Emails Not Being Delivered to All on List
Symptom: some list recipients are not receiving their emails from the list [Four resulting questions below]
In attempting to determine WHY the above symptom is occurring, I contacted my web service provider. We're getting to know each other well due to frequency of communication. ;)
He seems to be trying hard to help me out.
Here is his latest helpful hint:
**** Web service provider's suggestions start here ... "I happened to catch some of your mailing lists trying to deliver a little while ago and caught an example of why you sometimes have problems. This is a good example of a list doing a partial delivery because it stalls at a bad address which causes delays etc for other addresses that are on the same list and this particular address you have on for lists currently unable to finish delivery.......................
Getting MX record for <domainname>.org (from local DNS server, may be cached)... Received a SERVER FAILURE response.
This should be treated as an ERROR (per RFC974), and the E-mail delivery should PROBABLY be retried later.
Here is what has been delivered so far, anything with a "Y" has been delivered, anything without is stalled because of the bad email address which doesn't allow the mailserver to continue.
<and here, he inserted a list of email addresses from the list, each prefaced with either YY, YN, NY, or NN>
<I presume he's getting this from (hopefully appropriate) log.>
<He even suggested I check email addresses at http://www.dnsreport.com (which I have, although I had already checked one by one to be sure the addresses were correctly entered. I have most of them in a contact list and so there was little doubt in my mind of their accuracy.)> **** Web service provider's suggestions end here ...
So, my Question(1): Is it normal to expect a substantial amount of non-delivery to valid email addresses? I would presume, "No." But, in case I'm really missing the obvious, here, please enlighten me.
Question (2): Is it normal for Mailman to "stall", or "stop" processing the rest of a list because of one bad email? (I'm asking that somewhat rhetorically, expecting an emphatic "NO" answer.)
Question (3): Please explain the YY, YN, NY, and NN indicators [preceding the email addresses] from the above referenced log. I understand that YY means the email was delivered to the recipient, and NN means the email was NOT delivered to the recipient. But, YN and NY? maybe yes, maybe no?
Question (4): Do you have further suggestions as to troubleshooting the reason that some of these addresses did not receive the email? Are there specific places (other logs in mailman) I should ask him to look that could give further information?
Thank you for you help. Bruce
Hey, this sounds like the same problem I posted on Oct. 26! Our list
has had the problem for five months now.
It gets worse - this list has the same problem. In looking at the
Mailman-Users archive, I see severals responses to my plea for help,
"undelivered mail, but only to some" that I never received.
Thanks for the responses, Mark Sapiro, but I never got them - this
list is broken too! I'll respond to your questions in my next posting.
Alan
On Oct 31, 2006, at 4:23 PM, Bruce E. Breeding wrote:
Symptom: some list recipients are not receiving their emails from
the list [Four resulting questions below]In attempting to determine WHY the above symptom is occurring, I
contacted my web service provider. We're getting to know each
other well due to frequency of communication. ;) He seems to be trying hard to help me out. Here is his latest helpful hint:**** Web service provider's suggestions start here ... "I happened to catch some of your mailing lists trying to deliver a
little while ago and caught an example of why you sometimes have
problems. This is a good example of a list doing a partial delivery
because it stalls at a bad address which causes delays etc for
other addresses that are on the same list and this particular
address you have on for lists currently unable to finish
delivery.......................Getting MX record for <domainname>.org (from local DNS server, may
be cached)... Received a SERVER FAILURE response.This should be treated as an ERROR (per RFC974), and the E-mail
delivery should PROBABLY be retried later.Here is what has been delivered so far, anything with a "Y" has
been delivered, anything without is stalled because of the bad
email address which doesn't allow the mailserver to continue.<and here, he inserted a list of email addresses from the list,
each prefaced with either YY, YN, NY, or NN><I presume he's getting this from (hopefully appropriate) log.>
<He even suggested I check email addresses at http:// www.dnsreport.com (which I have, although I had already checked one
by one to be sure the addresses were correctly entered. I have
most of them in a contact list and so there was little doubt in my
mind of their accuracy.)> **** Web service provider's suggestions end here ...So, my Question(1): Is it normal to expect a substantial amount of
non-delivery to valid email addresses? I would presume, "No."
But, in case I'm really missing the obvious, here, please enlighten
me.Question (2): Is it normal for Mailman to "stall", or "stop"
processing the rest of a list because of one bad email? (I'm
asking that somewhat rhetorically, expecting an emphatic "NO" answer.)Question (3): Please explain the YY, YN, NY, and NN indicators
[preceding the email addresses] from the above referenced log. I
understand that YY means the email was delivered to the recipient,
and NN means the email was NOT delivered to the recipient. But, YN
and NY? maybe yes, maybe no?Question (4): Do you have further suggestions as to
troubleshooting the reason that some of these addresses did not
receive the email? Are there specific places (other logs in
mailman) I should ask him to look that could give further information?Thank you for you help. Bruce
Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users% 40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/ d.alan.stewart%40mac.com
Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py? req=show&file=faq01.027.htp
D. Alan Stewart wrote:
Thanks for the responses, Mark Sapiro, but I never got them - this
list is broken too! I'll respond to your questions in my next posting.
