Frequently Asked Questions - E-mail Does Not Go Through

Quick Links to sections below:

• Mail Server Ports
• Quick work around
• Known issues
• Domain does not resolve - 450
• Grey listing - 451 qq trouble in home directory (#4.3.0)
• CNAME lookup error (#4.4.3)
• 550 No such user
• Remote host said: 550 5.1.1 unknown or illegal alias (#5.1.1)
• Mailbox is full error (#5.2.2)
• 550 [IP address] does not like recipient (#5.7.1 or #5.1.1)
• 553 Allowed rcpthosts error (#5.7.1)
• 554 Delivery error (#102)
• 554 Service unavailable; Client host ... blocked
• 554 Mail server permanently rejected message (#5.3.0)

What e-mail service do you provide?

See the FAQ on E-mail Service We Provide.

What mail server ports should we use?

• POP3 Server (Incoming Messages) Non-Encrypted — 110 without authentication
• SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) Non-Encrypted — 25 without authentication
• SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) Non-Encrypted — 587 (alternate if there is trouble with port 25)
  
  If you have been using port 25 and never had an issue until now, try port 587 along with outbound authentication. Some clients got e-mail to send using port 587. Check the box that says outbound e-mail requires authentication. What is SMTP Authentication? See Wikipedia
• To prevent unauthorized access to our servers, we also implement POP before SMTP. So after several minutes of inactivity in e-mail, you should check your email before sending it to validate your username and that it's really you sending email.

Source: arclab.com/en/amlc/list-of-smtp-and-pop3-servers-mailserver-list.html

I just need to send someone e-mail. What is the quick work-around until our PC Specialist / Network Specialist figures this out?

Recommend that the recipient use a free Gmail e-mail account from Google. Gmail always seems to work, and let's e-mail through almost instantly. If possible, contact the other party by phone, and send a message to their Gmail account and they should be able to verify it works within moments.

What if they can't send me e-mail?

Then something is likely blocking their e-mail on their end. Unless you have requested and paid for a third-party spam filtering service, e-mail will go directly to your account. Recommend that the sender use a free Gmail e-mail account from Google. If possible, contact the other party by phone, and have them send a message from their Gmail account and you should be able to verify it works within moments.

What is a quick work around?

Create a new Gmail e-mail address or use an existing one, and setup forwarding to the intended recipient e-mail address:

1. The original senders changes their address book entry for the recipient, and enter the new Gmail e-mail address. They send their e-mail messages to the new Gmail address.
2. The Gmail acts as an intermediary e-mail address, which forwards to the intended destination e-mail that is having difficulty receiving messages from the sender. Gmail almost always gets through.

What are known issues?

• If you have a new computer and e-mail is being configured for the first time, then your e-mail program might not be configured properly. Important: Keep your old computer and copy the e-mail settings from Outlook Express or previous versions of Outlook. Copy the working settings to the new Outlook or Thunderbird e-mail program settings. Do not remove the old computer until the new computer's e-mail has been working well for a satisfactory time period (i.e. 2 to 3 days).
• If you have just switched web hosting to us, then your e-mail will likely need to be reconfigured. At the very least, you will have a new temporary password which you should change.
• A recipient's e-mail inbox is full. See MAILBOX IS FULL ERROR (#5.2.2) below.
• You are trying to send too large of an attachment(s). Even if your outgoing e-mail server will deliver the large attachment(s), there is no guarantee that the recipient's incoming e-mail server accepts large attachments. Please see the FAQ on Sending Big Files.
• Improper forwarding causing an e-mail loop. i.e. Party A forwards to Party B, who forwards back to Party A.
• A recipient's e-mail account has been closed or suspended. See 550 NO SUCH USER or 554 DELIVERY ERROR below.
• America Online AOL limits the amount of emails you can store before it rejects them. According to eHow: The amount of mail an AOL mailbox can hold depends on the style of mailbox for the account. If the recipient is using the original style mailbox, the new mail folder holds 1,000 messages and the old mail folder holds up to 4,000.
• Comcast was blocking legitimate e-mail from early 2012 through June 2102, reporting a CNAME lookup error. As of July 1, 2012, it is resolved.
• Time Warner was blocking some legitimate email from early June 2013 through June 10, 2013. It is resolved.
• United Online's Juno and Netzero services were blocking legitimate e-mail from 2011 through December 2013, reporting a CNAME lookup error. It was temporarily resolved before July 1, 2012. On September 6, 2012, we had reports of the same error coming up on Juno. Resolved again around January 2014.
• Verizon is blocking some e-mails from March 2014. Open issue.

The recipient's e-mail inbox service rejected the message. You may wish to contact the recipient by telephone or alternative known working e-mail address, and let them know about the problem. They can contact their service provider, or give you an alternative e-mail address. See the other items on this page to see if they apply.

This is their report back to us:

• Road Runner Block Query Results For: [IP address]
• Category Status
• Current Road Runner Block Report for IP address: [IP address]
• Date of Report: Tue Jun 4 11:27:07 UTC 2013
• DNS Reverse (i.e., PTR record) Lookup: <mail.some-domain.com> showing it resolves now. Report from Time Warner's tool at security.rr.com
• Return Path Reputation Network Blacklist : Not blocked by this list
• Spamhaus (ZEN) : Not blocked by this list
• Road Runner Blocklist : Not blocked by this list
• FBL Enrollment : Not Enrolled in FBL
• Road Runner Internal Name-Based Block : Not blocked by this list
• Cloudmark Sender Intelligence : Not blocked by this list
• No historical Road Runner Internal IP Address-Based block records for: [IP address]

Our server's grey listing (see definition in the next paragraph) of e-mail may incorrectly be flagging the sending server as a spam source and was applying grey listing parameters to the inbound messages.

