E-mail failure rate

[fisher99]

Recently I have gotten this feeling that email has become less reliable then the snail mail postal system.
For example one day I found out that only 1/2 of the messages were recieved from what I had sent.
Some days the failure rate is 1/10 or 2/10. It seems to be my luck that it is the important mail that gets lost.
I've noticed this problem on several different email accounts.
I nearly lost a job because of an email that never arrived.
Then there are times when I recieve email over 24hours late.
These are just some examples.
I first I thought it was somekind of curse on me...lol.
Then I realised that this is a frequent problem with a lot of people. Although non-regular users seem to get affected less by the problems.

I am interested in finding out what other peoples experiences have been. And maybe the reason why such problems occur. Is there some kind of email limbo on the internet or something?
Are there any solutions or ways to get back lost emails?
Thanks

 

[ChrisAC]

If an email gets sent that can't be delivered then normally the sender will get a bounce message telling them what the problem is. Usually this is because the domain was incorrect and so no MX record exists, or the remote mail server is not configured to accept mail for the domain or simply that the user does not exist on the system.

In most cases a bounce message should be generated by a sending mail server after a set period of time. For example our mail spoolers will continue to attempt delivery for a maximum of 72 hours before the mail is bounced and a message is generated and returned to the sender informing them that delivery could not be completed.

If an email fails then you can be sure that there is a reason for it. You just need to be able to determine why.

Chris.

**********************
Chris A.C, CCNA, CCSA
**********************

 

[eyec]

if you want to make sure the person got the email use the request receipt option.

if you do not get one within 72 hours call the person you sent the email to or send them another.

sometimes an isp server will get jammed up and delay sending "normal priority" emails last. so you may want to increase the importance level of an email.

 

[fisher99]

Thanks guys, but I seldom ever get an error message of any sorts. I know that I have lost a job due to emails not being received or sent.

The'request reciept' only works in knowing if someone has received. I have been told that replys were sent for those emails, but as usual I never recevied any replys.

The phoning option if only viable to people who are in the same country. Most of my contacts are around the globe. I have resorted to "signed" snail mail for the more urgent documents.

As I have mentioned before these problems are not restricted to a single email account nor ISP.

I read somewhere that a researcher conducted a test on the reliability of email and found on average a 40% fail rate.

Oh well back to the old fashioned "Whatzzzz uppppppppp" phone calls.

 

[eyec]

again, change the priority and use both the recvd & read reciept options. that way it tells you they got it and that they read it.

i have email contacts worldwide that i have yet to be told they have not recvd my emails nor me theirs. even though my eamils route to my website host, i can't ever remember an email failure; just lucky i guess.

as an alternative to phoning you might want to look into voip; such as Skype.

 

[PaulFountain]

I've had the same problem, emails randomly failing to arrive at the sent address or me not receiving them. I can see no pattern. I phoned up microsoft support who thought it might be something to do with me running Outlook Express o& Microsoft Outlook at the same time. I rub windows XP and use Blueyonder. Short of rebuilding the m/c I'm not sure what to do.

Did you find an answer?

Paul