I've been bashing my head against the wall with this maildrop not working. Can anyone help with why my .mailfilter never gets run?

I call it from the /usr/home/vpopmail/domains/<domain.com>/jeff directory as .qmail

Here's the .qmail:

*** START | /var/qmail/bin/preline /usr/local/bin/maildrop /usr/home/vpopmail/domains/.mailfilter *** END

here's the mailfilter (basic, a lot commented out for testing...

*** START VPOP="| /usr/home/vpopmail/bin/vdelivermail '' bounce-no-mailbox" VHOME=`/usr/home/vpopmail/bin/vuserinfo -d $EXT@$HOST` VINFO=`/bin/echo TEST > /usr/home/vpopmail/log` if ( $SIZE < 262144 ) { #exception #{ # xfilter "/usr/local/bin/spamc -t 20 -f -u $EXT@$HOST" #}

#if (/^X-Spam-Flag: YES/:h) #{ `/bin/test -d $VHOME/Maildir/.Spam` if ( $RETURNCODE == 1 ) { `/var/qmail/bin/maildirmake $VHOME/Maildir/.Spam; /usr/sbin/chown -R vpopmail:vchkpw $VHOME/Maildir/.Spam` }

#exception #{ # to "$VHOME/Maildir/.Spam" #} #exit #} }

exception { to "$VPOP" exit } *** END

It appears like .mailfilter is never processed. When i remove .qmail for the user dir mail then comes in.... What can be wrong?