Cannot send to Hotmail accounts

[jonnyboydps]

Hi Everyone,

I am having a problem sending email to any Hotmail account.
I have 1 Exchange 2000 server. I have been able to send to Hotmail in the past (upto a few weeks ago), but since then have recieved the following error message whenever I try to send to Hotmail:

"Could not deliver the message in the time limit specified. Please retry or contact your administrator.

<servername.domainname.co.uk #4.4.7>"

I used to have a problem sending to AOL addresses, so I setup reverse DNS and that solved it. Could this be something similar?


Thanks in advance,

Jon

 

[Arsynic]

I'm having the same problem with hotmail. Sometimes I can send and sometimes I get error messages like yours. This is happening with another location as well. We can recieve emails from hotmail and this other location, but they cannot recieve email from us. When I check the SMTP Outbound Queue mails from these domains are always stuck on Retry and when I try to force the connection, nothing happens. In the past we were able to send email to them. I don't know what the issue is.

Could it be a reverse DNS issue? I went to dnsstuff.com and did a Rev DNS Lookup for my IP address and I got this:

Preparation:
The  reverse DNS entry for an IP is found by reversing the IP, adding it to "in-addr.arpa", and looking up the PTR record.
So, the reverse DNS entry for x.x.x.x is found by looking up the PTR record for
 x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa.
All DNS requests start by asking the root servers, and they let us know what to do next.
See How Reverse DNS Lookups Work for more information.

How I am searching:
Asking g.root-servers.net for x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa PTR record:  
       g.root-servers.net says to go to figwort.arin.net. (zone: x.in-addr.arpa.)
Asking figwort.arin.net. for x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa PTR record:  
       figwort.arin.net [192.42.93.32] says to go to dns1.btitelecom.net. (zone: x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa.)
Asking dns1.btitelecom.net. for x.x.x.x.in-addr.arpa PTR record:  Reports mail.mydomain.com. [from x.x.x.x]

Answer:
x.x.x.x PTR record: mail.mydomain.com. [TTL 604800s] [A=None] *ERROR* A record does not point back to original IP.  RFC1912 2.1 disallows CNAMEs.

I interpreted this as a success. Am I right? Sorry for hijacking your thread, man, but I didn't want to create a duplicate thread when we have the same problem.

 

[jonnyboydps]

Hi Arsynic,

My problem is solved!

I discovered that the Symantec Antivirus program on the mail server was scanning outgoing Internet Email and zapping it before it left the server. I've reconfigured it and I can send to all Hotmail accounts.

Hope this helps you,

Jon

 

[Arsynic]

I also have Symantec for Exchange!!! What settings did you change?! Please tell me!

 

[jonnyboydps]

Arsynic,

The server is running Symantec Antivirus v9.0.2.1000 client and Symantec Mail Security.

I found that Symantec Antivirus 9.0.2.1000 wasn't configured correctly. Some idiot has installed the client version that includes the ability to scan Internet Email. This meant that it was scanning all emails going to Hotmail accounts and for some reason was blocking them.

I turned off the Internet Email scanning facility. I'm going to install the Server version of the software coz it doesn't have an Internet email scanning facility.

Hope this helps you.

Jon

 

[AnnieBlueEyes]

Over the last several months, our network has started having a problem sending to one person who has an aol address. The situations you have been describing above look extremely similar to what we are experiencing. However, I really can't figure out exactly what you are doing to remedy the situation. Sometimes the e-mail goes through and sometimes it queues up and ends up not being delivered. I was researching reverse DNS, as mentioned above, but why would the e-mail go through sometimes? Also, why would this have just started happening?

I tried looking at the Exchange knowledge base, but was a little confused. Is there somewhere you can point me?

Thanks.
Anne

 

[Marcs41]

Lot's of problem with Symantec 'solutions', see also thread955-1097638

Marc
[sub]If 'something' 'somewhere' gives 'some' error, expect random guesses or no replies at all.
Free Tip: The F1 Key does NOT destroy your PC![/sub]

Have a look at the shop @

http://www.cafepress.com/tektips

!

 

[AnnieBlueEyes]

Well, I went ahead and unchecked the Exchange email scanning, but the Internet e-mail scanning wasn't checked. None of this makes any sense to me. We've had SAV CE9 for over a year without a problem. All of a sudden this started happening. It looks like the e-mail I sent this morning to the aol account went through, so who knows?

Anyway, thanks for your help on this. I really appreciate it.

Anne

 

[jonnyboydps]

Hi Anne,

It sounds like you are experiencing similar symptoms to what I was getting a few weeks ago. While I found a solution to my problem of sending to Hotmail accounts, I think your issue with AOL email is something different.

I had the same problem as you. I couldn't send email to AOL from my exchange server. I discovered that AOL servers perform a reverse DNS lookup upon receipt of an email in order to verify that the email is coming from where it says it's coming from:
(

http://postmaster.aol.com/info/rdns.html)

In order for me to send to anyone with an AOL email address, I called my ISP and asked them to setup a reverse DNS record for my domain name. It takes about a day for this to be completed. After checking that it was setup (

http://www.dnsstuff.com

- choose reverse DNS lookup) I was able to successfully send to all AOL accounts.

This doesn't answer why you can send occasionally, but it is an idea that involves minimal effort on your part and it is beneficial for you to have a reverse DNS for your domain.

Of course, you setup may be completely different to mine, but I hope it is of some guidance to you.


Good Luck

Jon