Missing a lot of e-mails

[tmccartney66]

I'm not sure what is happening, but over the last several weeks I've been missing a lot of e-mails people have sent.  It seems there might be some overly aggressive spam filtering going on, and I don't know whether it's something I can fix at the level of my account or if it's happening at the server level.

One that I know about is this:

Delay reason: SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<xxxx@fairhousing.com>:
   host mail20.webcontrolcenter.com [216.119.106.18]:
   451 Greylisted, please try again in 300 seconds

No action is required on your part. Delivery attempts will continue for
some time, and this warning may be repeated at intervals if the message
remains undelivered. Eventually the mail delivery software will give up,
and when that happens, the message will be returned to you.

She finally got it through to me using her Yahoo account.

Any hints?  I've been having so much trouble I've started transitioning to another e-mail address, which is not easy after 10+ years.

Thanks,

Tracey

[Denis [CT]]

Hi there,

Greylisting is an anti-spam tool.  http://www.greylisting.org/
It will stop incoming message for 5 minutes while it waits for sending mail server to verify it's identity.  After that, message is delivered.  If sending server doesn't verify (reply back), most spammer's mail servers do not, message is discarded.

You have an option to turn it off per email account or you can call or email us and we can disable it for your domain.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,
Denis.

[Snackmaster]

Hi Denis, how does the sending server "verify it's identity" ?

I ask because I've lost the ability to email two customers with CT hosted domains, my host Site5.com says it's because of Graylisting and there is nothing I can do. The CT customers I'm emailing apparently get no notice, I get no rejection, emails go to....?   This seems to have started in late 09 around Oct/November after 5-7 years of successful emails with these CT domains. I can email without issue from Gmail or Yahoo accounts which for now is the workaround (a pain with 7 year history in another mail system) so I'm suspecting my host is blacklisted as I've sent from 3 of my Site5 hosted domains. IIRC this happened once before 2-3 years ago?

At any rate I can't send email to 2 CT hosted domains - the recipient nor I knew it until we discussed via phone. Why is it happening in this case to multiple domains hosted by Site5.com and how best to resolve? I wonder how many emails, webform or subscription type emails are failing without knowledge for CT hosted domains?

[KevinS]

Hi Denis, how does the sending server "verify it's identity" ?

I ask because I've lost the ability to email two customers with CT hosted domains, my host Site5.com says it's because of Graylisting and there is nothing I can do. The CT customers I'm emailing apparently get no notice, I get no rejection, emails go to....?   This seems to have started in late 09 around Oct/November after 5-7 years of successful emails with these CT domains. I can email without issue from Gmail or Yahoo accounts which for now is the workaround (a pain with 7 year history in another mail system) so I'm suspecting my host is blacklisted as I've sent from 3 of my Site5 hosted domains. IIRC this happened once before 2-3 years ago?

At any rate I can't send email to 2 CT hosted domains - the recipient nor I knew it until we discussed via phone. Why is it happening in this case to multiple domains hosted by Site5.com and how best to resolve? I wonder how many emails, webform or subscription type emails are failing without knowledge for CT hosted domains?

Well, it doenst so much verify the identity as much as it verifies that a valid SMTP Server is sending the message. Our servers get the message, and reply back to the sending server saying "If you are a real server, send again in 5 minutes" (Because make-shift servers spammers setup wont resend, for the most part). The job of identity verification falls more on the SPF record checking.

My suggestion is contact support (to verify your account) and go ahead and get Greylisting turned off. If things improve, we will atleast know what the issue is. If things dont improve, we know to look somewhere else.

The important part is letting us troubleshoot the issue. Make a change, see if it works. If not, make another change and see if that works, etc. Until we narrow down the issue. If you'd like, you can send in a ticket Attn Kevin. I work 3rd shift, and I have tonight off, but Ill be in tomorrow. If you'd like a more immediate response, any of our great technicians should be able to assist you without an issue.

[Snackmaster]

Thanks Kevin, I have a ticket open: 091-12E3C322-F89D
The last feedback was to try SPF or Domain keys to prevent my domain from being blocked.

[Steve Herold]

Snackmaster,
 I had a big problem with Graylisting a couple of years ago and had it turned off on all my domains.  That was the end of the problem.

Steve

[Snackmaster]

Hi Steve, yes I recall that and it seemed odd at the time that the expectation was other hosts should follow an RFC(?) that at least back then was far from common or popular - end result is you sure may reduce spam but you have no idea who you're not getting email from, that's gambling. Recently for my case I believe Graylisting may have been turned on with either a recent server/domain switch and or the recent Spam upgrade of late 09. At any rate my host may be doing some tuning as may CT.