably gives no limit. That solved the problem for me.

  2. >It should be noted that the message_size_limit is not a file-size limit for an attachment. It’s the maximum size of an entire email message, including headers, text, and mime-encoded attachments.

    A typical mime-encoded attachments is encoded with the base64 algorithm, and will then increase 33% in size (3 bytes becomes 4) thus a 7MB file, with headers, and text easily can exceed the 10MB standard limit of postfix.

    But nevertheless, increasing the message_size_limit fixes the problem! :-)
    Thanks for saving me much hazzle trying to figure out what the error message was all about.

  3. >Someone asked for step-by-step instructions. Here they are:

    If you have access to the ‘root’ account, do this:

    $ su
    [Enter password]
    # vi /etc/postfix/main.cf
    [Use arrow keys to navigate and find the line with ‘message_size_limit’]
    [Press ‘i’ to enter edit mode. Change the limit from default to a higher value or ‘0’ for unlimited message size]
    [Press ESC to escape edit mode]
    [Press ‘:’ then ‘w’ then ‘q’ to write the file and exit]
    # exit
    [That exits from ‘root’ to normal user]

  4. >Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
    Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!

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