Grey listing is a method of defending e-mail users against spam. A server using grey listing will "temporarily reject" any email from a sender it does not recognize. If the mail is legitimate, the originating server will try again and the email is accepted. If the mail is from a spammer it will probably not be retried since a spammer goes through thousands of email addresses and cannot afford the time delay to retry. Let us know which domain you are sending to, and we can disable grey listing for that domain as we already have server-wide spam filtering in place.

This happens most frequently if we have upgraded your site to a newer server, and the newer server is not expecting e-mail from one of your senders. The first remedy is to deactivate grey listing, which unfortunately let's more spam through too. The second remedy is to add the sender to the server's white list. A white list is a list of email addresses or domains that the server gives approval to get through to e-mail boxes.

Source: md3v.com/plesk-grey-listing-problems

From the Internet:
One possible problem could be that the recipient's DNS has misconfigured zone information for the specific domain so that the server would no longer respond to some requests (like incoming mail), but still handle all other requests correctly. Qmail may fail to deliver mail to any domain that does not answer ANY requests.

Source: serverfault.com/questions/189366/cname-lookup-failed-temporarily-4-4-3

The recipient's e-mail address no longer exists. Contact the recipient by other means and find out their current e-mail address. Important: If you manage list servers, please manually unsubscribe this address from your lists.

550 notices may indicate that the mailbox does not exist. The recipient may have closed the email account. It can also mean that the recipient's provider thought that your email had "spam-like" characteristics.

The recipient's e-mail address is full and no longer accepting new messages. Contact the recipient by other means and find out their current e-mail address. Important: If you manage list servers, please manually unsubscribe this address from your lists.

From the Internet:
It is uncommon to reach a completely incorrect mail server when sending email to a domain, so if you receive this message, the problem is usually a misconfiguration error with the receiving domain. Another reason for receiving this error is the possibility that a domain you are emailing to has recently changed hosts, and while the change has taken place, the new domain record has not yet propagated fully. Your message reached the old hosting company which no longer accepts mail for the leaving domain. If you receive this error, try resending your message twenty-four hours later.

Source: www.penpublishing.com/support/emailerrors/understandingemailerrors/default.aspx

1. The customer must read their email before sending email as a spam prevention measure. It is called "POP before SMTP", meaning the customer should read email before sending email. If you check your email first for incoming messages, the server will remember your address for some set time (approximately 15 minutes), and you will be able to send messages through it during that period without giving your username and password. The error message would appear after you have not checked your mail for some time, and you try to send messages. In this case, you should read your email before sending. This is done so spammers don't spoof your email address and send spam through the mail servers.
2. The user may not have checked the "Use same settings as my incoming mail server" under the "Outgoing Server" tab. Reported for Outlook 2003.
3. Change the Outgoing SMTP from 25 to 587. Default was 25, but 587 may work. Reported for Outlook 2007.

Sources:

• social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/exchangesvrclients/thread/b33a4aad-463e-4078-b801-681d1f6e74f7
• https://www2.suresupport.com/faq/9/224

The recipient's e-mail address no longer exists. Contact the recipient by other means and find out their current e-mail address. Important: If you manage list servers, please manually unsubscribe this address from your lists.

Spam block services may not decide to allow legitimate email get through. This is called false positives, meaning legitimate e-mail is marked as spam when it is not. It's like parental controls on America Online or other restrictive services. If they don't let it through, the recipient has to keep pushing them to let it through or use an alternative e-mail address. There is nothing we do on our end. Our "postman" sends the message. Your "postman" discards the mail.

Tell your recipient to contact his spam block service and to unblock 1) your domain, 2) the domain baywalk3.net, and 3) the IP address "66 [dot] 40 [dot] 38 [dot] 140". If this still doesn't work, have your recipient contact his spam block service again until they either 1) unblock the email from your domain, 2) ask for more information to allow them to unblock it.

A good work-around is to use your secondary or backup e-mail. If you don't have one, there are many good free choices including Gmail and Yahoo mail.

First, check and see if you received a subsequent e-mail bounce message like the following.

There is a known problem with blocked incoming e-mail from Microsoft Exchange servers.

Bigfish.com is a part of Microsoft Exchange service, which is a known problem because they use words in their mail server names that spammers use. So the server sees these words in the mail headers, and these get blocked by the server even before it gets to Spam Assassin's white list. These blocked words include:

dsl, pool, broadband, hsd dynamic, static, ppp, dyn-ip, dial-up

An example of e-mail headers with a sample offending word highlighed in red:

Source: forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=258352

If it is not the Microsoft known error, then this is a permanent error stating that the remote mail server did not accept your e-mail and that your mail server should not try to send it again. Some possible causes may be that you mail server is on a blacklist or that the individual e-mail was spoofed (forged) and used to send out spam, and failed to get through the server's built in SpamAssassin.

A good work-around is to use your secondary or backup e-mail. If you don't have one, there are many good free choices including Gmail and Yahoo mail.