This list is *not* broken. When I reply to posts, I normally include the poster as a direct addressee of my reply (I have removed your address from this reply). Most people are set to not receives dups from the list in this case, so the list does not send you a copy and the only copy you get is the direct mail from me.
If for some reason, direct mail from me to you is returned to me, I will make every effort to get the mail to you by sending from a different server or whatever it takes, but if as apparently happened in your case, the direct mail from me to you just disappears, you never see it, and I don't know.
-- Mark Sapiro <msapiro@value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Mark,
You're correct, I did have the option set to eliminate duplicates.
I've unset that now, because I'm having trouble trusting Mailman
these days.
I did not receive either of your responses to my "undelivered email"
thread.
I've forwarded all messages to my provider in hopes that he can make
sense of something.
Alan
On Oct 31, 2006, at 5:05 PM, Mark Sapiro wrote:
D. Alan Stewart wrote:
Thanks for the responses, Mark Sapiro, but I never got them - this list is broken too! I'll respond to your questions in my next
posting.This list is *not* broken. When I reply to posts, I normally include the poster as a direct addressee of my reply (I have removed your address from this reply). Most people are set to not receives dups from the list in this case, so the list does not send you a copy and the only copy you get is the direct mail from me.
If for some reason, direct mail from me to you is returned to me, I will make every effort to get the mail to you by sending from a different server or whatever it takes, but if as apparently happened in your case, the direct mail from me to you just disappears, you never see it, and I don't know.
-- Mark Sapiro <msapiro@value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users% 40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/ d.alan.stewart%40mac.com
Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py? req=show&file=faq01.027.htp
D. Alan Stewart wrote:
I did not receive either of your responses to my "undelivered email"
thread.
I just noticed you have a mac.com address. There was a period of a couple of weeks about a month ago during which mac.com was seriously delaying and possibly losing mail. This appears to be over. We'll see if you get this one directly.
-- Mark Sapiro <msapiro@value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Bruce E. Breeding wrote:
Symptom: some list recipients are not receiving their emails from the list [Four resulting questions below]
In attempting to determine WHY the above symptom is occurring, I contacted my web service provider. We're getting to know each other well due to frequency of communication. ;) He seems to be trying hard to help me out.
Here is his latest helpful hint:**** Web service provider's suggestions start here ... "I happened to catch some of your mailing lists trying to deliver a little while ago and caught an example of why you sometimes have problems. This is a good example of a list doing a partial delivery because it stalls at a bad address which causes delays etc for other addresses that are on the same list and this particular address you have on for lists currently unable to finish delivery.......................
Getting MX record for <domainname>.org (from local DNS server, may be cached)... Received a SERVER FAILURE response.
This indicates that your provider's MTA is doing DNS verification on outgoing mail from Mailman. This is not good. See <http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq04.011.htp>.
This should be treated as an ERROR (per RFC974), and the E-mail delivery should PROBABLY be retried later.
Here is what has been delivered so far, anything with a "Y" has been delivered, anything without is stalled because of the bad email address which doesn't allow the mailserver to continue.
<and here, he inserted a list of email addresses from the list, each prefaced with either YY, YN, NY, or NN>
<I presume he's getting this from (hopefully appropriate) log.>
It doesn't come in that form from any Mailman log.
<He even suggested I check email addresses at http://www.dnsreport.com (which I have, although I had already checked one by one to be sure the addresses were correctly entered. I have most of them in a contact list and so there was little doubt in my mind of their accuracy.)> **** Web service provider's suggestions end here ...
So, my Question(1): Is it normal to expect a substantial amount of non-delivery to valid email addresses? I would presume, "No." But, in case I'm really missing the obvious, here, please enlighten me.
It *shouldn't* be normal, but there is no accounting for the things that ISP's do to protect their users from spam (or to protect themselves from complaints from their users about spam).
ISPs will discard mail for any number of reasons, and there's not much you can do about it.
Go to <http://openrbl.org/> and do a DNSBL lookup on the IP address that your list mail comes from. If the IP address is on any black lists, you'll have problems with delivery to some ISPs.
Question (2): Is it normal for Mailman to "stall", or "stop" processing the rest of a list because of one bad email? (I'm asking that somewhat rhetorically, expecting an emphatic "NO" answer.)
It depends on the exact response from the MTA. If the MTA refuses a recipient as undeliverable, Mailman will process that address as a bounce and will continue to send to the others, possibly after a delay of up to 15 minutes.
Question (3): Please explain the YY, YN, NY, and NN indicators [preceding the email addresses] from the above referenced log. I understand that YY means the email was delivered to the recipient, and NN means the email was NOT delivered to the recipient. But, YN and NY? maybe yes, maybe no?
They don't come from a Mailman log.
Question (4): Do you have further suggestions as to troubleshooting the reason that some of these addresses did not receive the email? Are there specific places (other logs in mailman) I should ask him to look that could give further information?
