Problems with email

[Real World Hypnotherapy]

Hey peeps

I am having some problems with my email. I use my own domain name i.e. at realworldhypnotherapy.com which is hosted with godaddy. I also use 3 mobile broadband and I have set it up in outlook.

To use 3 mobile broadband you need to set the smtp sessions to 3's server and not the one you would usually use i.e. my go daddy one.

Over the past few weeks I have had some internet issues and 3 have said that work is going on in the area and this is likely to happed. Now I am also having a lot of email issues where emails are being bounced (saying the address does not exist when I know it does) and also not receiving emails or having massive delays.

I am not sure if the problem lies with 3 or with my mail server. I have all the jargon which gets sent back with the bounced emails but I don't want to put it up here in case any of it is sensative.

Is there any way to find out where the problem lies?

Thanks

Matt

[KM-Tiger]

I have all the jargon which gets sent back with the bounced emails but I don't want to put it up here in case any of it is sensative.

Looking at those email headers (as they are called) might give some clues.

The only sensitive parts would be actual email addresses which could get spam harvested here. Things like server names and IP's are matter of public record anyway. If you can obfuscate those email addresses - change them to xx@yy, aa@bb, etc, then the bounce messages *might* tell something useful.

Also do you have to use 3's SMTP server? How do you authenticate to the GoDaddy one? Which port?

[Real World Hypnotherapy]

Ok here is the information.

My incoming server is pop.secureserver.net and my out going is smtp-mbb.three.co.uk. It was the same as in the coming before but as I am using mobile 3 broadband I had to change this. Incoming port is 110 and out going is 25. This has worked fine for ages and I have not changed the settings.

Here is the email info I got sent back when it bounced. I have xxx'ed out other people's email addresses. I am guessing that the email addresses may not show as I am not a full member.

Here is the message;

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at ukmrpl004.it.hutchison3g.net.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX@hotmail.com>:
Connected to 65.55.37.72 but sender was rejected.
Remote host said: 550 SC-001 Mail rejected by Windows Live Hotmail for policy reasons. Reasons for rejection may be related to content with spam-like characteristics or IP/domain reputation problems. If you are not an email/network admin please contact your E-mail/Internet Service Provider for help. Email/network admins, please visit http://postmaster.live.com for email delivery information and support

<XXXXXXXXXXXXXX@yahoo.co.uk>:
Connected to 77.238.184.241 but greeting failed.
Remote host said: 421 4.7.1 [TS03] All messages from 217.171.128.38 will be permanently deferred; Retrying will NOT succeed. See http://postmaster.yahoo.com/421-ts03.html
I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long.



--- Below this line is a copy of the message.

Return-Path: <matt@realworldhypnotherapy.com>
Received: (qmail 5168 invoked by uid 8018); 5 Apr 2010 15:19:12 -0000
Received: from 92.40.150.42.sub.mbb.three.co.uk by ukmrpl004 (envelope-from <matt@realworldhypnotherapy.com>, uid 5186) with qmail-scanner-2.05
(spamassassin: 3.1.8.
Clear:RC:0(92.40.150.42):SA:0(0.4/5.0):.
Processed in 0.120767 secs); 05 Apr 2010 15:19:12 -0000
X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.4 required=5.0
X-Spam-Level:
Received: from 92.40.150.42.sub.mbb.three.co.uk (HELO Matt) (92.40.150.42)
by softdnserror with SMTP; 5 Apr 2010 15:19:10 -0000
From: "Real World Hypnotherapy" <matt@realworldhypnotherapy.com>
To: "Real World Hypnotherapy" <matt@realworldhypnotherapy.com>
Subject: Hours for next week , Monday 12th April onwards
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 16:18:23 +0100
Message-ID: <004901cad4d3$579c9cf0$06d5d6d0$@com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_004A_01CAD4DB.B96104F0"
X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 12.0
Thread-Index: AcrU0zuDpBKg0cZkT+m13We17YSKYg==
Content-Language: en-gb



Any help much appreciated. And all the of the email addresses that it bounced back from do work.

Matt

[Forge Dynamic]

Hello Matt,

I have done some basic investigation and found two problems, one of which is causing the issue here, the other is one that could cause future problems...

Firstly the messages are most likely being rejected because 217.171.128.38 (the three smtp server) has been placed on a number of blacklists. smtp-mbb.three.co.uk resolves to both 217.171.128.38.and 217.171.128.37 and both of these are blacklisted. I think you need to go back to Three and inform them you mail is not getting through as thier smtp server has been blacklisted - most likely because a Three user has been using it to relay spam...

Secondly I looked up the MX records for you domain and have noticed that there is not a record resolving to the Three smtp server, whilst this doesn't seem to be causing a problem now it could in the future as some firewalls/mail servers perform Reverse DNS lookups against the MX records to make sure they have come from where they say they are coming from. i.e. check if there is an MX record for realworldhypnotherapy.com that points to 217.171.128.38 (or.37). MX records can be setup in your DNS settings in godaddy.

Hopefully that will help.

Cheers,

Ed

[KM-Tiger]

Firstly the messages are most likely being rejected because 217.171.128.38 (the three smtp server) has been placed on a number of blacklists.

Yes that would, at face value, appear to be the case. I would just add that both of those servers are notorious for blocking at the drop of a hat, often for spurious reasons. I've been blocked for "making too many connections" when my logs clearly show only 2 connections in the last 24 hrs.

Secondly I looked up the MX records for you domain and have noticed that there is not a record resolving to the Three smtp server, whilst this doesn't seem to be causing a problem now it could in the future as some firewalls/mail servers perform Reverse DNS lookups against the MX records to make sure they have come from where they say they are coming from. i.e. check if there is an MX record for realworldhypnotherapy.com that points to 217.171.128.38 (or.37). MX records can be setup in your DNS settings in godaddy.

I think you are confusing MX and SPF.

It would be quite wrong to set the 'three' server as MX for realworldhypnotherapy.com (even with the longest distance) unless the 'three' server was going to accept mail for that domain, which is unlikely.

It would, however, be perfectly correct to create an SPF record listing the 'three' server as a sending source, and indeed many (but by no means all) MTA's do check SPF. It is also generally acknowledged that having SPF in place helps with getting through to the likes of hotmail and BT Yahoo. Many also advocate DomainKeys for that situation.

realworldhypnotherapy: Why did you need to change the outgoing SMTP server? Do 3 block port 25 except to their server? Can you use your old outgoing server using port 587 or 465 and avoid 3?

[Forge Dynamic]

Hi KM-Tiger,

Yes, you're quite right. I meant SPF not MX. Apologies.

Cheers,

Ed

[kumarudaya]

Why don't you try it different broadband connection like you friend house some thing, then you can find where is the problem.