Intermittent Email Sending Problem

[www]

I’ve had several customers have problems sending emails the last couple weeks (no one on the same day). They can receive emails just fine but can’t send (they get an error message but it’s never the same message). It seems to last from 3 to 10 hours and then is ok again. During the time the customer is having problems, I can set up their account on my computer and it sends and receives just fine so I don’t think it’s a server problem. The customers are on different ISPs so I don’t think it’s a port 25 blocking problem. They all seem to use Outlook Express on different Windows OS’s (95,98,XP etc). The servers that have had customers with this problem are on 15 and 20 but I doubt that makes a difference.

Has anyone else had this problem or have any idea what could be causing this?

Thank You for any help!

[-Oz-]

What server, cp22 seems to be having some problems.

[www]

What server, cp22 seems to be having some problems.

cp15 and cp20, I don't have an account on cp22 so I guess that's not the problem but thanks

[Buddha]

What server, cp22 seems to be having some problems.

he he ... done that.

What kind of error messages?

[www]

I'm not sure since the problem does not usually last long enough to get back to the customer and the customer to try again. I know these are three that they have gotten:

! Task'mail.domain.com- sending' reported error (0x800ccc65):'Your outgoing (SMTP) e-mail server has reported an internal error. If you continue to receive this message, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP). The server responded: 503 valid RCPT command must precede DATA'

The connection to the server has failed. Account General Email account for firm Server mail.domain.com Protocol SMTP Port 25 SecureSSL No Socket Error 10051 Error Number 0x800CCC0E

Something like Unable to locate server mail.domain.com.

The customers have tried re-starting their computer, check or uncheck "my server requires authentication", and I think the second error message was when they tried checking "Log on using Secure Password Authentication" (which has never worked). But like I said, incoming email works just fine.

[Buddha]

Sounds likes the recipient addresses is missing. Can't see Outlook Express trying to send an unaddressed email though? ( Well maybe it is Microsoft. )

Maybe a <> problem? You can get a 503 when the MAIL FROM contains just a <>. With Exim that is, that what Dathorn uses right? Can't figure how that would happen either though? And this is the RCPT that screwed up.

Wierd.

[russgri]

I have had problems recently...
I was an ISP issue....not resolving domains for a period of time.
I used another ISP for a few hours and when I returned the problem was fixed...
Andrew said it was an ISP problem ...

[www]

Happening Again

A client (the main one having problems) is having problems sending email again. They get the error "server could not be found" but they can receive email just fine.

Anyone have any ideas?

[Dan]

I'm finding things talking about port 25 being blocked by the ISP but that would be constant.

I also found this but I would expect that there would be more than one person on the server having the problem if that were it.

I would say to have them just use their ISPs SMTP server and see if that clears up the problem.

[www]

Thanks Dan and others!

Tomarrow I will try to get the customer to switch to their ISP's email account for sending. What a mess

[MindlessOath]

i think you should tell them to change the outgoing mail server in outlook to their ISP's one. that fixed my problems, or tell them to use the webmail??

hope that helps.