Problems with ISP's smtp server?

[Randy Kelsoe]

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I am using Mozilla Mail, and it has been working perfectly until
Wednesday. I have been using smtp.sbcglobal.net for my smtp server, and
have not made any changes recently. Starting Wednesday, every time I try
to send an email, I get the normal delivery progress window, and it says
the mail gets delivered. Another window then pops up and says message
delivery failed, and that it was because connecting to the smtp server
failed. The messages do get through, but I have to close the compose
window, and the sent message does not get put in my Sent folder. I have
tried Mozilla Mail on an XP machine, and I see the exact same behavior.

Trying evolution, the message gets delivered, but I get an error:

"Error while performing operation:
RSET response error: Operation now in progress"

Using Outlook Express on XP works fine. I have called my ISP, and they
claim they have made no changes recently. They also said since it works
with OE, it's not their problem.

Running ethereal, it looks like the smtp server disconnects before
Mozilla Mail sends the "Quit" command, and before evolution sends the
"RSET" command. OE sends an "EOM:" after the smtp server has
disconnected, but does not seem to care.

Has anyone else seen this, or does anyone have any ideas for a
workaround? I suspect it's a problem with the smtp server.....
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[Alexander Dalloz]

Am Fr, den 06.02.2004 schrieb Randy Kelsoe um 23:02:
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>  
>  I am using Mozilla Mail, and it has been working perfectly until
>  Wednesday. I have been using smtp.sbcglobal.net for my smtp server, and
>  have not made any changes recently. Starting Wednesday, every time I try
>  to send an email, I get the normal delivery progress window, and it says
>  the mail gets delivered. Another window then pops up and says message
>  delivery failed, and that it was because connecting to the smtp server
>  failed. The messages do get through, but I have to close the compose
>  window, and the sent message does not get put in my Sent folder. I have
>  tried Mozilla Mail on an XP machine, and I see the exact same behavior.
>  
>  Trying evolution, the message gets delivered, but I get an error:
>  
>  "Error while performing operation:
>  RSET response error: Operation now in progress"
>  
>  Using Outlook Express on XP works fine. I have called my ISP, and they
>  claim they have made no changes recently. They also said since it works
>  with OE, it's not their problem.
>  
>  Running ethereal, it looks like the smtp server disconnects before
>  Mozilla Mail sends the "Quit" command, and before evolution sends the
>  "RSET" command. OE sends an "EOM:" after the smtp server has
>  disconnected, but does not seem to care.
>  
>  Has anyone else seen this, or does anyone have any ideas for a
>  workaround? I suspect it's a problem with the smtp server..... 
Do I understand it right that you run your own MTA - sendmail or postfix
or else - and the smtp.sbcglobal.net as smart host? Then look at your
MTA's maillog and check what's in there. Maybe post relevant logfile
parts.

Does the smart host needs authentification? Do you have a reverse DNS?
Checked your firewalling rules?

Alexander


-- 
Alexander Dalloz | Enger, Germany | GPG key 1024D/ED695653 1999-07-13
Fedora GNU/Linux Core 1 (Yarrow) on Athlon CPU kernel 2.4.22-1.2149.nptl
Sirendipity 23:14:24 up 6 days, 22:14, load average: 0.43, 0.25, 0.18 
                   [ Γνωθι σ'αυτον - gnothi seauton ]

Problems with ISP's smtp server? {Scanned}

[Randy Kelsoe]

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Alexander Dalloz wrote:
>  Am Fr, den 06.02.2004 schrieb Randy Kelsoe um 23:02:
>  
>  Do I understand it right that you run your own MTA - sendmail or postfix
>  or else - and the smtp.sbcglobal.net as smart host? Then look at your
>  MTA's maillog and check what's in there. Maybe post relevant logfile
>  parts. 
No, I'm not running my own MTA. I am using mozilla mail for my MUA, and
I am using my ISP's smtp server, smtp.sbcglobal.net . I have not changed
any settings on my machine, and it was working fine until this
Wednesday. Now messages go through, but I get this error.

>  Does the smart host needs authentification? Do you have a reverse
> DNS?
>  Checked your firewalling rules? 
My ISP's smtp server does not require auth that I know of. It has been
working until two days ago without auth configured. I asked the ISP if
they had changed anything on the server end, and they said "No."

I just tried using another smtp server and it worked fine. I can only
use this smtp server to send messages to users within that domain, so
this is not a solution. I am convinced that this is my ISP's problem,
and not a Fedora problem, so this thread can be ignored, unless someone
has any ideas of what might be happening.



