My Mail Is Getting Bounced

[TheCanadian]

Hi all..

 

Just recently I started having trouble sending e-mail to one of my clients (who is unfortunately hosted on another server )

The error I get when trying to send from my personal e-mail account (hosted here) is this:

 

Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender

 

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

 

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its

recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

 

  <removed>@kozlovcentre.com

    Remote host mail.kozlovcentre.com [66.235.218.142] closed connection in response to EHLO server29.totalchoicehosting.com:

    retry timeout exceeded

 

This all seems to have started after he played with his mail filters (which seem to work exactly the same as the ones we have here in CPanel - no SpamAssassin though). He added a filter to block mail containing the a particular IP address in the header, and since then I can't send him mail! The IP doesn't match mine, but it shares the same first octet. Anyway, I had him remove the filter, but I still can't send him mail. We even removed all filters he had, and it doesn't seem to make a difference. The odd thing is, I can send mail to him from another address (also here on TCH) - using the same mail program and logged in with the very same IP address. It's as if my personal address is somehow blocked from sending him mail because of the initial failures while the spam filter was enabled.

 

So is this a problem on my end or his? What exactly does that error, retry timeout exceeded, mean? The returned mail I'm getting doesn't seem to leave the TCH server:

Delivery-date: Sat, 08 Jan 2005 16:42:05 -0600

Received: from <removed> by server29.totalchoicehosting.com with local-bsmtp (Exim 4.43)

id 1CnPHV-0000IS-Nq

for <removed>@server29.totalchoicehosting.com; Sat, 08 Jan 2005 16:42:04 -0600

Received: from mailnull by server29.totalchoicehosting.com with local (Exim 4.43)

id 1CnPHV-0000pG-Gw

for <my address - removed>; Sat, 08 Jan 2005 16:42:01 -0600

X-Failed-Recipients: <removed>@kozlovcentre.com

Auto-Submitted: auto-generated

From: Mail Delivery System <Mailer-Daemon@server29.totalchoicehosting.com>

To: <my address - removed>

 

How can I resolve this? (or will it resolve itself in a few days?)

 

Thanks!

[MikeJ]

It most likely means the remote server (the provider of your client) wasn't functioning properly when you sent the email. The error definitely is coming from the remote server. EHLO is the first step in initiating a connection to the remote mail server. That failed when the remote mail server didn't respond to the command, and that's why the mail never left TCH's server.

 

I just tested connectivity to their mailserver now from your server and it looks fine, so I'd recommend trying to send email to your client again.

[TheCanadian]

Nope, still bounces the message back for me. Although the error is slightly different this time:

 

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

 

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its

recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

 

  <removed>@kozlovcentre.com

    retry time not reached for any host after a long failure period

[MikeJ]

That means the remote host has been failing for so long our mail server temporarily is bouncing messages destined for that address instead of attempting again. After a retry period has passed (which currently for that domain is listed as 21:29:19 Eastern time tonight), new email will attempt to be delivered again.

 

Transport: mail.kozlovcentre.com [66.235.218.142]error -18: Remote host mail.kozlovcentre.com [66.235.218.142] closed connection in response to EHLO server29.totalchoicehosting.com

  first failed: 28-Dec-2004 21:22:02

  last tried:  11-Jan-2005 13:29:19

  next try at:  11-Jan-2005 21:29:19

  past final cutoff time

 

If you need more direct support on this particular issue, you'll need to submit a support ticket.

[TheCanadian]

Argh... it's still happening!

 

Mail my personal domain (and apparently from another domain I have) is still being bounced by that #&%!@ server!

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

 

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its

recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

 

  <removed>@kozlovcentre.com

    Remote host mail.kozlovcentre.com [66.235.218.142] closed connection in response to EHLO server29.totalchoicehosting.com:

    retry timeout exceeded

The weird thing is, it's being bounced when sent from domains under my Reseller account, but not when sent from an address using the main reseller account domain.

 

I guess I'm going to have to submit a support ticket on this one.

 

Thanks for your help!

[TheCanadian]

Oh wait... I just noticed something! I just tried sending mail from all of my addresses from various domains configured in my mail program (90% hosted here) to the kozlov server. Something interesting happened... some messages went through, and others were bounced. But the domain of the return address had no effect on whether they worked or not! As it ends up, I can send mail to the kozlovcentre.com domain if the sending account is configured to use my ISP's smtp server, but not if I use my domain's (ie. TCH's) smtp server! Yet up until about 2 weeks ago, this was never an issue.

 

Okay... so from what I can derive, something on either server29's mail server or kozlov's mail server changed sometime after Dec. 31 (my last successful e-mail sent to kozlov) and before Jan. 4 (the next time I sent a message - which was bounced) such that I can no longer send mail directly from my domain's mail server to their server (which is hosted at iPowerWeb, just to let you know).

 

Unfortunately, since iPower's server admins are totally clueless about this issue (they did not even understand my questions - and I asked 4 times), I'm hoping someone here could help me figure it out (or at least give me enough info to say "this is exactly what's wrong with your mail server - fix it!". ). Either that, or let me know if I'm doing something wrong in sending mail through my domain. Currently, my smtp server is mail.<mydomain>.com, and so is my POP. I'm using Eudora 5.2, and I have to specifically tell it not use SSL when sending mail or I get the following error:

Certificate Error: Cert Chain not trusted.

Try adding this certificate to your certificate database for SSL to succeed

Certificate bad: Destination Host name does not match  host name in certificate

 

Server Certificate  : Verified OK

 

Of course, all this is just for a band-aid solution until the pre-paid account expires at iPower and I push that client here.

[MikeJ]

Submit it as a help desk ticket so we can get your account details to troubleshoot the problem.