Many users are reporting that spamd occationally goes into a 100% cpu usage loop which doesn’t stop until completely killed and restarted. The problem is mainly reported with Ensim, but since the SpamAssassin (SA) version used by Ensim is generic it could probably happen for other platforms as well.

It appears this is caused by SA’s Bayes subsystem, and by disabling Bayes we have found the problem so far to have disappeared. The Bayes subsystem is just one of a range of checks applied by SA so while there is a small loss of functionality it’s minor and at least the rest works.

Howto fix the problem:

1. Edit /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf using vi or pico or whatever editor you prefer.
2. Add one line: use_bayes 0
3. Exit and save
4. Stop SA (service spamassassin stop)
5. Kill any looping jobs (killall -9 spamd)
6. Start SA (service spamassassin start)