SMTP error 551

[dugr]

I have a user who is having some emails returned with the following message:


Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

Subject: RE: (????-??????????)EF Series Speaker Cabinets
Sent: 7/11/2005 2:32 PM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

user@domain.cn on 7/11/2005 2:34 PM
There was a SMTP communication problem with the recipient's email server. Please contact your system administrator.
<mail.mydomain.com #5.5.0 smtp;551 User not local; please try <forward-path>>


My user gets this message intermittently when he sends email to 2 different domains in China. The remote domains are on different servers. Other users here are setup similarly (Outlook 2000/Exchange 2000) and have no problems emailing to these domains.

Could someone tell me what this error could be indicating?

Thanks,
Doug

 

[ChrisAC]

http://www.freesoft.org/CIE/RFC/821/5.htm

Chris.

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

 

[dugr]

Thanks Chris,
I've read up on the error. It still doesn't make sense, the error we're getting doesn't give a forwarding address, it just lists "<forward-path>".
If the 2 remote smtp servers know the respective mailboxes are on another host why aren't they giving the correct address. Is this a misconfiguration on the remote servers or is there a valid reason why "<forward-path>" would be reported?
Doug

 

[ChrisAC]

Sounds like a problem on the other end. Not much that you can do about it if their server is barfing!

Chris.

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

 

[sbaker194]

We just upgraded to Exchange 2003 and started recieving this error message when email is sent to one individual with the name "nanjing" in his email address; looking up nanjing I found that there was a 'nanjing massacre' with rapes/murders, since you have stated the China connection, I'm wondering if it is occurring due to spam filtering/blocking of some sort....

 

[AccUser]

Were you able to find solution as I also am running Exchange 2003 and have exact same error with recipient in China.

 

[dugr]

I haven't found a good solution.
My user said that all the bounced emails have question marks in the subject line, I assume those are characters the email client couldn't decode.
sbaker may be correct about this being caused by China having some type of cultural filter on their gateways.

 

[AccUser]

This is the copy of the NDR.

_____________________________________________
From: System Administrator
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 1:24 PM
To: someone@pub.sz.jsinfo.net
Subject: Undeliverable:RE: [??????????????]RE: Last email

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

Subject: RE: [??????????????]RE: Last email
Sent: 09/22/2005 12:50 PM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

someone@pub.sz.jsinfo.net on 09/22/2005 1:24 PM
There was a SMTP communication problem with the recipient's email server. Please contact your system administrator.
<mainserver2.polarome.com #5.5.0 smtp;551 User not local; please try <forward-path>>