> Source: [sk185176](https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk185176)

# sk185176 - MTA emails are deferred with "MIME recursion level was reached" when Anti-Spam is enabled

| Property | Value |
|----------|-------|
| Solution ID | sk185176 |
| Date Created | 2026-07-23 |
| Last Modified | 2026-07-26 |
| Technical Level | General |
| Products | Security Gateway |
| Versions | R82.10, R82, R81.20 |
| OS | Gaia |

## Symptoms

- * Emails are accepted by Postfix but remain in the deferred queue.

* The MTA debug (`$FWDIR/log/mtad.elg`) reports:

  ```
  
  mime_parse_file(): ... max_recursion_level=0 ...
  MIME recursion level was reached. Reject=0
  ```

* The issue occurs even with newly created emails that contain no nested MIME content.

## Solution

**Procedure:**

1. In SmartConsole, open the Threat Prevention profile assigned to the Security Gateway.

2. Enable a supported Threat Prevention blade.

3. Install the Threat Prevention policy from the Management Server.

4. Verify that the MTA no longer reports the recursion-level messages.

5. Confirm that deferred messages are forwarded to the next-hop mail server.

6. If necesary, allow Postfix to retry or flush deferred messages.

---

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