Email server blacklist

[Richard Waller]

Some of the mail to one of my mailboxes is being bounced. I do not know why this is happening. Or why all the mail is not bounced.

The history is complex; Netlink became VIA and is now Clara. They are all in the upper-class (a.k.a expensive) marketplace. Messages sent from BTconnect go to VIA and then to Clara then forwarded to a company server for my son. The current theory is that one of the servers has been blacklisted because of spam. Do they all have several Email servers?

I am rapidly getting the stage where I will have to move all my affairs to someone else and this will be a right pain, as I have a right dogs-dinner of forms, links and forwarding on both my accounts.

I shall stop now because I hate to see a grown man weep, especially if it is me.

[Robin Springall]

I was Netlink's ninth customer! I remember a few years back, before Netlink was sold, they had this email bouncing problem fairly frequently -- in fact, AOL tended to bounce any email from the Netlink Dungeon server as a matter of course. The fix back then was to use one of Netlink's other IP addresses rather then just relay on an automated DNS (forgive me if I've got the nomenclature wrong, but I'm sure you understand what I'm on about!)
Have you tried using the proper Clara smtp server instead of the Netlink one? If that doesn't cure it, then I suggest you phone up Clara and have a go at them: after all, we're paying through the nose for a business-class service.
In the meantime, you might have to resort to sending emails from mail2web.

[Kelvyn]

Some of the mail to one of my mailboxes is being bounced. I do not know why this is happening. Or why all the mail is not bounced.

The server may be running a Spamcop check before allowing mail onto the server. Currently there are more than a few BT and Wanadoo/Orange IP blocks blacklisted on Spamcop. Mail from IP addresses within these blocks will bounce, usually with a Spamcop reference link. There are other possibilities, though, but this IP blocking has been reported in a lot of places this last few days.

[Michael Rowley]

Kelvyn:

Mail from IP addresses within these blocks will bounce, usually with a Spamcop reference link

Mail from Yahoo Groups regularly gets blocked by NTLWorld; then Yahoo Groups stops sending me mail for a few days, then it sends me a message saying that if I've received the message my address is obviously OK and I can reactivate receiving mail from Yahoo Groups.

I wish they used a spam blocker that worked, instead of blacklisting ISPs; most spam doesn't originate in Britain anyway.

[gary]

The bigger the ISP the more mail servers they have.

If you can get hold of a 'bounce' message then you will have a better chance of finding out why that particular message bounced; otherwise it's SWAG.

To find out if a particular server/block/domain may be blacklisted you can use the senderbase.org site; just plug in the IP address or domain name.

[Richard Waller]

But why only a couple of originators, and only sometimes?

[gary]

But why only a couple of originators, and only sometimes?Mail servers go on and off black lists?

[Kelvyn]

Mail servers go on and off black lists?So do IP blocks, often within 12 hours when the ISP appeals. Problem with blacklisting IPs is that a spammer can disconnect from their ISP and reconnect with a different IP address. So we end up with whole blocks being affected.