Exchange 2003 message submitted to categorizer then stops

The Message Categorizer examines every message that come into an SMTP server and determines the course of action. The messages may be destined for the local store, a remote host by means of the message transfer agent (MTA), or a remote host by means of SMTP. The Categorizer also handles Distribution List (DL) expansion.
this is a simple explanation of categorizer from MS.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;233358
this is also good reading eventhough it explains the inbound process.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=%2Fservicedesks%2Fwebcasts%2Fen%2Fwc100802%2Fwct100802.asp
lite a cigar with a nice cold beer and read this artical.

now as to why one message gets stuck in the catagorizer i have no clue but if u explain the destination of the message(local,another exchange in ur organization or a third party not related)may help.
also ask the user if he has a contact created for the troubled address to delete it and recreate it.also ask him to type the email address instead of using contact and see if that would help.

It is to a third party(actually 3)email address. I just tried to re-send the message by manually inputting the addressee's emails. That did not work. All of his other emails are going through, and these three addressee's are all in different domains. I don't get it???

I was trying that, I forwarded his message to myself and was going to attempt to re-send it to his list. It did the same thing to me. It would not deliver the message. I then began to re-typr the message thinking there must be a problem in the body of the message, that was when I noticed some choice 4-letter words in the content. This facility has been using Trend Micro Emanager to filter spam. They had there profanity filter turned on for inbound and outbound messages. Problem solved. Thanks for your help.

hahahahaha.man i would have never guessed that one.glad things worked out for you.take care and good luck.

I found that Trend SMB on my clients' exchange server had the real time SMTP monitor installed and running, but they only had the license for the client security - no messaging.  I disabled the Trend Micro Client Server Messaging services and that appears to have fixed my problem.  If they had the correct license (which they will soon,) then I could have configured settings and monitored logs for what was being filtered out inappropriately.

What resolved this issue for me is when i found that GFI mail essential which is installed on the same box with Exchange 2003.. fund multiple GFI filters were set to delete  - so any mail was caught by that filter never went to any queue to be viewed or found ...  Now .. when i changed the GFI action behavior to send to xyz mailbox, instead of delete ...  i can find those mysteriously disappearing emails in the mailbox i pointed to in GFI

What fixed this for me is changing GFI mail essential spam filter settings on all filters from delete to send to mailbox.
then you can create a mailbox just for GFI to collect all potential spams... and recover what's not.