Email problems... please help!!!

Gandalf23

Hi all

I am using a few different email addresses and both Outlook and Thunderbird as email clients.

One particular eircom account in Thunderbird is giving big problems at the moment. Sometimes its fine, but recently its giving the following message when trying to send an email...

"An error occured when sending mail. The mail server responded: sorry, that domain isnt in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.7.1)"

I have googled this but cant get a good solution. Any ideas anyone?

diamondire

Hi Gandalf23

I have never used Thunderbird but does this happen to different email addresses or just when you try to send to a certain person?

diamondire

duridian

Some ISPs have blacklists of other domains which are known to have weak anti spam measures or which allow spam relaying without restricting this sort of activity. Apparently some ISPs actually blacklist Eircom themselves, because Eircom charge a monthly fee for their "email protector" product which filters spam and viruses. If you aren't paying the fee Eircom will let anything through, as I discovered earlier this year, when I was bombarded with right wing German spam, originating from the computer of an acquaintance of a friend in Arizona. Because my friend had sent carbon copies of the same message to both myself, and the person in Arizona, a virus on the Arizona pc got hold of my address, and spammed me for days on end. Eircom didn't bat an eyelid while all this was going on, because I wasn't paying for email protection. I eventually got it sorted by contacting the ISP in Arizona.
Anyway my point is that it may be because Eircom is blacklisted by some other networks that you cannot send emails sometimes.

Gandalf23

Thanks for the replies guys... much appreciated.

This problem happens with different email addresses and at different times, both in Thunderbird and Outlook.

A good example was this afternoon. I tried to reply to an email in Thunderbird. The email failed to send and I got the "sorry, that domain isnt in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.7.1)" message. I saved the email as a draft, closed Thunderbird, waited a few minutes, repoened Thunderbird, tried to send the email again, and this time it sent!!!

This is a very frustrating problem. It seems to be very random.

Anyone any ideas how I can fix this??? (my outgoing mail server is mail1.eircom.net)

smeggle

Gandalf23 wrote:

Thanks for the replies guys... much appreciated.

This problem happens with different email addresses and at different times, both in Thunderbird and Outlook.

A good example was this afternoon. I tried to reply to an email in Thunderbird. The email failed to send and I got the "sorry, that domain isnt in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.7.1)" message. I saved the email as a draft, closed Thunderbird, waited a few minutes, repoened Thunderbird, tried to send the email again, and this time it sent!!!

This is a very frustrating problem. It seems to be very random.

Anyone any ideas how I can fix this??? (my outgoing mail server is mail1.eircom.net)

Other than offering you an e-mail address on my own mail server - problem is (More than Likely) with Eircom. I used them for about two - three weeks and that was enough for me..

Give me a shout if you don't get it sorted and I'll set you one up...

duridian

Just as a matter of interest see does the same thing happen if you use the outgoing server 'mail2.eircom.net' instead.

LegacyUser

Change the SMTP server address to mail2.eircom.net and see if it makes a difference

Gandalf23

Thanks bruachain and duridian... I've just changed outgoing smtp to "mail2.eircom.net"... will report back here on how it works.

Gandalf23

smeggle wrote:

Other than offering you an e-mail address on my own mail server - problem is (More than Likely) with Eircom. I used them for about two - three weeks and that was enough for me..

Give me a shout if you don't get it sorted and I'll set you one up...

Thanks smeggle... thats very generous... I really appreciate the offer, and I'll gladly take you up on it if I cant find another way.

You are right... Eircom are the biggest bunch of w4nkers on the planet. There is no reason that sending a fairly simple email through thier smtp servers should be so difficult.

I have just had more problems. Tried sending an email... same problem as above "sorry, that domain isnt in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.7.1)"... tried 5 times and failed 5 times. On my 6th attempt the email sent.

WTF is going on!!!

(hopefully mail2.eircom.net will work...)

Gandalf23

Crap...

... looks like "mail2.eircom.net" isnt working... same "allowed rcpthosts (#5.7.1)" message...

smeggle

Gandalf23 wrote:

Crap...

... looks like "mail2.eircom.net" isnt working... same "allowed rcpthosts (#5.7.1)" message...

pm me if you want that - you'll need to do a generic send to all in your mailbook to update them. Server has it's own anti-spam but it's as best to have one locally as well if you use download clients..

brooksp

Hi
I had a very similar problem recently; I posted about it on this forum.
I found that when I tried to send an email using my Eircon account while connected to the internet through Esat DSL I got the same error messages.
Set your outgoing server to your ISP's mail server or connect through Eircon when you wish to send email.
I was stumped by this one, it happened on both my windoze and Linux boxes so I knew it couldn’t be a configuration error.
Try it, it might work for you.

Brooksp

Gandalf23

brooksp wrote:

Hi
I had a very similar problem recently; I posted about it on this forum.
I found that when I tried to send an email using my Eircon account while connected to the internet through Esat DSL I got the same error messages.
Set your outgoing server to your ISP's mail server or connect through Eircon when you wish to send email.

Interesting... I have Esat ASDL too. Could you explain this solution in more detail please?

What is the Esat outgoing SMTP server configuration? (I know Eircom is mail1.eircom.net)

smeggle

Gandalf23 wrote:

What is the Esat outgoing SMTP server configuration? (I know Eircom is mail1.eircom.net)

that should make no difference - it's the Eircon smtp your contacting not esat. esat is only providing you the means to connect. Problem is definately Eircom imo.

I have a very fun case coming up with them - trying to charge me 5k so they are lmao..as if - can't wait to see there briefs face when he gets the facts - idiot sent me a 'If you do not blahdee blahdee blah' the other week - man am I gonna have a giggle with them...

irlrobins

well basically its a spam protection thing. It stops people from using an isp's servers to send mail when they are not customers of the isp.

So they will refuse to send your mail if the ip address you're connecting from is not in the range of ip address used by that isp.

Sometimes they will allow you to send mail from a non-customer ip address if u log in to the smtp server using the same login settings as for the pop server. Outlook and thunderbird allow you to set it to login into the smtp server. If you don't know let me know.

Or if you recieve mail from their server (i.e. connect to the pop server) and then try to send thru the smtp server (connect to smtp server within a limited time period), then they will allow you to send. Forget what that method is called.

So anyway its basically an effort to stop people using smtp servers to relay a bunch of spam. Its quite common.

Gandalf23

Ok, it looks like I might have solved this thing.

I took brooksp's advice and changed my outgoing smtp server to "mail.iolfree.ie"... because my isp is EsatBT.

The few mails I have tried to send using the new settings have sent without a problem. Fingers crossed this is a solution to my problem... I'll keep you all informed of what happens.

Thanks to everyone who replied, and especially to smeggle for the kind offer.

brooksp

Esats server is mail.iol.ie or mail.iolfree.ie
It worked for me, as irlrobins said Eircon seem to restrict access to their mail server unless you connect to it from one of their IP addresses or authenticate first.

whyulittle

I used to have a similar problem. Couldn't connect to the webspace I think rather than the email, when I dialled in through IOL.