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Email delivery issues

Hi there.

I am using a host for my web, email and forum requirements, but recently over the past month my emails are taking ages to recieve and my recipients complain that my emails that I have sent arrive days late. It took me some time to work out what might be causing the issue. At first I thought it could be my internet router, but then checking on webmail, the result was still the same. I am thinking it could be my email host, but how can I prove this? What can I say to them, because at the worst of times the host always say that they are experiencing no problems with email delivery?

I am considering moving, but the hassle of creating email accounts all over again is something I do not want to do in a hurry.

So to sum up.

1) What can I say to my email host that will get them to look at the issue.
2) Is there a way I can prove emails are taking too long to be picked up?

I think my email host server might be overloaded or something is up.

Many thanks
 
The mail headers should show you were the delay is occurring and this will help you ask the host.

Maybe you could post some, but omit any sensitive information like email addresses.

Matt
 
As Matt said above, the email headers are your best bet, although most problems will still be hidden from view.

In most clients you can locate the headers by looking under the 'View' menu for something like "Message Source", which is actually short for message source code or email headers. The data can appear to be a little confusing at first but it should indicate which servers it has passed through at the top and at what times. For example (I have *** out some data)..

Received: from outbound-edge-1.mail.thdo.gradwell.net (bonnie.gradwell.net [212.11.****])
by outbound-queue-1.mail.thdo.gradwell.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id EFA53221B4
for <****@*****.co.uk>; Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:06:22 +0100 (BST)
Received: from bwcom.demon.co.uk (HELO ******) (62.49.*****)
(smtp-auth username ****%pop3.********.com, mechanism login)
by outbound-edge-1.mail.thdo.gradwell.net (qpsmtpd/0.83) with ESMTPA; Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:06:22 +0100

Otherwise I'd also check to see if your email pop/account has any anti-spam system running on it as that could also be causing delays, as could any blacklistings of your address by anti-spam groups. Sadly identifying email problems is very difficult, we often have issues with this and there's not a lot you can do except to report it.

It's easy to forget that the underlying email service hasn't really improved over the past two decades. It's an old system and IM is often a better solution for business or personal comms.
 
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Thanks for the heads up.

I ll see if I can get an email header here and it might provide some clues. Its so sad to find reliable email delivery out there, but must keep my options open.
 
In fairness using the words "email" and "reliable" in the same sentence isn't something that most people would do :) . Email has a lot of flaws.
 
Sorry for taking so long. I am hoping to get the email header details this evening. The issue has popped up again and everything was working fine last week. Seems to occur during the weekend and seems to affect certain mailboxes, but not all.

I emailed support on the delivery speed, but by then it seemed the email mailbox was receving the emails again, so they replied that there is no problem on their server and that there must be some delay in the network somewhere, but it does not seem good enough, because when I joined their system, for years there was no problems with email delivery. So wondering what has changed and what could be done about it, before we end up with constant email symptoms.

Hopefully I can place the header here later on.

Thanks again.
 
Here is one of the email headers, although not one of the worsts. It does show how slow the emails can get, some would take days. The situation seems to have cleared up a bit, but it would be nice to find some pattern in order to target what is slowing the emails down on the network.

Received: from mail2.dataflame.co.uk ([91.103.216.41]) by dfsv51.com with MailEnable ESMTP; Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:01:04 +0100
Return-Path: <****@*****.com>
X-Envelope-From: ****@*****.com
X-Envelope-To: ****@*****.ac.uk
Received: From dub0-omc2-s10.dub0.hotmail.com (157.55.1.149) by mail2.dataflame.co.uk (MAILFOUNDRY) id EXkW9LbCEeCEIAAw for ****@*****ac.uk; Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:29:05 -0000 (GMT)
Received: from DUB110-W62 ([157.55.1.136]) by dub0-omc2-s10.dub0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.4675);
Mon, 25 Jul 2011 07:00:51 -0700
Message-ID: <DUB110-W62515ED73CF8C50962AD42B6330@phx.gbl>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="_5342941b-8e06-4463-81bb-58a487955862_"
X-Originating-IP: [90.208.123.29]
From: ****** ****** <****@*****.com>
To: <****@*****.ac.uk>
Subject: testing 2
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:00:51 +0100
Importance: Normal
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 25 Jul 2011 14:00:51.0812 (UTC) FILETIME=[43831240:01CC4AD3]
 
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Well, that shows it is accepting the message from hotmail at 13:29 (or maybe 14:29 due to time zone) and then delivering it to your server at 15:01.

Trusting the times are correct and synced via NTP - your mail is delayed for whatever reason.

Matt
 
Is that a header from one of the messages that you described as being "days late"?
 
From dub0-omc2-s10.dub0.hotmail.com to mail2.dataflame.co.uk there seems to be a time descrepency of *minus* 30 minutes?!

From mail2.dataflame.co.uk to dfsv51.com there seems to be a time descrepency of *plus* 30 minutes.

It actually looks to me like the email was sent at 15:00:51 and arrived at 15:01:04 (which would mean it wasn't actually delayed).

The server mail2.dataflame.co.uk looks to have some weird timestamping issue though. Perhaps something you should raise with the hosting company themselves?

Best rgds,
 
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