OneLinersCommand workbench
Verified diagnostic signature

Exim deferred, froze, or could not process a queued message.

Match output from exim, understand the likely cause, then continue with sourced, read-only checks.

Confidence
high
Platforms
linux
Verified
2026-07-24
Recognized output

Signature matched locally

SMTP error from remote mail server

OneLiners matches this pattern in your browser. Your pasted output is not stored or indexed.

Likely causes

What usually produces this signal

  1. Remote temporary failure
  2. Repeated delivery failure
  3. DNS or routing issue
  4. Local storage exhaustion
Safe next checks

Collect evidence before changing the system

01

List all messages currently in the Exim mail queue

exim -bp

The output matches the expected target and exits without an error.

02

Inspect the headers of a queued Exim message

exim -Mvh <message-id>

The output matches the expected target and exits without an error.

03

Follow the Exim service log

journalctl -u exim4 -f

The output matches the expected target and exits without an error.

04

Show free disk space in human-readable units

df -h

The output matches the expected target and exits without an error.