emails bouncing when spamd times out

[gene <ge...@smalltime.com>]

I'm running spamd on a separate server from postfix.  Postfix runs 
spamc with this configuration in master.cf:

smtp      inet  n       -       y       -       -       smtpd -o 
content_filter=spamc
smtp      unix  -       -       y       -       -       smtp -o 
content_filter=spamc
spamc     unix  -       n       n       -       -       pipe
   user=nobody argv=/usr/bin/spamc -t 1200 -u ${user} -d 
<my.spamassassin.server> -e /usr/sbin/sendmail -oi -f ${sender} 
${recipient}


Occasionally, spamd will take a while to return or spamd will have died 
or something and, instead of failing gracefully, postfix will bounce 
the email:

Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; Command time limit exceeded: 
"/usr/bin/spamc"

I already have the timeout option set to 1200.  I don't think that 
increasing that is the way to go.
'man spamc' describes the '-x' option which turns off 'safe fallback' 
error-recovery.  Since I'm not using this option, why am I not getting 
a 'safe fallback' behavior?


Is there a better way to configure postfix and/or spamc so that 
spamassassin-checking is skipped rather than the email being bounced in 
this type of situation?



Thanks.