absolut email errors again

[b.kehlmeier55]

SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:: host 198.91.80.251 [198.91.80.251]: 451 4.3.0 Error: queue file write error

This has been ongoing (off and on) for weeks now. I still don't have a grasp of what is going on. Can you explain the actual root cause for this and why it happens. I am not complaining, as this is a free account, but I would like to understand the workings of why it happens.

 

[Skizzerz]

Our mailserver gets bogged down occasionally due to the massive amount of email it processes (especially when some spammers decide they want to send 20,000 emails in an hour).

 

[b.kehlmeier55]

So it is just the queue getting overloaded? Make sense. They eventually go through although sometimes it takes many hours.

 

[b.kehlmeier55]

Wow, 11 hours this time of delay and counting. Out of curiosity, how much of a problem are these spammer accounts? Do they eventually get deleted?

 

[essellar]

Yes, they do eventually get deleted. Well, "eventually" isn't quite the right word; they're pretty quick about it. The problem is that it's really a game of Whack-a-Mole, or maybe like trying to kill the Hydra — get rid of one, and in minutes there are two more to replace it. That will always be a problem with free services; there's essentially no down side to trying something stupid. There are just enough bad apples in this world doing their little bit that it makes it hard on everyone else.

 

[b.kehlmeier55]

Can I count on emails that have been accepted by the mail server via SMTP to be eventually be sent or do they eventually just die? Right now, I am at the 24 hour mark on some sent last night.

 

[ModMarc]

Could CloudFlare be an option to resolve the email errors?

 

[b.kehlmeier55]

Could CloudFlare be an option to resolve the email errors?

Not sure what solution you are referring to, but I know that any free accounts that try to hit a SMTP server elsewhere will get redirected back to x10 ones.

 

[essellar]

Exactly. The outbound SMTP servers are always in the loop (for spam filtering, phishing prevention, etc.) even when the outbound mails are discarded. There is, however, another possible solution, and that's to use MailChimp and/or Mandrill (MailChimp for things like newsletters; Mandrill for transactional emails). Most sites that can run effectively under Free Hosting would also qualify for the free-level services via the HTTP API. The problem would be integrating them with off-the-shelf software, especially if there are no available plugins.

 

[b.kehlmeier55]

So are my emails that were accepted by the mail server guaranteed of delivery or could they get removed as well? I know some from Friday night have not got delivered as of now.

 

[theneale]

Having the same problem, but this is with redirect instead (I prefer to redirect all my email from several domains to a single Google account and download it from there). Tried changing the mx record to add a higher priority mail server but email just gets stuck in the same queue so this doesn't help me.

Is there a way to get my email to redirect directly to another server without getting held up on absolut, while keeping my web hosting with x10hosting? I moved the hosting of my two web sites to x10hosting a few months ago and email forwarding has been very patchy (these sites were redirected for some time before that from the original UK-based host and email used to be really reliable then - but I'd prefer not to go back as having web redirects in place has its own disadvantages). I would also prefer to pick up all my mail from one server, so don't really want to download directly from absolut as well as Google. Any suggestions welcome.

TIA,

David.

 

[b.kehlmeier55]

Being a free account member, I really don't care about the delay. I just want to know if the messages are guaranteed to be delivered at some point or not. I still have some from Friday night stalled. That is over 54 hours now.

 

[b.kehlmeier55]

Roughly 30% of the emails I have sent have got delivered. I understand that I am holding a free account, but with no way to ensure delivery of messages, how can x10 be a viable option? Isn't there some sort system that could be implemented? Good behavior for higher priority or something?

 

[Skizzerz]

We scan all outgoing messages for spam and block some before they even get sent out. I could check if this is happening to you if you could tell me the exact From: address you are using. Additionally, our email server has had a couple of issues recently, which has caused increased delays/downtime with email until it all got sorted out -- I'm currently able to send an email from the free hosting servers and receive it about 15-25 seconds later, so it seems those issues have died down.

 

[b.kehlmeier55]

Well nothing got blocked, but the messages just got held up for major delays this week especially. It seems to be fine over the last day or so now. Thanks for the attention and the answers.