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[Björn Persson]

Randy Kelsoe wrote:
>  Running ethereal, it looks like the smtp server disconnects before
>  Mozilla Mail sends the "Quit" command, and before evolution sends the
>  "RSET" command. OE sends an "EOM:" after the smtp server has
>  disconnected, but does not seem to care. 
I don't know SMTP well enough to tell whether the server is allowed to
disconnect at that point, but I'll tell you what I did in a similar
situation:

Suddenly one day my ISP's SMTP server refused to accept mail from me. It
replied "relaying denied" every time. Apparently they had configured it
to think that my IP address was outside of their range of customer
addresses. So I typed "service sendmail start", verified that Sendmail
listened only on 127.0.0.1, and told my email client to use localhost
for SMTP server. My need for an SMTP server at my ISP was then
eliminated. :-) I only wish I had thought of this before I spent far too
much money on a useless argument on the phone with a clueless tech
support guy who couldn't say much more than "We don't support Linux.".

Björn Persson

[Alexander Dalloz]

Am Sa, den 07.02.2004 schrieb Björn Persson um 17:07:
>  Randy Kelsoe wrote:
>  > Running ethereal, it looks like the smtp server disconnects before
>  > Mozilla Mail sends the "Quit" command, and before evolution sends the
>  > "RSET" command. OE sends an "EOM:" after the smtp server has
>  > disconnected, but does not seem to care.
>  
>  I don't know SMTP well enough to tell whether the server is allowed to
>  disconnect at that point, but I'll tell you what I did in a similar
>  situation:
>  
>  Suddenly one day my ISP's SMTP server refused to accept mail from me. It
>  replied "relaying denied" every time. Apparently they had configured it
>  to think that my IP address was outside of their range of customer
>  addresses. So I typed "service sendmail start", verified that Sendmail
>  listened only on 127.0.0.1, and told my email client to use localhost
>  for SMTP server. My need for an SMTP server at my ISP was then
>  eliminated. :-) I only wish I had thought of this before I spent far too
>  much money on a useless argument on the phone with a clueless tech
>  support guy who couldn't say much more than "We don't support Linux.".
>  
>  Björn Persson 
Well Björn, you do not count that more and more MTAs reject mail coming
from unresolvable MTAs, which is common for dial-up connections. Your
sendmail acts so by default too. But it would be a good idea to setup
sendmail using the ISP's MTA as smarthost. It is also easy to set that
up with AUTH against the ISP's smtp host.

Alexander


-- 
Alexander Dalloz | Enger, Germany | GPG key 1024D/ED695653 1999-07-13
Fedora GNU/Linux Core 1 (Yarrow) on Athlon CPU kernel 2.4.22-1.2149.nptl
Sirendipity 18:01:52 up 7 days, 17:01, load average: 0.08, 0.11, 0.09 
                   [ Γνωθι σ'αυτον - gnothi seauton ]

Problems with ISP's smtp server? {Scanned}

[Randy Kelsoe]

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Björn Persson wrote:

>  Suddenly one day my ISP's SMTP server refused to accept mail from
> me. It
>  replied "relaying denied" every time. Apparently they had configured it
>  to think that my IP address was outside of their range of customer
>  addresses. So I typed "service sendmail start", verified that Sendmail
>  listened only on 127.0.0.1, and told my email client to use localhost
>  for SMTP server. My need for an SMTP server at my ISP was then
>  eliminated. :-) I only wish I had thought of this before I spent far too
>  much money on a useless argument on the phone with a clueless tech
>  support guy who couldn't say much more than "We don't support Linux.".
>
>  Björn Persson 
Thanks, Bjorn

I did set my smtp server to 'localhost'. The problem with that was email
to some domains bounced with a 'DNSBL' message.

I found a newsgroup for my ISP, and found quite a few messages from
people with the same problem I was seeing. My ISP (SWBell.net) has been
bought/merged by Yahoo. There was an 'upgrade' to switch to yahoo, and
once I performed the upgrade, I moved to another smtp server, and the
problem is resolved.

Thanks for the reply.

RK
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Problems with ISP's smtp server? {Scanned}

[Guy Fraser]

Randy Kelsoe wrote:

>  ...snip...
>
> Thanks, Bjorn
>
> I did set my smtp server to 'localhost'. The problem with that was email
> to some domains bounced with a 'DNSBL' message.
>
> I found a newsgroup for my ISP, and found quite a few messages from
> people with the same problem I was seeing. My ISP (SWBell.net) has been
> bought/merged by Yahoo. There was an 'upgrade' to switch to yahoo, and
> once I performed the upgrade, I moved to another smtp server, and the
> problem is resolved.
>
> Thanks for the reply.
>   
>  
Sounds like you got some real bozos working the help line at your ISP.

If the tech didn't know that the "outgoing mail {smtp}" server changed,
then you should call your ISP and report the incident to his manager.

I work for an ISP, and we have taken over a number of other ISP over the last 10 years. It
is your right as a paying customer to get good support, don't consider reporting a
dodo as being a tattle tale.

Always write down the name of the person you talk to when you call for support, and if you
get unsatisfactoy answers, demand to talk to the persons manager. I have to do this on a
regular basis when talking to upstream providers. Most large companies have poor first
level support, but do have somebody that knows what there talking about.

Good Luck