I am getting bounced e-mails and am trying figure which of the
following is happening.  Based on the error message below, is this a
problem 1) with the recipient's ISP or 2) the recipient's e-mail
server not accepting (or rejecting) the message.

Note:  I have changed the actual address for both the receiver and
sender e-mail address and IP (i.e. me@mydomain.com) and IP for
anonymity purposes.  Other than that, the error message is in tact.

My understanding is that when an e-mail fails to get delivered, it
keeps trying until it can successfully deliver the message. 
Eventually, this message will fail to get delivered and 3 days days,
I"ll get a message that says "Delivery has timed out and failed."  I'm
really baffled because this is an 'intermittent' problem.  Other
e-mails to the same address are going through, while others are being
rejected like this one.  This has been happening for almost a week
now.

Please help.  Thank you.

*******************

ERROR MESSAGE FOLLOWS:
Return-path: <me@mydomain.com>
  Received: from mta5.snfc21.pbi.net by mta5.snfc21.pbi.net
   (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 (built May  7 2001))
   id <0H5300MUFHKBUS@mta5.snfc21.pbi.net>; Tue,  5 Nov 2002 00:43:23
-0800 (PST)
  Received: from me ([MYIP])
   by mta5.snfc21.pbi.net (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 (built May  7
2001))
   with ESMTP id <0H5200I63H1JB7@mta5.snfc21.pbi.net> for
receiver@receiversdomain.net;
   Mon, 04 Nov 2002 11:34:32 -0800 (PST)
  Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 11:38:41 -0800
  From: "me" <me@mydomain.com>
  Subject: subject
  To: receiver@receiversdomain.net
  Message-id: <002501c28439$c7ee9820$bf7ba8c0@me>
  MIME-version: 1.0
  X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000
  X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2720.3000
  Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
  Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
  X-Priority: 3
  X-MSMail-priority: Normal

Your message has been enqueued and undeliverable for 1 day
to the following recipients:

  Recipient address: receiver@receiversdomain.net
  Reason: unable to deliver this message after 1 day


Delivery attempt history for your mail:

Mon,  4 Nov 2002 15:41:10 -0800 (PST)
TCP active open: Failed connect()    Error: Connection timed out

Mon,  4 Nov 2002 14:39:31 -0800 (PST)
TCP active open: Failed connect()    Error: Connection timed out

Mon,  4 Nov 2002 13:37:52 -0800 (PST)
TCP active open: Failed connect()    Error: Connection timed out

Mon,  4 Nov 2002 11:36:13 -0800 (PST)
TCP active open: Failed connect()    Error: Connection timed out

The mail system will continue to try to deliver your message
for an additional 2 days.

---

Clarification of Question by respree-ga on 05 Nov 2002 06:32 PST

It just occured to me that there 'might' be a third possibility.  That
my ISP is not sending the e-mail (pacbell.net).

---

Request for Question Clarification by seizer-ga on 05 Nov 2002 06:33 PST

Is the IP you're sending from (not the domain, the actual IP which
your mail client or daemon is running on) a static one, or a dynamic
one handed out by DHCP or suchlike?

---

Clarification of Question by respree-ga on 05 Nov 2002 07:25 PST

It is a static IP.

This looks like a problem at the receiver's end.
Normally a spam rejection would bounce immediately, rather than
generate the messages about continuing to attempt delivery.

There are several things that can cause this. The main ones that I've
seen include:
1. The receipient has a limit on how much email they can receive and
their mailbox is currently full.
2. The ISP has an unreliable mail server that sees high downtime.
3. The hard drive where the mail resides is full.

I recommend you contact the receipient and have them speak to their
mail administrator about the problem. If the recipient's email is at
an ISP, you may be able to go to the support page for the ISP. They
will often list problems or downtime on a server status page available
to their users.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by respree-ga on 05 Nov 2002 08:11 PST

Hi hammer:

Thanks for your response.

I'm not technically oriented, but it seems to me that your answers 1
and 3 don't seem likely possibilities.  If an email limit has been
reached or if a hard disk is full, wouldn't this cause the error all
the time.  About 20 emails are sent to this address daily, with out
1/2 of them reaching and 1/2 of them bouncing (its been happening for
5 days now).

Option 2, seems plausible, but can you tell me what about the email is
leading you to this conclusion (that the error is happening at the
receiver's ISP)?

---

Clarification of Answer by hammer-ga on 05 Nov 2002 08:23 PST

A full mailbox or hard drive would quite specifically cause an
intermittent error. It would only happen while the mailbox or hard
drive was full. Someone else with a mail account on that server clears
a large file from their mailbox and, suddenly, there's room to receive
your message to the other person!

What leads me to believe that this is happening at the recepient's end
is the message itself. In this case, option 2 is the most likely,
based on the message. It looks like the sending box is attempting to
send, but the receving box is refusing to "answer the phone". This can
happens because the box is down, the mail program is not running, the
mail program is locked up, resources are unavailable, etc...

The administrator of the receiving machine can check their logs and
perform diagnostics to determine the exact problem.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by respree-ga on 05 Nov 2002 09:03 PST

Hi, sorry to be a pest, but I want to make sure I understand what
you're saying.

It sounds like to me that the recipient's in house server is refusing
the message("not answering the phone"), as opposed to the recipient's
ISP not sending it.  Is that correct?

---

Clarification of Answer by hammer-ga on 05 Nov 2002 09:41 PST

As best I can tell from the message, your mail server is attempting to
send. The recipient's mail server is refusing/unable to receive.

Thank you for your help.

I'm not sure, but it feels like some problem with the receipient's ISP
denying your IP, based on some spam-preventing measure. Perhaps it's
attempting reverse DNS on your IP, and that's failing intermittently?

As a former ISP owner/operator, the error message:

Mon,  4 Nov 2002 15:41:10 -0800 (PST) 
TCP active open: Failed connect()    Error: Connection timed out

would mean that your email is being sent, there is a connect
between your ISP's mailserver and the recipient's mailserver,
and then the connect is timing out.  This could be caused by
several things, but most likely the reasons that hammer-ga
suggests (machine load too high...) or the netowrk on the other
side is bogged down.  Doubtful it is down completely as there
would not be a connect at all.  Looks like someone on the other
end needs to reboot a server, etc.