Email Woes

brooksp

Hi all.
I am having an enoying problem sending email.

I have a few email accounts set up on Eircom.net but sometimes when I try to send emails from them I get the following message:

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

‘****’ on 23/08/2005 18:43
553 sorry, that domain isn't in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.7.1)


I have my email servers set up correctly, in and out are both set to mail2.eircom.net, I have also tried mail1.eircom.net.

I connect to the internet by IOL BB. I have had the same problem with Outlook 2003 under Windows and Thunderbird in Linux so I do not think it’s a software or settings problem.

The thing is, sometimes it works, unfortunately that’s only about 10% of the time. Mostly, no matter who I try to email, or which account I email from, I get the error message.

I have another email account, set up with Blacknight who host my website and have had no problem sending emails from it.

Has anyone any ideas? As it really is starting to wreak my head!

Thanks in advance

brooksp

CuLT

Eircom is blacklisted by a few major ISPs if I recall correctly. Their own fault, entirely insecure mailservers a number of years ago, I'm sure they've resolved it by now but they haven't been removed from a lot of the blacklists.

brooksp

Thanks, but i dont think thats the problem.
It cannot be the receiving mail servers blocking the Eircom address as sometimes
the emails go through ok.
It happens as soon as i press send/receive, im running NAV in windows and the email scanner doesnt even start so the email is not being sent out.
I just get a message in my inbox stating it could not be sent.

Any other ideas?
Anyone?

aaf

I reckon NAV could be your problem. My advice would be to uninstall NAV completely and switch to AVG Free Edition.

greglo23

aaf wrote:

I reckon NAV could be your problem. My advice would be to uninstall NAV completely and switch to AVG Free Edition.

agree 100%. nav is an awful resource hog and half the time gives you problems like this. i've been using avg pro for 3 years and i've never had a problem with it.

daymobrew

brooksp wrote:

I connect to the internet by IOL BB.

I know eircom blocks ftp access to its webservers unless you are using eircom as the ISP.

Maybe the same applies for email, though you say it works 10% of the time.
Try dialling into eircom and trying it.

aaf

I would also use mail1.eircom.net as your pop3 and smtp servers. I have my eircom email setup in Mozilla Thunderbird using those mail servers.

irlrobins

i think its due to you trying to send mail thru eircom smtp server while not being on an eircom ip address.

some servers are set up that if u receive before you send it will allow you. but if u try to send before receiving it won't. That could be why it works sometimes but not others.

Snowbat

I second that.

Perhaps Eircom added IOL ip address blocks as allowed senders some time ago but haven't kept up to date with IOL's current blocks - that would explain why it works sometimes (when you're on an ip address from the old block).

Irish ISPs are notorious for forgetting to update access permissions on news/ftp/mail servers when adding new ip address blocks to their own network so I doubt they'd be able to keep up with address blocks of other ISPs.

stevenmu

irlrobins wrote:

i think its due to you trying to send mail thru eircom smtp server while not being on an eircom ip address.

Yes, that's almost certainly it, I spent hours with the same problem before. I don't know why there error message isn't clearer, it causes a lot of confusion. Other servers, say trying IOLs server from an Eircom IP, will give you a much clearer message. Set your outgoing mail to IOLs server and leave everything else the same.

brooksp

Yea, I think that was the problem.
When i dial up using eircom, i have no problems sending.
Only when i use my IOL connection.
Thanks everyone for the help.


brooksp