If the addresses are valid, he should be able to see delivery from the MTA to the recipient. If the mail is sent from his server towards the destination, the problem is somewhere downstream.
-- Mark Sapiro <msapiro@value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Mark Sapiro wrote:
This indicates that your provider's MTA is doing DNS verification on outgoing mail from Mailman. This is not good. See <http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq04.011.htp>.
I went to the URL and read it. Thank you (and thank you for the other comments in your email). However, the FAQ merely said that it (leaving the verification turned on) will "slow delivery rates from mailman to your MTA significantly".
Can you elaborate? (I'm looking for something substantive to convey to my web service provider.)
Is the delay minutes? hours? "it depends [on ___ ]"?
Does the delivery eventually take place, or, do some recipients really never get the emails?
-- Bruce
At 4:56 PM -0600 10/31/06, Bruce E. Breeding wrote:
I went to the URL and read it. Thank you (and thank you for the other comments in your email). However, the FAQ merely said that it (leaving the verification turned on) will "slow delivery rates from mailman to your MTA significantly".
Correct.
Can you elaborate? (I'm looking for something substantive to convey to my web service provider.)
As one of the authors of a lot of material in that FAQ entry, I will try to answer your questions.
Is the delay minutes? hours? "it depends [on ___ ]"?
Officially, it depends. But turning on DNS verification of e-mail addresses can cause messages that could be delivered in just a few seconds to take minutes or hours or more. Do this across your whole list, and you might be able to go from handling thousands (or tens of thousands) of users with DNS verification turned off, to having difficulty handling hundreds of users with DNS verification turned on.
DNS verification is very, very bad news for proper operation of mailing lists. So is anti-spam or anti-virus scanning. All that kind of stuff should be done *ONLY* on message input into the mailing list system, and *NEVER* on message output from the mailing list system.
Does the delivery eventually take place, or, do some recipients really never get the emails?
Maybe. Maybe not. But your throughput could go down substantially, and it may be impossible to reliably deliver mail to certain users.
-- Brad Knowles, <brad@shub-internet.org>
Trend Micro has announced that they will cancel the stop.mail-abuse.org mail forwarding service as of 15 November 2006. If you have an old e-mail account for me at this domain, please make sure you correct that with the current address.
Thank you, Brad, for the clarification of DNS verification and its effect on mailman.
So far, my web service provider has resisted changing his configuration of mailman. When I suggested Turning OFF DNS verification per this list suggestion, [and provided the FAQ link] to the web service provider, he replied as follows:
"The drawback of this configuration is that it will work poorly on systems supporting lists in several different mail domains. While Mailman handles virtual domains, it does not yet support having two distinct lists with the same name in different virtual domains, using the same Mailman installation. Our mailservers are currently configured for optimal performance with mailman, this is all integrated by the Cpanel Program which is used to configure all domains."
Would you comment on this? Is there some misinformation here?
-- Bruce
I'm only a poor user (can you hear the violins playing?) I just need a reliable email list ... free of course (not too picky, huh?) I know I'm not his only user of mailman (making me wonder why his other customers aren't complaining)...
At 8:18 PM -0600 10/31/06, Bruce E. Breeding wrote:
"The drawback of this configuration is that it will work poorly on systems supporting lists in several different mail domains.
How, exactly? Turning off DNS verification within the MTA, *ONLY* for outgoing e-mail from the mailing list server, should speed up all lists on the server regardless of which domain they are hosted on.
WhileMailman handles virtual domains, it does not yet support having two distinct lists with the same name in different virtual domains, using the same Mailman installation.
True, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the issue of turning off DNS verification within the MTA.
Our mailservers are currently configured for optimal performance with mailman,
If he's doing DNS verification on mail that is outbound from the mailing list server, then it most definitely is *NOT* optimally configured.
this is all integrated by the Cpanel Program whichis used to configure all domains."
Ahh, there's the key. He's totally freaking clueless, which explains why he's using cPanel. So, he's spouting some complete garbage that is totally unrelated to the actual subject being discussed. We can't really blame him for this, since he just doesn't know any better.
But you do know better, at least now you do. And you can use this information to guide you in your choice of a new hosting provider that will actually be more clueful.
Would you comment on this? Is there some misinformation here?
Yeah, it's pretty much all misinformation.
I'm only a poor user (can you hear the violins playing?) I just need a reliable email list ... free of course (not too picky, huh?) I know I'm not his only user of mailman (making me wonder why his other customers aren't complaining)...
Maybe they are complaining and you don't hear about it, or maybe they don't know what they could be getting and are willing to just settle for what they think is all they can get.
But now you know better.
-- Brad Knowles, <brad@shub-internet.org>
Trend Micro has announced that they will cancel the stop.mail-abuse.org mail forwarding service as of 15 November 2006. If you have an old e-mail account for me at this domain, please make sure you correct that with the current address.
participants (4)
-
Brad Knowles -
Bruce E. Breeding -
D. Alan Stewart -
Mark Sapiro