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How to determine why the Bayesian spam filter blocked or allowed a message

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If you are questioning why an email was blocked or allowed by the Bayesian spam filter and would like more information, you can find further details in the log file for that filter. Use the following procedure to find the log and information regarding your message within it, and then use the examples below to interpret why the message was either blocked or allowed:
  1. Find the message ID of the email in question by either gathering it from the headers of the message itself, or by looking for it in the MailEssentials Dashboard > Logs > Details tab
  2. Open the ase_bayesian.gfi_log file in notepad from  ..\GFI\MailEssentials\AntiSpam\DebugLogs
    • This log is for the Bayesian Filter Module and corresponds to the Configuration > Anti-Spam > Anti Spam Filters > Bayesian in the interface
  1. Do a search for the Message ID from the dashboard or the email headers:
    • Note: The Message IDs have been removed from the example log files below
    • Note: The bolded lines are the important ones in the log files for determine what has happened and why
       

Email was allowed by the module:
 

>> Process Message
Libspam token count: xxxxx
Calling LibSpamAtt to extract tokens
Bayesian Scan completed [HAM]
<< Process Message
 

Email was blocked by the module:


>> Process Message
Libspam token count: xxxxx
Calling LibSpamAtt to extract tokens
Bayesian Scan completed [SPAM]
Setting actions data ...
Spam detected, Stopping ASE Chain [2]...
Setting block report to: 'Bayesian Filter detected spam'
<< Process Message

Note: If an email is incorrectly flagged as HAM or SPAM, please see the following article for more information on how to train the Bayesian Database: 
http://www.gfi.com/support/products/gfi-mailessentials/How-to-train-manually-update-and-create-a-new-database-for-the-Bayesian-Filter
 

Module is disabled:
 

Bayesian scanning disabled.  Returning
 
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  1. Priyanka Bhotika

  2. Posted 9 days ago

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