[Mailman-Users] List posts sent to AOL list subscribers bounce as undeliverable (v. 2.1.20)

[Barry S. Finkel]

On 12/4/2015 5:21 AM, Woody Mon via Mailman-Users wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm assisting a small non-profit organization with  their informational news listserv which is running on Mailman version 2.1.20.
>
> The issue is that list posts sent to AOL subscriber addresses are now bouncing as undeliverable with the bounce code: "521 5.2.1 :  AOL will not accept delivery of this message."
>
> This issue just began several days ago and 200+ subscribers with AOL email addresses are now identified as bouncing in Mailman admin.
>
> I understand last year AOL (and Yahoo)  made changes to their email systems which might contribute to this issue. However it didn't seem to impact our list subscribers with AOL email addresses until just now.
>
> The bounce email message for each subscriber appears as:
>
> ----
>     A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
>     recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:
>
>      EmailAccountHere at aol.com
>        host mailin-03.mx.aol.com [64.12.91.196]
>        SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data:
>        521 5.2.1 :  AOL will not accept delivery of this message.
> ----
>
> Unfortunately the list server runs on a host machine maintained by another non-profit, which in turn contacts with a small local hosting provider. And we don't have access to changing any list server configuration parameters, beyond what is available in the list owner admin.
>
> And unfortunately the hosting provider will not make any changes to the server for specific lists. We are just grateful the free listserv service and that they keep the version of Mailman up-to-date.
>
> And we are unable to setup a white list or feedback loop (FBL) with AOL as we don't have access to the postmaster or abuse email accounts for the list server domain.
>
> We have sent an email to http://postmaster.info.aol.com/SupportRequest.php
> to request unblocking out list email address and/or the list server IP (assuming one or the other is actually "blocked", we have no idea at this point), but have yet to receive a response from AOL.
>
> The error codes page at https://postmaster.info.aol.com/error-codes
> says this about the bounce error noted above:
>
>     AOL will not accept delivery of this message
>
>     This is a permanent bounce due to:
>
>         * RFC2822 From domain does not match the rDNS of sending server.
>         * RFC 2822 FROM address does not have an A record and is not a valid domain.
>         * IP has a poor reputation and mail is sent to multiple recipients.
>         * There are multiple From address in the mail headers and the IP reputation is poor.
>
>
> Before I dive into the details above and the info within the document at https://postmaster.info.aol.com/tech-requirements, I'm hoping to hear some potential simple solutions that may be applied to our particular solution.
>
> I can post the content of the list email a headers, but I wish to avoid posting the info in a public forum,
>
> Thank you for any advice.
> ------------------------------------------------------


I believe that the AOL rejection

      521 5.2.1 :  AOL will not accept delivery of this message.

signifies that there is something in the message that AOL thinks
is objectionable.  What the objectionable content might be is
anyone's guess.

P. S.
 > their informational news listserv which is running on Mailman version 
2.1.20.

Listserv (R) is a registered trademark of Lsoft, and that term does
NOT pertain to Mailman.  Both products are mailing list management
software, but only Listserv (R) is listserv.

--Barry Finkel

--Barry Finkel