I have discovered a mistake in my exim configuration that caused exim to hand over all sizes to spamassassin. This was the same on the old and new servers, but apparently attributed greatly towards timeouts on the new server. Correcting that mistake to make exim only hand messages smaller than 100k to spamassassin, had a clear effect on the timeouts. Since that change in the configuration - about 18 hours ago, there was not one timeout.
It seems that the newer version of Spamassassin handles large messages less efficiently than the older version. Regards Johann -- Johann Spies Telefoon: 021-808 4036 Informasietegnologie, Universiteit van Stellenbosch "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." John 15:5