I just changed ISPs, to Flashcom, and have noticed that they seem to have
a strange email processing system. I have a potato box using exim as my
email MTA. The email arrangement is pretty standard for ISP email, I get
mail via POP3 using fetchmail from a Flashcom POP3 server and send mail
using SMTP to a different (at least hostname) Flashcom SMTP server.
I have been able to send some email successfully through their
outgoing SMTP server. But last night I received 3 rejected messages from
their mail server. The text of one of the messages follows:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 21:51:43 -0800
From: Mail Delivery System <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender
This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. The following address(es) failed:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
SMTP error from remote mailer after RCPT TO:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
host smtp.flashcom.net.criticalpath.net [209.228.150.115]:
553 To send mail, first check your mail with a valid POP account; this
prevents unauthorized SPAM relaying. (#5.7.1)
------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------
Return-path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Received: from sawitt by electra.flashcom.net with local-esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1
(Debian))
id 141Mcw-00011z-00; Wed, 29 Nov 2000 21:51:26 -0800
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 21:51:26 -0800 (PST)
From: Steve Witt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Address verification request
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Form-Type: [List-Manager-Commands]
Command: [auth 421fae58]
Command: [subscribe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
Command: [end]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
It appears that they are doing some processing to relate checking mail
with sending mail. I believe there is some time interval, on the order of
minutes, that one must check their POP mail account before sending SMTP
mail or else they reject the sending email message. I've called their
customer service and have gotten absolutely nowhere with them. I can't get
them to address the error message that is shown above, they only want to
talk about how Outlook is configured. I'm afraid this is going to be a
long drawn-out battle with them.
Anyway, I've never run across anything like this before, and was wondering
if anyone had, and whether there was a solution for it or not. I looked
through the exim docs and didn't see any configuration that would seem to
accomplish this.
Thanks...
